Mason’s travels – August 2017 | Illuminate Photography

So there was this one crazy time (read: earlier this month) when we thought it would be a good idea to take our ten-month-old along with us on a travel adventure to not one, not two, but three different countries.

It was certainly not the easiest trip we’ve ever done. In fact, it was mostly rather hard work. And if you ask us if we’d do it again, we’d probably say no, not any time soon. Yet somehow, despite the strain of trying to navigate our way through the many flights, the hours spent waiting at airports, the looooong train rides, the overpriced coffees, the dodgy loos and crowded trams and busy streets etc (all with a sickly infant)… Despite all of that, we don’t regret having done it.

Because it is so true that travel broadens your horizons. Even when the work seems to outweigh the play a lot of the time, it is always ALWAYS an eye-opening experience witnessing how other people live. And what a humbling reminder of how teeny tiny we are in this world! And can I even begin to say how grateful it makes me, that out of all the people and places in this world that I could have been, I get to be THIS person, here in THIS place, surrounded by THESE people in my life?

The main reason we went on this trip, was to attend a family reunion in the Vosges region in France. My immediate family is rather big. More like biiiiiiig, actually. So in order to see each other on a regular basis, we plan retreats like this every few years. So we figured, that while we were in France, we might as well visit Paris. The timing was quite special as Mike and I travelled there together exactly 10 years ago, and I’ve wanted to go back ever since. Then someone mentioned that you can travel to Morocco on “budget airlines” from Europe. Once that seed was planted in my mind, there was just no turning back. And then, well, if you’re that close to the border of Germany, of course you must spend a couple of nights there too.

So these are some of the images that came out of this little trip.

One thing I do not want to do by posting these images, is to create a glamourised picture of travel. Photographs have a way of doing that. Social Media especially, seems to have increased the sense of wanderlust amongst our generation in a huge way. But what we see is of course to a large extent only a tiny snippet of reality.

What we see is an epic landscape. What we don’t see is the queue of people behind the photographer trying to get the same shot. And the sewerage plant to the right that was conveniently cropped out of the shot.

What we see is the astonishing exotic beauty of a foreign city. What we don’t see is the hours and hours of travel to get there, the stuffy hotel rooms, the heat, the chaos, the stench of the place the photographer may have been standing in while taking the picture.

What we see is the face of a beautiful young child from another nation. What we don’t see is the twelve people the photographer tried to capture before this. The twelve people who all responded negatively to their request. Including the boy that kicked them in the shin because they tried to take a picture of him while he was not looking.

So please, as you view these pictures, remember that these are the moments between those other moments.

Part 1 – Paris