Armchair traveller

I enjoy the articles in AP about far-off places. In this week’s Travel Special there were features about Amazonia, Japan, Cuba, European castles, and about a couple who have adopted a completely nomadic lifestyle. Visiting exotic places and iconic locations yields a rich harvest of photographic opportunities, though the challenge is sometimes to bring home shots that haven’t already been done a million times before.

For many of us this sort of travel is something that we do online and through the pages of magazines like AP; vicarious travel, if you will. Some choose not to travel, some haven’t the means, some have other commitments, or their health doesn’t allow it. Even those people who do travel regularly spend the greater part of the year at home.

I have lived almost 50 years in the same Norfolk village. If I didn’t love it here I would have left by now. The challenge for me is not about getting that epic shot of the Eiffel Tower or the Golden Gate Bridge, it’s more about trying to evoke the character and uniqueness of the quiet, undramatic place where I live. I would argue that, in its own way, it’s just as hard as trying to get the perfect shot at one of those iconic places around the globe.

To be fair to AP, you do acknowledge this and have published regular features on the subject of photographing your local area, particularly during the lockdowns of the past 18 months. And rightly so, because for most of us, most of the time, that’s what it’s all about, whether it’s rural landscapes, city streets or back garden macro.

Tim Farnham