Every picture is a memory. Every time we press the shutter on the camera we are freezing a moment of history so we can preserve it forever. It sounds monumentous doesn't it, but it's not: Facebook will certainly tell you otherwise. I log on each day to see the myriad of photos that my so-called 'friends' vomit onto my homepage. Not only do people upload a sequence of the same picture - I have two of them so why not use them - but the other people in the picture will also post their versions of it. The result? Monster albums clogging up the internet providing the CIA with plenty of material should anyone need blackmailing in the future...


It is an age-old question, though. How do we make our holiday photos interesting to the general public? How do we step away from the necessity to have 'been there' to really appreciate someone else's pictures? And, while we're at it, how can we remove this insane fashion for de-tagging and portraying this hideously false image on Facebook? There is no hard and fast solution - no tried and tested method to solve this, but I think I may have hit upon a compromise.


May I invite you to read on...

Saturday, 18 February 2012

The Tourist

When I was studying in Verona, I was with two friends from my university; down the road in Padova we had another two friends. We met up as often as we could so that we could catch-up, reminisce and eat lots of Italian food. We went to Padova in October and the visit was returned a little while later. As a Christmas hurrah, we decided that we were going to go to Venice.

I had never been to Venice before, but I fell in love with it instantly. It was early December and we expected the city to be busy. It wasn't. Hardly at all. It was a beautifully sunny day and we did all the touristy things - the gondola ride, St Mark's Square, the Rialto Bridge, the getting lost...

We all had our cameras out and were snapping away here there and everywhere. The others had all been before, but Venice is constantly changing - whenever you go it's different: the water levels, the quality of light, the amount of people... There are always new things to capture.

Including jumping pictures.

At this point I just want to explain something. One of the reasons we were so snap-happy was because we were super excited for Christmas and had all purchased some sort of Christmassy headgear to help celebrate the day. This made us subjects for other tourists throughout the day and was generally entertaining. The other tourists didn't seem to realise that Christmas was coming, the only decorations the watery city had provided was UFO-like saucers that flashed blue and looked generally a bit tacky. Still, no worries, we had plenty of Christmas cheer ourselves.

So when we made it to Piazza San Marco, we were ready to have a Christmas jump in Venice. What a combination!

Duck boards really do make a great jumping platform...
Venice, Italy, 2009
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