#4 The Findings of My Travel Self-Experiment
Taking stock of what I've captured and what captures me
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Last April, I went on my first solo trip and decided to do a self-experiment. I brought a disposable film camera, the Fujifilm Simple Ace, and asked myself: Knowing I only had 27 shots, what would I capture?
I imagined myself holding the rectangle prints and grazing each one with my fingers. But, apparently, processing a film roll today means having the photos developed, scanned, and sent as digital files; hard copies are merely nice to have. I didn’t know this—and thankfully so. Because given I was still going to use my phone to document my trip (restricting myself to just the film camera would’ve been insane), the whole premise was my desire to print the photos. That is, what things, places, or scenes did I strongly want to hold in my hand?
As a self-awareness experiment, I thought this would work on two levels. First is the constraint—and knowing how finite it is relative to the set of possibilities. It was a fourteen-day trip. In four new cities. In Europe! The palatial buildings! The idyllic gardens! The art and cobblestoned streets and the Sound of Music gazebo! With 27 shots, I was obviously operating on a very tight budget. But this is good. An acute sense of limitation forces and facilitates deliberate thought. It wakes us up to what matters most in ways that little else does.
On another level, I knew this had to be a highly-visceral exercise, which, when you think about it, seems to rub against the first level. When dealing with limited resources, you’d want to play it smart, right? For example, almost half of my trip was going to be in Amsterdam, so it would make sense to allocate half of the film there.
But I had to resist this thinking. Because this wasn’t a study of optimization or judgment—but of instinct. Photographer and writer David Ulrich wrote that taking photographs of what strikes you “can uncover your sympathies, antipathies, your unconscious complexes expressed in metaphor and symbol, as well as the seeds of your genuine being.” To inject control and precision—things that occur on a conscious level—would’ve defeated the purpose of the experiment.
For this, all I had to do was give in to the inexplicable pull of what was in front of me. To press the shutter when the moment demanded it. I had to listen to my gut.
Here’s what it had to say.
*Note: Six photos were overexposed (because I am a noob who forgets to use the flash), and two were repetitions. Hence, I only have 19 shots here.
My preferred subject
Before the trip, I had two hypotheses. One is that I’d take more photos of things. Peculiar things. Like some surprising detail on the pillars of St. Stephen’s Cathedral. Or maybe a family of ducks randomly strutting on the sidewalk (I actually saw this in Munich).
In the end, none of my photos focused on an object—but most of them featured humans.
I took two photos with my film camera on my first morning in Amsterdam, my first city. On the tram on the way to the center, I stood near the conductor, and in the seat in front of me were three little girls. Light-skinned, hazel-haired, and seemingly part-Arab, they stuck close to their mom, playing with her hair, holding her hand. Later on, the mom would tell me that the youngest was going on her school’s field trip that day. I found the sight of their family immensely endearing, so I asked if I could take their photo. Two of the girls gave me their sweetest, widest grins. The eldest kissed her mom’s cheek in a pose.
Click.
It was one of the overexposed photos.
Then, after walking around at a rush hour pace around the center, I finally escaped the cold and settled at a tiny corner cafe. Its aesthetic was a cross of hipster and rustic. I ordered a chai tea latte and a cinnamon bun, then sat at a table lining the window. On the wall on my right hung a wooden hanging shelf, and in front of it sat a barefaced woman writing in her notebook. With her navy sweater, black-rimmed glasses, and her hair high up in a tight bun, it’s as if the place was curated entirely for her. I thought she was rightfully the centerpiece of the scene.
Here’s another scenario: It was an overcast day in Vienna, but I was thrilled to be at the spot where Jesse and Celine spent their last few moments together in the movie Before Sunrise. At the Albertinaplatz, a tourist couple stood in front of the solid block part of the barrier. They kissed each other and held the smack as the man took their selfie. Unsatisfied with their first take, they kissed again. Then again.
Looking so happy and in love, I wanted so badly to capture the scene. But my shyness got the best of me, and they left before I could ask to take their photo.
I took a snap anyway.
It’s both expected and surprising to me that I was drawn to scenes with people in them. I learned in consumer psychology that visuals are more effective in attracting consumers when they have a human element in them. Because faces elicit emotion and hands depict movement, humans bring the marketing material to life and allow it to communicate messages more strongly.
On the other hand, it didn’t occur to me just how much a human element can heighten my appreciation of a scene. I love how people can transform scenes into moments. And it’s not so much about preferring to have people front and center, but seeing the backdrop as a frame that suddenly feels alive and profound on its own.
What does this say about me? My suspicion is it hints at something my ambivert self never knew where it stood: That, maybe, I truly do love people. That meeting and talking to others fuels me more than it drains me, and it powers me in more ways than one. My social bandwidth has dramatically shrunk in inverse proportion to my need for alone time, but I would still prefer a life surrounded by people—because they give life to life.
An underrated fondness
Another curious observation among my human-centered photos: Buskers.
A teenage girl clothed from top to toe was tapping on and plucking a stringed instrument in front of the Salzburg cathedral. Later I learned that the instrument is called a cimbalom. Of course, she played Edelweiss, the world-famous ballad from the Sound of Music.
For most of my stay in Vienna, the weather was not on my side. As I stood in the open space of the Maria-Theresian-Platz, the wind pierced through both layers of my clothes and I wanted nothing more than to go indoors.
Then, the sound of a saxophone.
Josh Groban’s You Raise Me Up filled the air, wrapping me in a blanket of musical mellowness. I stayed for another half hour.
There are a couple of ways I can make sense of why I’m struck by busker scenes. It’s amusing to think that, of all the art forms I’d come across on my trip, it was music I felt compelled to capture. And this was despite the static form of photography. I’m not exactly a musicophile, but I think this speaks more broadly about my art preference. As a long-time dancer, avid concert-goer, and theatre-enthusiast, it’s clear as day to me now: I gravitate toward the performing arts.
Another reason is I simply enjoy demonstrations of passion. Of flow. Of modest, unadulterated artistic energy. I may even go as far as saying that I love witnessing an artist at work more than the art itself. Surely, I’ve always admired an art piece more when I’d been given the chance to see its inner workings, its incremental forms as a work-in-progress.
Lastly, I can’t think of anything else that affects a scene the way music does. I think about how I love discovering new music through films, how it’s impossible for me to not think of a song without recalling the scene where I heard it. Music is magical in how it makes a memory so much more vivid, robust, and alive in your mind’s eye.
Subliminal favorite views
My second hypothesis was that I probably wouldn’t take photos of views or landscapes or city centers or anything that looked like a postcard or could be readily googled.
I ended up taking a few. Notice what they have in common?
Bodies of water.
A coincidence? Maybe.
But I clearly remember that moment in Salzburg where I berated myself for forgetting to use my film camera. During the Sound of Music tour, our bus briefly stopped at this spot right in front of a lake nestled amongst a range of snow-capped hills. At its foot lay a small village. The view was so surreal that I hated my eyes for being incapable of taking photos. Frantically capturing it with my phone as if a hundred takes would do the job, I’d forgotten about my film camera. (I seriously considered asking the tour guide to take a photo of that spot using my camera when he did his tour the next day, and then retrieve it when he returned to the city center.)
I’d always thought of myself as a metropolitan girl. Big cities, skyscrapers, and rooftop decks. Neighborhoods teeming with life. But what if that’s just what I’m used to?
Also, this reminds me of my mom’s quirk. She loves planning beach trips. In both our previous and current house, she strongly insisted that we have a pool no matter how small. We always tease her about this because she doesn’t swim. She rarely goes into the water.
“I just like looking at it,” she reasons.
I think I understand her now. Maybe I’m a lot more like her than I know, or maybe there’s a shift within me that has yet to come into full view.
This is happening
I remember the narrative playing in my head in all of my photos. And in most of them, I’d been overwhelmed by a sense of rarity or unexpectedness.
“I met a young American girl on my tour and she helped me clean up the period stain on my all-white jumpsuit. I am here in her hotel, and I am so embarrassed. She is saving my life.”
A less dramatic example: “It’s 19 degrees, and I am eating big, red, and juicy Dutch strawberries topped with whipped cream. I am surrounded by perfectly-manicured gardens of tulips of all shapes, colors, and sizes. The cup was worth five euros, and it was being sold in this stand as if strawberries were simply street food. The stand only accepted credit cards.”
Or simply: “This is my last day in Amsterdam. In the capriciousness of spring, this is an exceedingly bright and warm morning. I am so damn lucky."
A special place
There are two photos where I’d known exactly why I took them.
One of the reasons I’d chosen Amsterdam was because it had been my dream to go there ever since I worked in Heineken Philippines. It was the company I first worked for, my longest stay at a company thus far, and the steepest learning curve I’ve had to scale.
I stood in front of the brewery thinking that maybe I should spare this shot for something more charming. But the memory of my job held such a significant place in my heart that it felt right to document this.
Related to this is the photo of my former boss at Heineken—a man I’ve looked up to ever since we worked together. It’s a privilege I’ll never forget: That early in my career, I was managed and mentored by someone like him. So, of course, he warranted a place in the film roll.
The common thread
Finally, here’s a remarkable shot of me perched on an even more remarkable bench, in front of highly distinctive trees, at a uniquely European park.
It literally could have been taken anywhere in the world.
This was in the Schonbrunn Gardens in Vienna. I’d already been wandering around for hours when I came across a wide path that was empty bar a few benches. I decided to take a break. Tourists walked by. A handful of people jogged past me. I just sat there, dialing my gaze at nothing, thinking about nothing. I listened to the leaves rustle and mentally thanked the universe yet again for the impossibly lovely weather. Almost an hour passed by.
The thing that ties in all my photos isn’t in any of them: it was the amount of time I’d spent in each moment. I captured what I savored, what I’d come to be sharply aware of.
Maybe it seems commonsensical to record what you reveled in. But I find it especially comforting to realize how I’ve grown to prize being in the moment. The “capacity for living now”, as the philosopher Alan Watts poetically put it. To me, it’s a welcome sign that I’ve gotten better at hitting pause. At realizing that I wasn’t just sitting on a bench, but in a whole scene. I’m learning to relish moments in ways more revealing and deserving. After all, as W.B. Yeats once said, “the world is full of magic things, waiting for our senses to grow sharper.”
Balance photos included in the analysis but not detailed in the newsletter: