Does your interest in photography feel, at times, like an isolating one? I have rarely experienced a bust-up with a partner on holiday, but a trip to Cuba springs to mind.
As anyone who has visited Havana or its environs will attest, there is a wealth of faded splendor to document. I first went there over 20 years ago and, for better or worse, it really was like time-travelling back to an earlier era.
Completely bewitched, I was stopping to take pictures so often that my partner would routinely walk 100 yards ahead of me before realizing I wasn’t at her side. It was the second week when tempers snapped, and I was taken to task.
What to her was a joint vacation was, to me, my own personal photo safari. We experienced the holiday differently, it’s fair to say.
Today we’re all selfie-obsessed, but sifting through those photographs two decades hence – long after we’d separated – I realized the only ones I featured in were prints we’d bought as part of an ‘experience’; swimming with dolphins, for example.
As the designated photographer with the ‘posh’ camera, it had been left to me to document the entire trip. A role I was happy with at the time, admittedly. So, there were lots of shots of my girlfriend posing with vintage cars, but none of me.
But now, whenever I go on holiday with my wife and daughter, I pay special consideration to buying whatever over-priced photo print a theme park or tropical gardens may seek to flog to us, recognizing that it might be the only time we might get a half-decent image of us all together.
Yes, I do ask a passing waiter or stranger for a keepsake photo when otherwise we might not have one. And, yes, there is such a thing as the self-timer or remote (as well as companion smartphone apps), but the resultant shot is rarely a keeper, other than for sentimental reasons.
My family has also, in recent years, got into the habit of celebratory group photos when we all gather annually at Christmas. The children always grow up fast and, inevitably, there is one more senior family member missing from the frame as the years advance.
While I typically take the initial portrait, my cousin kindly taking over and letting me stand in for the next one, squeezing us all into the same frame remains an almost insurmountable ask.
One comfort is that, at least now that standalone cameras are a little less trendy in the smartphone age, at social gatherings I don’t get asked ‘which camera should I buy?’ all the time as I once did.
Of course, there will be designated photographers who are perfectly happy to be excluded from group or family photos, due to shyness or simply feeling that the whole setup is too stiff, too forced. They may even volunteer for that very reason.
Sometimes remaining the ‘fly on the wall’ and documenting the process can produce more naturalistic and creative results.
On those occasions, the curse of the designated photographer can also be a blessing.
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