The dream ends tomorrow when I head back to the miserable weather in Melbourne. I've heard that it's been raining off and on for a week now. For just this minute though it's 8am and I'm lying on the beach after a hacking cough acquired in Cairns forced me out of bed. To compensate, I've just had a wee therapeutic swim and am lying on the sands of the Gold Coast.
A couple of cousins live here at Palm Beach, and I'm basking with a view of Surfers Paradise in the distance, and listening to some German tourist giggle like schoolgirls as they wade in the waves. Let me halt any fantasies by stating that they're in their sixties. But laughter is good to hear any day of the week.
I'd love to be able to take a snap of the coast to let you know what it's like (wrinklies aside), but I'd adapted a strange personal philosophy that has confounded backpackers in Cairns, the snap-happy campers they are. I swear, I have rarely seen anyone so shocked as my dive group when I told them I don't bring cameras travelling.
I'll admit to taking snaps at things like weddings, or events that involve people, but there's something about scenery and experiences that an amateur like me simply can not capture. This isn't to say I haven't tried in the past, somewhere in storage I have a slowly mouldering stack of snaps a mile high from past trips that are and loosing all relevance to me as the years go by.
And that's the point.
A professor at Auckland Uni once said to us (at the pub) that there's two theories on memory. One, that your mind is a bucket, once it fills anything new will displace something else, which becomes forgotten. The second is that you remember anything that interests you. Personally, and probably characteristically, I prefer a middle of the road answer between the two.
To me, photos are simply triggers that allow you to recall memories on some stuff, and to foist false memories on some people. You know, Uncle Gavin's pesky slideshow of their holiday to Club Med. My argument out on the boat was that any photo I take of the Barrier Reef would be a joke compared to a good coffee table book. Sure, my photos would be of the exact fish/clam I saw, but what difference would that make to the person seeing the photo?
Look, I'm already forgetting the faces of some people on that boat, and I spent almost four days non-stop with them. The cold fact of the matter is, I may never see any of them ever again, because we didn't get close enough to want to stay in contact. And looking at photos would probably just re-impress memories that are taking up valuable real estate in this aging brain. But, the way I felt about them, and what I thought of them, is still very clear. And obviously that's something you can't capture in a photo.
The same goes for landscapes. A postcard of Cairns or Brisbane can't convey the humidity, the heat, the smell of the flora, or the 'vibe' of being there, whether it's the exact picture of what I saw personally or not. I could run you a twelve-day, full surround sound digital vision of the trip, and you'd still impress your own interpretation of what it was like for me.
For instance, you'd get bored at some of the landscapes or city-scapes and might spend your time waiting for people to look at, or wishing I'd spent more time looking at what interested you. i.e. spend more time looking at that bikini brother...
Finally, a photo is only made real with a good story to accompany it, or if you've already seen the subject (and in the latter case, why would need the photo?). I could show you a coffee table book and tell the same story about a 'nemo' fish as if it was the exact one I'd seen. It's the experience that triggers your interest, that picture just supplements.
So as a consequence I never take photos, and instead just try and hitch-hike on other peoples cameras. Sometime, yes, I will take snaps. But it has to be of something I absolutely do not want to forget. Family, close friends, a place I need to lock in time. But lampposts, 'weird' plants, streets, a Starbucks, blah blah blah? Nope.
PS. This was written partially on the beach two days ago, and partially at a train station in Melbourne. I got back yesterday. Yay. At least the weather fined for me. I'm thinking of heading back! Maybe, just maybe.