Sometimes it’s strange how much and how little I remember from some of my travels… I was talking to someone recently and he questioned if one is preoccupied with photographing something, might he/she be missing out on the full ‘picture’ as this person would only see what and experience whatever he/she was seeing through the camera lens. I think that this is a valid point, especially if the photographer doesn’t stop and take some time to just enjoy the moment instead of trying to capture it on film.
Sometimes I get caught up with taking photos and have to remind myself to take a step back, stop trying to compose a photo or think about getting a right exposure, and instead just appreciate the beauty in front of me or to simply take part and have some fun.
I was just looking at some photos that I took in the early summer months of 2010 in Ras Al Khaimah, one of the seven emirates in the UAE, when I was there for a video filming. I was wondering where were the photos of the tall junegrass that I had taken with my Lomo on a roll of Ilford Delta 400 film. Then it dawned upon me that I had been to Banyan Tree Al Wadi twice in 2010 – first in January and then in April for the filming!
If I didn’t record the photos that I took, I might have just merged those two visits into one as I have a much stronger memory of the latter trip… of waking early every morning to capture the silhouette of camels at sunrise, getting stuck in the four-wheel-drive in the sand dunes while trying to following wild camels, geting up close with camels for a romantic sunset stroll… I just realised that there were a lot of camels involved in this project! Well, there were some falcons and gazelles too!
Angelina Hue 
Wow, those photos are incredible! I like what you said about the two trips potentially merging in your memory if you hadn’t taken photos. I’m in New York right now, and until fairly recently I’d completely forgotten that I spent a week here in 2004 as well. I couldn’t believe that week could slip my mind, but I didn’t take any pictures during that trip and I think that’s why!
Thanks Lisa! These photos were taken with a mix of Blackberry, Lomo and a simple point-&-shoot camera, rather random!
I think I remembered a lot less of the first trip as we spent most of our time in meetings indoors, whereas for the latter, we were up and about at sunrise to film and did all kinds of fun stuff for the video that we were producing 🙂 So maybe it is a mix of visual records + what you experienced while you were there. For instance, you could very well be relaxing every evening on a terrace with a book and not doing much but this could leave you with a strong memory of bliss!