The Photographer's Holiday

They used to joke about Busman's holidays...when they would drive a charabanc to the seaside. Those of you who are old enough to have someone else's teeth know what a charabanc is but don't tell the youngsters...

The photographers in the population also have this sort of experience, though to be fair they do bring it on themselves. No-one NEEDS to go to Bali or Belgium with a camera but everyone I know does. And if they are shooters at home they are shooters over there. Of course the landscape is different and the people are different and the experiences are different, but the pictures in many cases, are the blessed same.

If you are a portrait shooter here I'll bet you shoot portraits there. Even if it is they are just the "native dressed in colourful costume" stuff they'll be of people and the people will actually have some visible personality. Of course if the place you've gone to has a native culture of chasing photographers down the street with machetes the portraits may have a surreptitious nature to them.

If you are a "Canal Rocks At Sunset" sort here you'll be perched on some foreign shore at sunset as well. It's the same sun, and very nearly the same water and rocks, but you'll be out with the tripod and the wide-angle nevertheless. A harmless pursuit, and at least is is less likely that you will be chased while doing it.

Of course the wild animal photographer who has used up all the kangaroo and emu shots that they can think of will have a much wider scope for their interest in Kruger National Park or Banff. Bless them, they'll take Wimberley heads, ultra-long lenses, hides, rides, and native guides and come back with spectacular animal pictures that are very nearly as good as those found in books at the library. The animals take no harm from the activity and the native guides get a steady income and a lot of amusement from the tourists. It is all good.

The soggy photographers - the underwaterists - are also in this category. There are things roiling in the deep that are not in the local deep so they go to where they are.  I have been assured that it is all safe and predictable and cozy and I think this is a crock. Underwater is dank, dangerous, and exciting, and we should all applaud those who do it and survive.

Macro workers? Well since the extent of clear vision in their world is about 5mm, you might not think that they could get much out of travelling all over the world. Nevertheless, like the animal people and the fish people, the bug and flower people can find things elsewhere that they cannot get at home and they do go looking for them. I suspect that the dedicated ones can take as much kit as the wildlife shooters, but in smaller form - lights, brackets, tripods, odd lenses, etc.

Sports? Well a stadium here is a stadium there, and you'll get what you get pretty much the same everywhere. Different teams or athletes and the spectacle of the sport.

And the studio shooters? We get to go to exotic places and leave the mono blocks and the fill cards at home. We can buy postcards of the picturesque scenery and spend our time on a chair in the shade with a novel and a drink. Occasionally we get the camera and take a picture...

Of a busman.