There was an interesting design choice at the gallery: The gate to the area folded in at the bottom, and people would periodically trip over it. Nobody threatened to sue or even really complained about it; they just took it for granted that something like that would happen.

It was foggy on the morning of our departure. The driver of our car to the airport explained the various rules of the road, including how different license plate numbered cars are allowed on the roads on different days. That might explain why every single taxi driver I’ve seen here has a face different from their own on the car’s license on the dashboard, but apparently taxis are exempt from the license-plate rules. So it must be something else.

We got to the airport in plenty of time despite having to leave the airport expressway for a large portion of the journey. It had simply been closed off for no particular reason that anyone knew; grass grew wild on the empty parts. Similarly, our plane took a surprisingly roundabout route to and from Taiwan, making a huge “S” out into the ocean and then back down, almost the way it came, to Taiwan. It did the same thing on the way to Hangzhou. It must have cost us at least double the time and fuel, so perhaps “direct flights” is a bit of a euphemism. When we arrived back in Taoyuan I again couldn’t help but be reminded at how much not having an airport metro line hurts Taiwan’s image. Just the act of having to take either a taxi or a decrepit bus into town seems to diminish any kind of good first impressions one might have. Perhaps I am overthinking things, but I’ll be glad when the thing finally goes online.

So that was the trip. A lot of it was exhausting, but we saw a lot of places, and the exhibition was very well done and deserves its success. Some people from the festivals in Pingyao and Dali said they’d like me to exhibit there as well, so we’ll see what happens with those.

Hangzhou was foggy this morning as we headed back to the gallery. It seems that everyone here has a DSLR around their neck, always with the kit lens. From little old ladies and old men, all the way down to kids, the DSLR is king here, in stark contrast to Japan, where everyone seemed to sport a micro-four-thirds camera.

Fu Yong-jun, the main organizer of the exhibit as well as a talented photographer in his own right, was taking people through the gallery. One of them, I was told, had won a Pulitzer Prize, but I didn’t recognize him. Another guest was a tall, thin Chinese man whom I was informed was an American-born Chinese. When he met me, he said, in accented English, “They told me you were fun. You don’t seem very fun.” He had a quick look at the photos, and shrugged dismissively. I did get a lot of interest from the media as well as the organizers of other photography festivals in China, however.

We had planned on leaving at 4 p.m. to go explore a neighborhood recommended by the woman whose exhibit was next door, but there was a sudden influx of visitors wanting to know about certain photos and taking pictures with me, so it was closer to 5 by the time we left, and it was starting to rain outside. We caught a ride with one of the friends of the organizers to the area, called Mantou Hill, where the emperor of the Southern Song Dynasty supposedly had his palace, but digging it up would be too expensive, so the government just lets the residents stay there, and the area has consequently become one of the less-developed and therefore more interesting parts of the city as a result.

The rain was coming down in earnest, however, so we eventually caught a cab back to the hotel, which, incidentally, sports “-1” and “-2” floors instead of “B1” and “B2”. This seems to be true everywhere I’ve been in China. I learned that the reason there are no gasoline-powered scooters is that motorcycles are illegal in Hangzhou. Electric scooters count as bicycles, need no license or helmets or anything, however, so all the scooters are electric.

Tomorrow and Sunday, being the weekend, are supposed to see huge crowds at the gallery, and there will be discussions and other activities. I’m going to have to miss those, however, because the long-awaited premiere of our movie is scheduled for tomorrow afternoon in Taipei, so we’re going to have to be up once again at the crack of dawn in order to make our morning flight back.

The exhibit was supposed to officially open at 1:00 this afternoon, but the official opening was contingent on the arrival of a particular public official, who was delayed, so the official opening only happened at around 3:30. People began trickling in beforehand in any case, and as usual it was a pleasure to see people viewing and discussing the photos, even though the air conditioning was frigid. The exhibition was well done and pleasantly laid out. I was interviewed for a couple of TV stations, and the Shanghai Daily is doing an email interview later.

At the opening ceremony, the emcees invited some people to discuss their photos, with predictably hilarious results:
Emcee A: “In this photo we see a tree. Now, we see many trees every day. What makes this tree so special that it deserves to be in a photograph?”

Emcee B: “In this case, there are birds in the tree.”

Most of my conversations were fun and interesting. One pair of woman wanted me to review their photos on the back of their cameras.

The gallery closed at 5 p.m., so we met up with Chin Wei, the photographer from Hong Kong, and walked down the side of the lake to the Starbucks for some drinks. The trees, which were apparently upset at being festooned with fake birdnests disguising lights, sprayed us with evil pollen, making us choke and cough while soldiers ran up and down the waterfront.

After drinks we were informed that we were being picked up soon, so we went to the roadside and watched Chin Wei’s assistant’s phone, on which two dots approached each other, until the van appeared. This is apparently a function of Wechat that I haven’t seen used on other programs, though I’d think it an obvious function in retrospect.

We had dinner with the organizers near the hotel, and got back early. They’re holding a phone photography judging competition tomorrow, and I don’t envy the judges their jobs.

The reason we got up early yet again on Tuesday morning in Hangzhou was because, in addition to the exhibition of around 50 of my photos taken in Taiwan, they also want to feature some photos I’ve taken in Hangzhou, which is a challenge for me as I am used to setting my photos aside for a period of some months before really being able to evaluate them. Also, I’d spent the past week out of Hangzhou touring seemingly every single ancient water town in the province, so I hadn’t taken many shots here.

We were met downstairs by a couple of older men who were part of the organizing group; we all piled into a taxi and headed to Xihu, which they said was interesting in the mornings.

Xihu is a large lake, surrounded by parkland, so many people in Hangzhou go there to exercise in the early morning. We walked past people doing taichi, running, biking, dancing, etc. One old man was hitting a wall with his back in a violent fashion. I asked him how many time he was doing this, and he said 87, which happens to also be his age. Further on, I couldn’t resist doing a little sword work with one group, but I managed to stay away from the tuishou practitioners, as they seemed a little rough.

We had some buns for breakfast near a large map of old Hangzhou before piling into another taxi to go to the old Wangjiangmen neighborhood we’d visited before. The near-misses in the taxi seemed less frightening after a while, which was frightening in itself.

The neighborhood is crowded during the day, the market street packed, so we explored alleys. We met Mr. Wang, who, it turns out, is much less enthusiastic when he is not drunk. He was friendly and remembered us, though, so there’s that, but there was no beer forthcoming in the morning. We gave him some pineapple cakes anyway.

Back at the hotel, we met up with some of the other invited exhibitors, including a photographer from Hong Kong and his entourage, for lunch at a nearby restaurant. After lunch we took a nap and then returned for one last look at Wangjiangmen, venturing into the touristy reconstituted bit. By that point I was so tired I stopped looking both ways before venturing into the street and was tapped by a motorcycle, but aside from some cursing on both sides, a bruised ankle and some spilled documents, nobody came out much worse. I would have liked to have gone right into the bathtub, but I had to process a handful of photos for the exhibit first.

This morning we finally had a chance to have breakfast at our new hotel, which is quite nice, even without air conditioning. I suspect they put us on a floor where the A/C is broken, and they made an excuse that the government won’t let them turn it on until it’s really, really hot outside.

The Hangzhou People’s Photography Festival or whatever it’s called, it being held in a large, interesting old building near Xihu. The printers did a really nice job, and some of the photos have been printed very large. We spent most of the day arranging and directing the installation, and then it was back the hotel. Tomorrow’s the grand opening, in the afternoon, so we can go make last-minute changes in the morning if necessary.

I’m in Hangzhou. Chenbl and I took an Air China flight here this morning. Chinese passengers are really something. Well, some of them are. Actually, just the ones who jump out of their seats, ready to deplane before the wheels have even touched the runway. The stewardess, who was sitting in front of me as I luckily snagged the exit row seat of the rather small plane, had to actually shout at them to sit the hell back down before the plane landed.

After lugging me luggage for about half a mile to the city bus, we finally made it into town. The weather’s nice and cool, and the streets of the city are surprisingly, amazingly clean. The traffic, however, is a mystery. Lanes, lights, directions…I am unable to discern what’s what. The ubiquity of electric scooters makes me wonder what Taiwan would be like if Kwangyang and Sanyang didn’t have a stranglehold on the industry. Much quieter with fresher air, I’d guess.

We met with the people who are holding the photography exhibition which is why I’m here, and we had a great dinner, after which I got a tour of their offices. Due to battery issues with the Sony, I’m using the Invincible Rabbit again, which takes some getting used to. Tomorrow we’re off to some hinterlands or other place. I have no idea. Chenbl’s got the plans. I’m just along for the ride.

The timing of the trip is somewhat unfortunate, as ideally I should be in Taiwan promoting the hell out of not only our movie premiere on 5/10 (for which I will be back in Taipei), but also the upcoming release of the English version of my book by Camphor Press. Alas, I’ll just have to do what I can from here. More on those later, when I have more news. 

I spent most of our short new year holiday down south this year, as we only had six days off; a trip abroad wouldn’t have worked, especially as airfare prices tend to skyrocket. I’ve also made a couple of purchases lately that make me a bit hesitant to spend any more. One of these was an iPad Air, purportedly to use for writing but really to read comics on, and the other was the first camera I’ve purchased in many years (The last one I bought was the GF1…the Invincible Rabbit and the Oly EM5 are going back to their owners, who had graciously let me use them for long periods of time at a stretch).

Chenbl and I took the bullet train to Kaohsiung at noon on Friday, the second day of the holiday. We checked into the same hotel I stayed at the last time I was there. The weather was fine, and it was good to be in a different city -a port city no less!- for a time. We met some old friends, had tea and cake by the Love River, rode some of the rickety one-speed rental bicycles, took the ferry to Qijin, and had some seafood. We took side trips to Gangshan and Qishan. We spent Monday, the last day of our trip, in Tainan, which is where Chenbl’s family in from. We even bumped into one of his relatives at a local temple.

Tainan is famous for the density of its temples. There are temples everywhere, big and small. When I visit such places, I usually have little conversations in my head with the local gods, and I continued this practice at one small temple on a side street. One of the door gods, the dark-skinned one that is always on the left side as you face the temple, was looking sternly at my camera, almost as if in alarm. I walked over to the main alter and asked the main gods what was up.

“Just what do you think you’re doing with that camera?” they asked.

“I take photographs, mostly of people,” I said.

“Why?”

“Uh, I like the compositions?”

“You can see good compositions any time you like. Why do you take photos?”

“Because I like to.”

“That’s a cop-out. You like to? Ha! Forget about that. What gets you? Think!”

I thought for a while. They weren’t going anywhere anyway. Eventually I said, “What gets me…is showing people how they are. Everything moves so quickly, these moments of clarity, where everything just fits, come and go and they’re gone. Not just the moments, but the people as well.”

“What about them?”

“Their environments, their characters…”

“So?”

“So I want to show them.”

“Why?”

“Because they don’t know.”

“Know what?”

“That they’re beautiful!”

“Ah! But how do you know what they know and what they don’t know? Who are you to say?”

“That’s true. Who am I to say? They’re the ones to say. They’re the ones who do say. But I’d like to think I’m giving them another option, another angle, another choice.” Their painted expressions softened. At least they did in my head.

“It’s ok. Just remember that it’s not about you. It’s about them. Remember that, and only then will your work show who you really are.”

Chenbl had just finished talking with one of the temple employees, and came over to where I stood in front of the altar. Always concerned about my finances, he said, “Ask them about your job.” I did.

“Your job? Weren’t we just talking about your job?”

“No, my day job. My office job.”

Silence. They had nothing to say. I walked back to the door god, who was still staring at my camera. But this time, it was no longer a warning, it was a beacon. At least in my head.

During my lunch break yesterday, I hauled a framed print of one of my photos onto a bus headed for the eastern part of town, getting off at Yanji Street. At the feet of a towering apartment block, I called three times before Huang Bo-ji answered.

I’ve known Dr. Huang for a while now, after meeting him at a series of local photography symposiums. He’s the photographer who took one of my favorite shots ever, “Swordsmen”, which depicts two boys play-swordfighting underneath Japanese swordsmen movie billboards next to a bridge in Sanchong in 1965. The scene is a wonderful depiction of the intersection of reality and fantasy as well as a portrait of the spirit of those times. After finding that I was a fan of that shot after a photography talk I gave recently, Dr. Huang generously offered a print exchange, as he was a fan of one of my shots of a television repairman in southern Taiwan.

At around 80 years old, Dr. Huang still practices medicine. “I like to keep busy,” he said. It’s definitely paid off, I noticed when he invited me into his spacious apartment, all the more impressive for its Ren-ai Road address. His living room features an impressive collection of classical LP’s, but his television is modern. He brought out one of the few remaining copies of his photography book， “Reflections on Days Gone By“, which features mostly work from the 50’s to the 70’s. We went through each photo, and I took the opportunity to ask him every question I could think of, such as where the photos were taken, who the people were, what they were doing, what he was doing, if he talked to them, his shooting habits, etc. It was wonderful to be able to hear the stories behind the shots, to gain insight not only into his experiences, but Taiwan at that period of time as well. Dr. Huang was critical of the printing of the book, and took out his own prints to show how the photos should have looked had the printer done his job better. His prints did indeed look much better, with more contrast. The photos included the smokestacks of factories at Yingge (“It smelled awful,” Dr. Huang said), a family picnicking on a median in the just-opened Minquan East Road, and even some from the Southern Airport area I visited and wrote about recently, and showed some of the old apartment buildings, the first of their kind to be built in Taipei, just after they were constructed. The structures stuck out of the surrounding rice fields and shanties in a most incongruous fashion. It was amazing.

It does seem a bit sad that Dr. Huang didn’t pursue photography exclusively; it’s obvious that once he became well-known in medical circles that his photography dropped off. But then again, had he done so, chances are that he wouldn’t be where he is today.

As a special treat, Dr. Huang brought out the old Nikon Fs he used to shoot the photos. He uses digital cameras today, but the old cameras still work, and it was great to handle and take a few shots with them, as they weren’t loaded. Makes me wish I’d kept my first camera, a Pentax K1000.

Dr. Huang liked the print I’d brought, and was talking about where he’d like to hang it as I gathered my things up; I had to get back to work, but after I bade him farewell, I couldn’t help but take a stroll down Ren-ai Road, at least as far as the traffic circle. The office, I felt, could wait.

After some reserve stuff this morning and afternoon, I went down to the Taipei World Trade Center to meet up with Chenbl at the musical instrument expo that was going on there. Thankfully, the downpour that nearly engulfed my bus had eased somewhat, so I didn’t get too wet before I made it to the door, but it was still a puddlicious experience.

Inside, the area devoted to musical instruments, just a small part of the cavernous hall, hosted a cacophony of various bleats, blats, and 74 amateur drummers all doing the same thing on every drum set in sight. I tried out a fiberglass sousaphone at a mainland Chinese stall, then gave the general public a preview of the songs on our upcoming album using some other brass instruments I’d never played, at least the ones with valves. Neither I nor they were much good, though a lot of people took my picture as I was playing.

Chenbl was looking for flutes and violins, and as he haggled prices with seller, I grew quite weary of the constant bad drumming and other noise, and by the time we left I had the beginning of a migraine, which didn’t put me in the best of moods as we waited for one of the u-bikes to become available at the bike stand on the other side of the street. We were both taking bad pictures of Taipei 101 when I spotted an elderly fellow in front of me take a shot with his cellphone. He then turned to me.

“You have to delete that photo,” he said, in accented English.

“What?”

“You must delete your photo,” he repeated. I was confused.

“Why?”

“Because of my right to privacy, you can’t take a photo with me in it without my permission.”

“I’m fairly sure I can.”

“No, you must respect our laws when you come here, just like us Taiwanese.”

“Uh, I am Taiwanese.”

He switched to Chinese at this point. “Have you ever heard of personal privacy? Come on, we’re going to the police.”

I thought, oh boy, do you know who is standing next to me? Sure enough, as soon as we switched to Chinese, Chenbl, who had been uploading his own 101 shot to Facebook, joined in. “And just who are you?” he said. “Why should do anything you tell us to? You want to go to the police? Feel free.”

“How do I know you won’t be gone by the time I get back?” the man said.

“You don’t. Why should we care? You have no evidence of anything; we haven’t done anything wrong.”

“So, if someone were to throw something at you, and you didn’t have any evidence, it wouldn’t be wrong?” he said. I looked at Chenbl.

“Is that a threat?” I said, glaring at the man. Up until now the conversation hadn’t been particularly hostile, but it was taking a nasty turn. Chenbl held up his phone.

“If anyone throws anything, I have this conversation taped, and I’m pretty sure it would implicate you in any such act.” The old man laughed harshly.

“You guys are really something. You win this one, but it’s a small city; we’ll meet again.” Jesus, this is straight out of a comic book, I thought, and all because he thought I’d taken his picture. The man walked to the other side of the street, playing with his phone and hopefully not calling 20 of his best friends to resolve the situation. We didn’t hang around long enough to find out, electing to find bicycles elsewhere. We’d been planning to go see some friends play at Huashan, but my headache convinced me to go for a massage at the underground mall instead.

Yeah, it’s gear talk time.

A year ago, in May of 2012, I obtained an Olympus OM-D E-M5 micro four-thirds mirrorless camera. I’d been using my Panasonic GF1 for everyday shooting for a couple of years, but despite my general satisfaction with the shots it produced, the sensor was a bit limited when the light fell, and I missed having a viewfinder. When I first got it, I had to get out of the habit of jamming it up against my face.

“Enter the E-M5!” most reviews will say about here, for trendy dramatic writing purposes. Somewhat foolishly, I decided to take the Oly as my only camera on a trip to the UK to attend the London Festival of Photography, which was showing some of my work as part of the BME collective. I didn’t relish the idea of dragging (or “lugging”, as popular parlance would put it) the Invincible Rabbit (Canon 5D2) with two huge lenses all around that vast city for a week, and the Oly seemed like it would be up to the task.

It wasn’t. Oh, the photos themselves were ok, and the image stabilization worked wonders, but the new batteries hadn’t been charged enough times to live up to their regular battery life, and I only had two. Also, my main lens, which had been a delight on the GF1, namely the Panasonic 20mm f1.7, hunted like a basset hound in an old animated Disney flick whenever the light wasn’t stellar, which it mostly wasn’t. Slowly it would griiiind baaaaack and foooooorth before giving up, my would-be subject long gone. The Olympus 12mm and 45mm didn’t have such a problem, but they are not my favorite focal lengths. 50mm equivalents always felt a bit too close for the crowded alleys and byways of Taipei; 35 was more or less my target for a general-purpose lens.

So, after returning home, I made do with the E-M5 as my everyday camera, but due to the frustrations with the 20, I used the 9-18 in good light and just cursed it roundly in bad. The batteries eventually attained reasonable lifespans, though I bought another just in case. My Leica M6 film camera also saw a good bit of use during this period.

Last Christmas I bought myself a present that would eventually transform the E-M5 into a much better camera: The Olympus 17mm f1.8. Was it instant magic? Alas, no, I wasn’t that lucky. Although the lens was far more willing to grab focus quickly and surely in most kinds of light, which was night-and-day after the 20mm, I landed a bad copy of the lens that had elements out of alignment so that the lower right corner was always front focused. I traded it for another copy that was slightly better in this respect, but still out of whack (It was this copy that I took on a trip to the Middle East earlier this year, probably also somewhat foolishly, as we were in cars or on camels most of the time, and I could have easily taken the Rabbit). When I got back, I sent the lens in to Olympus Taiwan for inspection, and they sent it back with the elements all in place. However, either they have a very moist work environment or the lab tech didn’t wear gloves, as the lens came back with a dirty interior element, which necessitated another trip for cleaning. Finally, I had a proper lens for this camera.

Now, about this camera: It’s light and small. It doesn’t force me into a position better suited to an Australopithecus (no offense to any reconstituted Australopitheci out there). The electronic viewfinder is adequate, not laggy but opaque in very low light, though the images are too grainy over ISO5000 anyway. Jamming it against your face makes for a more stable vantage point, and it’s closer to what you see anyway. It even might provide you with a slightly wider view, as the camera is 1-2 feet further back that way.

Of course, niggles exist: The viewfinder cover has a nasty habit of snapping off, and replacements are pricey. The buttons are small and finicky, but I just set the camera and go; the only controls I need are the top dials, and those work well. The on/off button is much better than the E-P1: I can tell by feel if the camera is on or not, and it falls right to hand when it’s hanging around my neck, right where I would put my hand when I want to bring it to my eye. Seeing changes to exposure in the viewfinder is a very nifty thing. If you want to review your shots in the ratio you composed them with and that ratio is something other than the native 4:3, however, you have to set the camera to take JPEG+RAW, as it refuses to show RAW shots in anything but 4:3. I have no idea why it doesn’t do this. The GF1 would. So I just suck it up and accept that I’m only using half of my memory cards.

If you want to see a clear view through the EVF when you raise the camera to eye level, you can just forget it, young person. You either get the one style that overlays information over the view if you have the EVF on all the time, or you can choose the style that separates the information nicely from the view, but you have to wait for it to wake up and realize you’re looking through the EVF. Sorry, no, what was that? Nope, picture’s gone. Never mind. So I just suck it up and imagine what the view would look like without all the crap on it, just so I don’t have to lift the camera to my eye and see nothing at all. Having the EVF more or less in line with the lens is much better than using the periscope-like additional EVFs other cameras use.

The image stabilization is amazing. If the camera is on and active, it’s ready at an instant to take a shot, or several if the impressively fast 9-fps shooting mode is on (fewer with the 20, alas). If it is off, or asleep, however, you must wait for it to shake itself awake, sit for a moment, and then decide it’s ready. Forget that shot, I just got up. Coffee? No? Fine, ok. Now, about that shot? Sorry, no, it’s gone, never mind again.

The shutter sound/feel is incredible. My previous standard was my M6, but the Oly trumps even that. Only perhaps an M3 would be better. Solid, quiet, even pleasurable, as if butter is involved somehow. Going back to the GF1 is like using a weed-whacker. Some people complain of a barely audible hiss when the IS is on, but seriously? Complaining about a barely audible hiss?

The tilt screen is much more useful than I’d imagined, for taking shots from unusual angles or just peeping over the walls of abandoned houses to see cats lazing around on old lawn chairs.

In short, apart from a few frustrating niggles and paired with the right lens, the E-M5 is a great everyday camera for me. I’ve taken around 26,000 shots in the year that I’ve had it. If it’s on and ready and I’m able to ignore the crap on the screen, it’s ready to take a shot the instant I want it to. It is far more capable than the camera it replaced, and the Rabbit stays home most of the time these days when I don’t need extreme focal lengths, battery times that last for days, or limited DOF.

What’s that about DOF? Well, the E-M5 can’t help it. It’s only a half-sized sensor, after all; you cannae break the laws o’ physics! As impressive as it is, you’re just not going to get the same subject isolation as you would with a full-frame camera.

But that’s ok with me. In fact, I would urge anyone who is intent on improving their photography to consider a micro four-thirds camera precisely because of such limitations. The reason for this is that, if you have a full-frame wonder, you’ll be relying on external crutches like shallow DOF instead of what you should be working on, i.e. composition, content and vision. And what if your vision is all about shallow DOF, you ask?

I think you know the answer to that one.

That said, I can’t pretend that larger-sensor cameras don’t appeal to me. I enjoyed the Fuji X100 I borrowed from a friend last year, and I’d love to be able to afford something like Sony’s new RX1 despite it’s exorbitant price or periscope add-on EVF, or Leica’s new M that costs as much as a small house, or whatever the hell miracle camera is next out the door. But whenever I think such thoughts, I look at the shots I’ve taken with the E-M5 and think: Yeah, I’ll probably get another camera at some point, but really, I can wait a little longer.

I was re-reading what I consider Kirk Tuck’s best post ever today, in which he gets to the meat of things in a way few people have the guts to utter:

“I had always traveled with, first my parents, then my college girl friend and finally, with my wife. And in all those scenarios photography takes a back seat to the social appeasement of travelling with people and spending time with them. You might want to wander aimlessly but the other person or people you are travelling with might have an agenda. A list of museums to visit and stores to shop in. Try as they might they don’t really understand your desire to walk around, stop, turnaround, click the shutter, walk ten feet and then do it all over again. Friction arises.

If you want to do photography at a level that really satisfies your soul and your ego you’ll need to do it alone. Forget having the spouse or girlfriend or best friend or camera buddy tagging along. Forget the whole sorry concept of the “photo walk” which does nothing but engender homogenization and “group think.” Learn what makes your brain salivate and why. Make your decisions based on what your inner curator wants you to say.

None of your non-photographer friends will understand, and that’s okay. Your real photographer friends will either be jealous or nodding their heads in appreciative approval because they’ve been there. When you see the world unfold in front of you, unencumbered by the social construct of the group, you become freed to see differently and make different decisions about what you’ll photograph and why. In the end you’ll come home with intensely personal photographs.

Many of you will throw your hands up and complain that you have kids and obligations and can’t possibly get away by yourself. Others will whine that “their spouse would never let me go to Paris without them.” But you only get one life. If you have a spouse like that you might think about a quick divorce.”

Lately, as the group of (six!) people with whom I am going to be traveling next month make their plans and itineraries for the trip, I’ve been recalling vacations I’ve taken. Inevitably, the best parts have been stolen moments, little stretches of time when I managed somehow to get away from everyone else, to just Be. To look, without the weight of a schedule or obligations or the incessant “What’s next?”, “Wait up!”, “Hurry up!”, “Where’s so-and-so?”, “Where are we going?”, “What are we going to eat?” etc. To not have to act and interact and guess about niceties and other people’s expectations. To just Be:

1. Walking the streets of Sydney around the harbour and along the Yarra River in Melbourne in 2002.

2. Doing the same in Shanghai in 2006 before boarding an overnight train to Beijing. Eating breakfast in the dining car as the outskirts of the city flashed by.

3. On my Okinawa trip in 2007, getting off the ship and into town on my own, just wandering amongst the alleys and streams. Even when it started to rain, everything just shined, as if electricity were running through it.

4. Pretty much my entire trip to Tokyo in early 2008, still my best trip in memory. 12 days on my own in a completely unfamiliar city, knowing none of the language, even dealing with rain, sleet, and snow at times. My follow-up trip to Osaka and Kyoto later that year was also good, but somewhat lessened by personal issues.

3. In Paris, when my traveling companions decided to go into the Louvre, and I walked out along the Seine.

4. In Spain, driving from Madrid to Granada as they slept, and then in Sitges when we wandered independently for a time.

5. Taking a train from Tokyo to Yokohama in late 2009, a brilliant day, just as the leaves were turning.

6. In Malaysia, when I somehow managed to leave everyone else behind on a winding road in the highlands where the hills are covered with tea plants, on a brilliant afternoon. I stood alone on the empty road, just drinking in the sight, smell and feel of the place.

7. During my trip on Xiamen, going up on deck by myself as the ship left the port and watching the city slide by.

8. On my trip to the US, wandering around downtown San Francisco just after sunset, and also renting a car and driving from Lexington, Kentucky to Lexington, Virginia.

When I read my accounts of my travels, it seems that when I am with a group, my writing become even more boring (if that’s possible), full of “…and then we went____ and then we had____ and then we went…”, because I wasn’t open to what was going on around me. You could say it’s horribly self-centered of me, but in my defense, I think it’s because it wasn’t really me experiencing those things.

Let me explain: Though I get frustrated at not being able to be as open as I can to photographs when I am with a group (“like being guided through paradise with a blindfold on,” as Tuck says), I should note that this isn’t necessarily about photography; it’s less about how many pictures I get or meals I enjoy than it is about what satisfies me to the very core of my being. I don’t particularly like going somewhere specifically “to shoot”; I find it terribly limiting. And it isn’t even about exotic locations either; I had a similarly enjoyable walk just the other day after our company’s end-of-year dinner. I walked out of the Westin Hotel and took a series of alleys I’d never traversed, just a few blocks over to where David Chen was playing in a bar off Linsen North Road, but it was still a great walk.

I’m not sure exactly what it is inside me, that urge to go a certain way, to turn a certain corner, to explore certain places over other places, but it’s deep and strong and old. Are we not, after all, defined by our choices? It’s as if that path is me, a la the songlines of the Australian aborigines, a relic of the millions of years of walking that our ancestors did. Or perhaps it was simply a largely friendless childhood or having moved so many times that drove me towards such things, or even common frustration with being in an office all day. But this isn’t about denying myself such pleasures as the occasional donut; denying these compulsions feels like denying my own self, i.e., I’m not me when I don’t do those things, if that makes any sense. I’m not anyone. Paul Theroux hints at the same, though coming from the other direction: “You go away for a long time and return a different person – you never come all the way back,” he writes in Dark Star Safari.

“Go this way,” this mysterious authority whispers, but only when I am alone does it enunciate; when I am with others it is most often silent or confusing in its signals, and at any rate I would be unable to explain it to anyone else’s satisfaction. “What are you looking for?” others may ask, but it’s not what I’m looking for, it’s that I am looking. It is as satisfying to follow it as it is frustrating to deny, or worse yet, to be deaf to. There is no logic to it. I may find myself taking photos, or not; it doesn’t matter. For as long as it lasts, I am there.