El Viajero Contento: PARADISE LOST – How Vacation Photos Miss the Boat

When one is on vacation, as Sally and I are for a month here in Zihuatanejo, Guerrero, Mexico, one tends to appreciate sweeping new vistas. In our case, it's a tropical climate, with its exotic flora and fauna, cutting in on what was proving a long, grudging dance with a northern-North-America winter. And a whole people with faces, words and customs perhaps different from our own.

We want to paint it all with a broad brush, taking long shots of the sea, the beach...maybe the bar. Look, Facebook friends, I am here!—we want them to see as much as possible in one or two photos. About as close to details we come is when we take pictures of the people we're sharing that experience with. And too many of those are taken quite spontaneously, with no regard for a background that might impart even the slightest notion of specifically where we are.

I've finally come to realize...why the question, "Want to see our vacation photos?" elicits more lame excuses than "Can you help us move?"

A SENSE OF PLACE
Believe me, I've taken a few of exactly that kind of photo. But I've finally come to realize—most often weeks later when I show them to someone else—why the question, "Want to see our vacation photos?" elicits more lame excuses than "Want to help me move?" The reason? Most of those images have no soul.

So in recent years, though I still shoot the occasional "look where I am and who's with me here" landscape and portrait, I've found myself drawn to more subjects I hope will capture a deeper sense of place and culture.

Here are some of those soul shots I've taken this month in and around Zihuatanejo. Images capturing very specific places—some of them no bigger than a square foot; the colors, shapes and patterns of a certain natural environment and a particular culture. And people—most often not posing, but captured at play or on the job, perhaps in a joyous or pensive or poignant moment.

If you're still with me to this point, I think you can tell that, every year, I leave more here in this lovely town than a chunk of dinero; I also leave a piece of my heart.