Use your mind more and camera less

Typically, when I go on vacation, I carry my camera with me but usually leave it in its bag—depending on the camera keeps me from getting the most from my vacations. How's that you ask? Did you return from your last vacation with hundreds of pictures you never look at again?

You see, when I depend on my camera only, I hurry to get it ready when I see something I want to remember. I snap away, and later I discover that even a pretty picture fails to recall the moment … something is always missing. What's missing, I discovered, was to use all my senses. A picture only recalls (for me anyhow) the physical picture. But an experience is so much more. So now, I carry a pen and small pocket notebook. Here's how I make "Phoolproof Photos."

Stop and soak in the moment, whether a sunset or an imposing building or whatever. If possible sit down and relax. Look around, listen and feel. Then make some notes. I try to listen with all eight senses. Yes, I try to go beyond the five. But what are the other senses you may ask. Well, an experience is also how it makes you feel in the gut, what scientists call the "visceral sense." It's also how you feel in the space—the "clerestory sense"—a sense of openness, lightness and being, even suspension, and your sense of movement within and without, the "kinescopic" sense. Looking around I make a one or two word notes about what I see, feel, etc.

What are the colors? Are they different from one place to the next? Are there spectra at the edges of the cloud or are there reflections from the building? Are the clouds of the sunset rumpled and textured like silk, or like flannel or filmy like negligee? What does the air feel like? Is it brisk and brittle or gentle and soft? Does the breeze riffle through the trees or toss them like a long-haired beauty? Are there the sounds of planes and cars, horns and hissing tires or of insects' wings buzzing or birds calling from the trees, grass or windows of buildings.

The smells might be aromas, scents or stenches. Which are they? Do I feel small or large, awed or disgusted in the presence of such a thing? Am I alone or are people and things moving about me? How does all this make me feel?

Sometimes though I yield and do take a picture, but when I look at the picture and read my notes the entire scene shifts from one to eight dimensions. I suggest you give Phoolproof Photos a try.