The meaning is us

If trips were just moving from one place to anotherwe couldn't call them experiences. Having returned home after a trip, many people struggle to return to their usual daily routine. Some feel changed, not only in spirit or habits but also their body seems to have changed to its original form. If all this happens to you, it's a good thing and you should consider yourself lucky. For some, the journey even becomes the straw that breaks the camel's back and the excuse to screw everything up and start again from scratch. Travel is never a walk to be taken lightly, but rather a way to look inside ourselves and discover things that perhaps we didn't even want to know. But then why do we love traveling so much? Why do we dream of leaving for a new destination as soon as we return home? What is the meaning of all this? The meaning is us.

The survival of the human race is entrusted to the story, to our ability to imagine the invisible and believe in shared narratives. Territories, religions, currency, markets, borders, unions, books, films, even human rights and obviously also travel and photography. They are all narratives that ask us to think, share and communicate through dynamic interactions. All otherwise impossible to conceive or remember.
Without the story, the journey itself would not exist. The camera, the cell phone, a pen and a notebook are essential parts to tell all this and, never more than in this case, does the end justify the means.

There is a reason why we choose to face long journeys, sleep uncomfortable in airports or stations and, once we arrive at our destination, immediately start exploring before even taking a shower or skipping a meal to dedicate that time to explore new territory. Sometimes we choose uncomfortable accommodations instead of luxurious hotels with swimming pools, not only because they are more functional for reaching that interesting place, but also because the story is a container in which each of us lives before we even start writing it. Reaching a place on a comfortable air-conditioned bus does not have the same narrative as reaching that destination on a bicycle or on foot. Beijing Express docet. The collective imagination must be built, maintained and cared for and everyone has their own role to play in the context in which they find themselves.

What photography needs today are not megapixels or even infallible auto-focuses, much less the writing of new artificial intelligences. Instead, we should all seek a concrete, conscious and honest narrative. Try to think that within a journey there is all the good but also the bad. On the one hand the sublimation of the effort to reach a long-imagined place, the self-sacrifice and concreteness, on the other the renunciation of speaking, sometimes the void of words, perhaps even a bit of silence. A blurry or out-of-focus photograph can tell much more than a perfect photograph. We must learn to deactivate the automatisms that decide the tone of the story for us. Without the ability to believe in shared fictions, some photographs, many books and certain trips would not exist.
To have stories to share, legendary destinations are not enough to post on social media in search of a like or to believe that it is the number of followers that establishes our role in the world. We also need the availability and ability to listen, look, read, try to understand where and why we arrived in that place and above all whether we really deserved it.

Always enjoy the spectacle of a journey and remember that you are not just spectators, don't limit yourself to photographing a postcard sunset or documenting a moment with a frugal post. If you are travellers, if you love photography, you will always be part of the story.
When you travel, be honest, the world needs it more than ever today.


Roberto Cristaudo
NP June / July 2023