Travel Quote Tuesday | Susan Sontag

I come from a family that loves to travel. When I was a child we went on the most wonderful holidays – some to familiar British summer holiday favourites in Cornwall, Devon and Norfolk and others exploring the great cities of Europe, visiting relatives in India and the USA, going on safaris in Africa, touring great swathes of North and South America…

It wasn’t until I was about 10 or 11 that I became interested in photography but I really got into it in a big way. I asked for a proper SLR camera for a birthday and taught myself by reading books and practising everything from the effects of aperture and depth of field on the plane of focus to shutter speed and its ability to freeze motion or blur it in a longer exposure. I learned about composition, colour balance and different photographic styles. The costs of buying film and having it processed and printed taught me to consider first, shoot second. I developed my own black and white films and printed images in an old-fashioned dark room. It was an endlessly versatile hobby and of course, travel photography was a big part of that.

These days, it’s so much easier – digital cameras allow me to capture as many images as I feel like without worries about running out of film or the expense of developing and printing it. It gives me greater freedom to experiment and try multiple variations on an image in terms of composition, zoom, depth of field and other settings. And the quality of mobile phone cameras in recent years means I can take photographs even when it’s not convenient to have my full size camera with me, opening up the world of opportunistic captures.

Having a blog gives me more opportunity to share some of my favourites, but I plan to have a few enlargements printed and framed, and maybe to self-publish some memory books to allow me to enjoy some of my photographs in physical format too.

How do you share and enjoy your travel photos?

(c) Kavita Favelle - Susan Sontag - Iceland

Iceland has so many incredible landscapes, you could easily take a thousand images in a day and not have any that are too similar. I didn’t take quite so many but I did find the landscapes of Iceland visually inspiring!

More Kavey Eats Travel Quotes.

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46 Comments to "Travel Quote Tuesday | Susan Sontag"

  1. Sally - My Custard Pie

    You are so lucky to have traveled early. I’ve done this with my own girls and it definitely broadened their perspective of the world.
    My blog is the way I record my travels – and a huge hard drive of images!

    Reply
    kaveyeats

    I am very lucky yes, to be born into a family that loves to travel, and to have been able to visit so many incredible places. And I’ve carried on doing so all my adult life too. I love being to share travel via the blog, it’s such a pleasure to show others the places I’ve enjoyed!

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  2. kaveyeats

    I do! I have folders named for date and topic, with the date written year, month, day so that sorting the folders puts them into date order of date taken, rather than by date modified or such. I put all the original camera images into these, whether it’s travel or blog photos or whatever. E.g. 2017-01-11-Taiwan or 2017-02-10-Lemon Cucumber Gin. The processed ones go into subfolders beneath their parent, usually called Mini, but if I export at a larger size, or without copyright text or whatever, I name the subfolder differently. I also have some separate folders for instagram images (my phone saves the edited photo for me).

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  3. Hannah Hossack-Lodge

    You’ve certainly visited some incredible places! I went to Iceland when I was 15 and agree that it was so stunning and varied, I would love to go back again and do some more exploring and take more photos – my photography has improved somewhat since my last visit!

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    kaveyeats

    Yes, am so lucky. I hope you can return to Iceland again, it’s so beautiful, and so photogenic!

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  4. kaveyeats

    Yes, local travel is enormously worthwhile too, that activity of exploring is key isn’t it?

    Reply
  5. Anne @Traveltheglobe4less

    As a novice photographer,I find it frustrating that sometimes I create an incredible photo and other days, I cannot produce anything good. Special frustration for me are those grey days where even the most amazing places seem to look dull when captured!

    Reply
    kaveyeats

    Sometimes it’s about changing what you are taking when the sky isn’t giving you a gorgeous backdrop… the light can be more even when it’s overcast making it easier to shoot in the middle of the day without harsh shadows… may be worth looking at the details you can take instead?

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  6. ankita

    Beautifully written. I traveled from a very young age too, moved to the UK at the age of ten with my family. Those few years were responsible for my irresitible wanderlust! 🙂

    Reply
  7. Jennifer

    Some of our favorites we’ve had printed as canvases to hang in our place. I definitely wish that I’d taken more photos early on in our travels though. We don’t have many or even photos at all of places we’ve been before about five or six years ago.

    Reply
    kaveyeats

    I have from all my trips but the oldest ones are on film, and the negatives will be in a box somewhere!

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  8. BArb

    Noel is right. I loved the photo of Iceland. I have never been there, but I am so tempted to go after seeing all these photos of this beautiful country.

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  9. kaveyeats

    Yes, that is always the way. But what I find is that the photos are what can trigger the detail of the memories, as there’s so many of them stored in my head now, it’s easy to lose them!

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  10. Natasha Amar

    I’ve always envied those who got to travel while growing up. I discovered travel in my 20s and have been hooked ever since. I taught myself photography through online courses and lots of practice. And you’re right about Iceland- I’ve been twice already and planning to go back a third time- purely for the gorgeous landscapes.

    Reply
    kaveyeats

    Yes, I’m very lucky to have starting seeing the world as a child. I am a firm believer that it’s a great way to understand from the very start of life that there is no one society or culture that’s the “right” one or the “best” one and that understanding really helps to be more open minded and to consider other ways of approaching life.

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  11. Janice

    I never developed my own photos, although my Dad did and we used to have to pose for him. It does make you less bothered about getting your picture taken! I love digital, being able to see what you take immediately and post processing is so simple. I take photos all the time and love to document our farm life as well as travel and adventures. Great quote, my favourite so far.

    Reply
    kaveyeats

    Aah yes I bet that helped you grow up feeling less self-conscious about being photographed. Glad you like the quote!

    Reply
  12. Debra Schroeder

    Lucky you, getting a SLR at age 10! I bet you’ve really been able to hone your skills.I’m guilty of not posting enough. I take tons of photos. I really should get delete some, way too many EHDs storing thousand and thousands of photos.

    Reply
    kaveyeats

    I think I was about 13 when that happened – I got into photography a couple of years before that, but used the cameras we had, which were more basic, until I was desperate for an SLR to be able to try more!

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  13. Sandy N Vyjay

    The evolution of the means of storing travel memories is really fascinating. Today it is so easy with all the gadgetry around. But what it must have been in years gone by when people recorded their experiences by writing or through painting. Travel indeed results in a lot of memories and of course a lot of photographs.

    Reply
    kaveyeats

    Yes, so different today than it used to be. I guess that’s true for many of the generations of the last couple of centuries in particular.

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  14. Tami

    I don’t have the wealth of information and training that you do, but I do love to take photos. I take lots of them in hopes of ending up with one or two I really love. It usually happens! I share my photos on my blog, of course, and on Facebook. But I also love to make photo cards as gifts. People love receiving the cards, as a way to see where I’ve been and also a way to share the joy by passing on the cards to someone else.

    Reply
    kaveyeats

    I am definitely not an expert, just a long time keen amateur. I think the advantage of digital is that it allows you to take more, to try more options and thereby stumble into one you love. What I try and do then is to look at the one I like best and understand what about it is better than the others I took there, and file that away in my memory for next time so I can shortcut to that more quickly.

    Reply
  15. Vicki Louise

    I haven’t heard this quote before – but I love it! And it’s so true! I don’t carry my camera on a day to day basis but it is an extension of my hand when we travel!

    Reply
    kaveyeats

    Yes I know what you mean. That said the improvement in mobile phone cameras these days means I essentially always do have a camera on a day to day basis too!

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  16. Megan Jerrard

    We have SO many photographs from each trip, I remember when you would have to take your photos sparingly, and then wait to have them developed to know if they turned out ok. But now with digital camera’s it’s completely changed the way we photograph – and it’s so nice having the memories to look back on and re experience the trip!

    Reply
    kaveyeats

    Yes, that waiting was sometimes so frustrating wasn’t it? And expensive – I remember coming back from a safari trip with 21 rolls of 36x to develop and print! Aargh!

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  17. Elisa

    I also share my pics through my blogs, worldinparis for my everyday pictures and my personal blog when I travel abroad. I wish I had more time to study more photography and improve my pics!

    Reply
  18. Reshma Narasing

    Loved the fact that you got a chance to travel so early and that too visit a gorgeous country like Iceland. And you are true about the photographs, everything changed after I bought my SLR as well.

    Reply
    kaveyeats

    I was very fortunate to travel so early, for sure. Iceland is a stunner, amazingly beautiful.

    Reply
  19. Megan

    That’s only true if you remember to take pictures! I’ve gotten so much better but it’s still not my instinct. Working on it, so I guess I’ll have to keep traveling.

    Reply
    kaveyeats

    I’ve always had that drive since I was quite small, so it’s more the reminder to stop and relax, rather than take another photo, for me!

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  20. Lauren

    I love sharing my travel photos through my blog and online! I’ve always loved photography. Thankfully, I only had to deal with film when I was growing up, too… digital makes it SO much easier! I am slowly transferring all of my photos over to one site, keeping them all online in one place so I can easily access them! 🙂

    Reply
    kaveyeats

    Yes, it’s nice to have that single point of storage to be able to retrieve and share them more easily.

    Reply

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