Dave & Meredith's Travel Blog

Let’s have a little quiz. Where are we in this picture?

Oh, wait. You can’t tell. Because there are no clues in the picture. It could have been taken anywhere which means it’s not a great vacation photo.

I find it very tough to get someone else to take a picture of us on a trip that I think is good. But there we were one day in a great photo spot. While we were enjoying the views, a group of photographers traveling together came along loaded down with gear and they started clicking away. One guy we struck up a conversation with seemed pretty diligent and was very much invested in his hobby. His camera body alone costs $8000. He had all the high-end lenses, tripod, etc. Here is a guy, I thought, who can take a great photo of us. So I asked him and he willingly obliged. He handed back my camera and moved on to wherever the next stop was for him.

After he was gone, I looked at it on the little screen on the back of my camera. I was half surprised and half amused. Meredith couldn’t believe it. Sure, you want a people picture to emphasize the people but the background should at least indicate where you are. At a minimum, zoom out and put us off to one side. Also, he chopped of Meredith’s head with barely any neck showing. It’s not like this guy didn’t care and thus rushed it. He seemed to linger a bit to get the shot “right.” I wonder what the rest of the pictures that he did for himself look like.

For the record, in this picture, we were in the town of Siena in Tuscany, on top of the Foccionale (sp?), a wall of a never-completed addition to the Duomo. It offers the best views of Siena outside of climbing the bell tower. But you’ll have to trust me on that one.

– Dave