HOMECOMING
“No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow. --Lin Yutang
The plane touches down at your “home” airport, the train arrives at your “home” station or you and your car pull up to your driveway. Your vacation, physically at least, is over. Its usually feels good to be back home after being away for a while. Your own bed awaits, your pet greets you with love (dog) or disdain (cat). There’s one or two Netflix movies waiting for you to watch and your home messaging machine is blinking with new messages. The mail carrier delivers a ton of mail the next day, mostly catalogs and bills, along with a few magazines and maybe even a letter (how unusual these days). Work and school await, the lawn needs mowing and you have 900 digital photographs on your memory cards. And you have a few stories to tell!
Homecoming is both exhilarating and deflating at the same time – the goal now is to remain cognizant of the exhilarating portions and deal with the routines of life in a non-deflating way. If you’re gone for more than a week or 10 days, its helpful to come back from your trip one or two days early so that you have some time to deal with the realities of life and prepare for the week ahead, while still taking it a bit easy and savoring the memories of the journey.
It is important to prioritize certain things when you get back home. Paying outstanding bills is a good though depressing start. Doing laundry is also important, and while not as depressing as bill paying, certainly no more exciting. Checking your calendar concerning appointments, work schedule, etc. is also worth doing to gauge the amount of time you have to “get your act together” while still enjoying the immediate memories of the trip. Try not to over commit yourself the first few days back.
"The end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time." --T.S. Eliot
Photos and Memories
It is also a good time to download your digital photo files from your memory cards to your computer hard drive and make a backup copy of the same.
OK, you’ve downloaded your files or gotten your prints back from the lab. Now what? Chances are, especially if you shoot digital, that you have hundreds if not a thousand or more photos from your trip. My recommendation is to start with a broad edit of photos – delete or discard those that are clearly no good – totally out of focus, grossly over- or under-exposed or just mistakes (like pictures of your thumb or feet due to an inadvertent click of the shutter). I actually tend to do this step every night or two during the trip (a plus of digital) – resulting in the need for fewer media cards and for doing this initial step once home. The next step is to pick out the best shots when you’ve taken multiple shots of the same image; then delete the remainder (or put into deep storage).
Then select your favorite shots and those necessary to tell a story. These are the ones that you should spend your time on during post-processing. Digital photos almost all require a bit of post-processing work, just like what one would have done in a darkroom or what the automated print machines at photo labs do with film. When you’ve completed this step, its time to consider sharing with friends, family and colleagues. A key is not to share TOO many – this applies to almost any of the sharing methods described below. Too often I’ve seen folks with a pile of photos or with a link to their Flickr account only to find hundred of photos filed there – clearly unedited. Twenty or so shots are ideal and 50 is probably the maximum unless set up in some type of slide show or powerpoint presentation that moves right along. In the old slide-show era, I found that one carousel (remember Kodak carousel projectors? – I still have one!) with either 80 or 140 slides was all most audiences could handle and that could reasonable be gone through in 30-45 minutes. Attention spans are much shorter today!
Sharing real hard copies of photos is becoming a lost ritual. If you shot film, this is certainly the easiest way of doing it. If you go digital, then you can either print them yourself or take your memory card (edited, of course) to the lab for printing. 4”x6” prints work well and give a tactile plus to the experience. Twenty to thirty prints is probably the most that can be reasonably shared through this technique.
You can certainly attach photos to an e-mail, though you need to be careful with file size so as to not overwhelm the servers and the receiving party’s in box. I think this works best if you have just a couple of key photos that you want to share with an individual. If you just expect the recipient to look at it on their computer, then 5x7 or 6x8 is fine, with 72 dpi – and you can actually paste the photo directly into the e-mail, rather than attach it. If you expect them to print it, then an attachment works much better, and the file should be at least 240 dpi.
If you have your own blog or website, this is clearly a great option for sharing trip photos and stories. You can embed slide shows, create new pages on your site and a multitude of other things to share your photos. Then e-mail your friends and family to check out your blog/website for trip photos and/or narrative. You can also do this while traveling, either with your own laptop or at an internet café.
Flickr, et al. Photo sharing sites are also a great option, for storing your photos, printing your photos (if you don’t have a home printer or have a lot to print at a very inexpensive price), and for sharing. This is also the most abused way of sharing photos since it’s easiest just to upload all of your travel photos and tell your friends to check them out. Wrong. Please edit your photos and store the really good ones in a separate folder and direct your viewers to that folder. Again, 20-50 is the range, with the ideal closer to twenty, unless its been a long trip with lots of really good photos and your family and friends are really gung ho!. Adding a few captions to make it a more interesting and informative experience for your viewers and will help remind you in the future of the who/what/when/where/why.
If you’re going to share your photos with a larger group – co-workers during lunch, a school class or in a public venue, then a “slide show” is the best route. There is a wide variety of software out there that lets you create your show. I tend to use either the slide show element in Adobe Lightroom or create a Powerpoint presentation. Both allow you to convert the presentation to a pdf file for ease in showing on other computers.
An audio slide show is a variation on the on the slide show/CD/Powerpoint concept. Here you actually record music and voice that accompanies the slide show. I think this technique is best when you have a short story to tell with photos rather than for your entire presentation. You can sometimes embed this within the larger presentation or show separately. A short audio slide show can also be added to your blog or website and may even be able to be sent as an e-mail attachment, depending on the program and the file size. For Windows users, Microsoft Movie Maker is built-in (downloadable if you have Windows 10) and is reasonably good and easy to use.
Scrapbooks were the rage for a while and still represent a great way of recording your memories and sharing with a couple of folks at a time. You can include photos, narrative, plane/train tickets or boarding passes, postcards, museum passes, and other two-dimensional items picked up during your journey. Be sure to include stories, caption while also aiming for brevity. My wife inherited forty years of travel scrapbooks from her mother with far too many photos and not nearly enough information as to the story behind the photos. But, still interesting to puruse.
You can also design and print your own photo book, complete with narrative. Not an inexpensive choice, but lasting and easy to share. Two of the better choices are www.blurb.com and www.magcloud.com. I’ve done photo books with both and have been very pleased with the results. My Publisher also runs lots of specials during the year, so if interested, sign up for their e-mails. The books can be shared on-line and you or your friends (or even the general public if you so desire) can also order extra copies at any time as gifts or for other purposes.
This has been a brief discussion of photo sharing techniques. It is not meant to be fully inclusive or provide lots of detail – merely to suggest various starting points for your consideration. Remember to edit and share highlights, rather than reliving the entire trip in real time!
Journey On! My final recommendation upon coming home from a vacation or journey or trip or sojourn or sabbatical or getaway is to start planning your next trip! Life’s too short not so see and experience the world. It’s only by being alongside other cultures and experiencing the Grand Canyon, the Eiffel Tower, the Great Pyramids, the Taj Mahal and Old Faithful that you can truly appreciate the wonders of the natural and built environments. And its only dancing with the Finns and Swedes at the Kaustinan Folk Music Festival and sitting around the campfire at the Pushkar Camel Fair in Rajasthan (India) and taking part in the Epiphany processions in Addis Ababa and sitting down with the family at the family grave site along Lake Atitlan in Guatemala on Day of the Dead or sharing a meal with new found friends that you can truly experience the lives and cultures of this great and diverse world. So, figure out your next trip objectives, save a few dollars and a few weeks of vacation time and Journey On!!!!
The plane touches down at your “home” airport, the train arrives at your “home” station or you and your car pull up to your driveway. Your vacation, physically at least, is over. Its usually feels good to be back home after being away for a while. Your own bed awaits, your pet greets you with love (dog) or disdain (cat). There’s one or two Netflix movies waiting for you to watch and your home messaging machine is blinking with new messages. The mail carrier delivers a ton of mail the next day, mostly catalogs and bills, along with a few magazines and maybe even a letter (how unusual these days). Work and school await, the lawn needs mowing and you have 900 digital photographs on your memory cards. And you have a few stories to tell!
Homecoming is both exhilarating and deflating at the same time – the goal now is to remain cognizant of the exhilarating portions and deal with the routines of life in a non-deflating way. If you’re gone for more than a week or 10 days, its helpful to come back from your trip one or two days early so that you have some time to deal with the realities of life and prepare for the week ahead, while still taking it a bit easy and savoring the memories of the journey.
It is important to prioritize certain things when you get back home. Paying outstanding bills is a good though depressing start. Doing laundry is also important, and while not as depressing as bill paying, certainly no more exciting. Checking your calendar concerning appointments, work schedule, etc. is also worth doing to gauge the amount of time you have to “get your act together” while still enjoying the immediate memories of the trip. Try not to over commit yourself the first few days back.
"The end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time." --T.S. Eliot
Photos and Memories
It is also a good time to download your digital photo files from your memory cards to your computer hard drive and make a backup copy of the same.
OK, you’ve downloaded your files or gotten your prints back from the lab. Now what? Chances are, especially if you shoot digital, that you have hundreds if not a thousand or more photos from your trip. My recommendation is to start with a broad edit of photos – delete or discard those that are clearly no good – totally out of focus, grossly over- or under-exposed or just mistakes (like pictures of your thumb or feet due to an inadvertent click of the shutter). I actually tend to do this step every night or two during the trip (a plus of digital) – resulting in the need for fewer media cards and for doing this initial step once home. The next step is to pick out the best shots when you’ve taken multiple shots of the same image; then delete the remainder (or put into deep storage).
Then select your favorite shots and those necessary to tell a story. These are the ones that you should spend your time on during post-processing. Digital photos almost all require a bit of post-processing work, just like what one would have done in a darkroom or what the automated print machines at photo labs do with film. When you’ve completed this step, its time to consider sharing with friends, family and colleagues. A key is not to share TOO many – this applies to almost any of the sharing methods described below. Too often I’ve seen folks with a pile of photos or with a link to their Flickr account only to find hundred of photos filed there – clearly unedited. Twenty or so shots are ideal and 50 is probably the maximum unless set up in some type of slide show or powerpoint presentation that moves right along. In the old slide-show era, I found that one carousel (remember Kodak carousel projectors? – I still have one!) with either 80 or 140 slides was all most audiences could handle and that could reasonable be gone through in 30-45 minutes. Attention spans are much shorter today!
Sharing real hard copies of photos is becoming a lost ritual. If you shot film, this is certainly the easiest way of doing it. If you go digital, then you can either print them yourself or take your memory card (edited, of course) to the lab for printing. 4”x6” prints work well and give a tactile plus to the experience. Twenty to thirty prints is probably the most that can be reasonably shared through this technique.
You can certainly attach photos to an e-mail, though you need to be careful with file size so as to not overwhelm the servers and the receiving party’s in box. I think this works best if you have just a couple of key photos that you want to share with an individual. If you just expect the recipient to look at it on their computer, then 5x7 or 6x8 is fine, with 72 dpi – and you can actually paste the photo directly into the e-mail, rather than attach it. If you expect them to print it, then an attachment works much better, and the file should be at least 240 dpi.
If you have your own blog or website, this is clearly a great option for sharing trip photos and stories. You can embed slide shows, create new pages on your site and a multitude of other things to share your photos. Then e-mail your friends and family to check out your blog/website for trip photos and/or narrative. You can also do this while traveling, either with your own laptop or at an internet café.
Flickr, et al. Photo sharing sites are also a great option, for storing your photos, printing your photos (if you don’t have a home printer or have a lot to print at a very inexpensive price), and for sharing. This is also the most abused way of sharing photos since it’s easiest just to upload all of your travel photos and tell your friends to check them out. Wrong. Please edit your photos and store the really good ones in a separate folder and direct your viewers to that folder. Again, 20-50 is the range, with the ideal closer to twenty, unless its been a long trip with lots of really good photos and your family and friends are really gung ho!. Adding a few captions to make it a more interesting and informative experience for your viewers and will help remind you in the future of the who/what/when/where/why.
If you’re going to share your photos with a larger group – co-workers during lunch, a school class or in a public venue, then a “slide show” is the best route. There is a wide variety of software out there that lets you create your show. I tend to use either the slide show element in Adobe Lightroom or create a Powerpoint presentation. Both allow you to convert the presentation to a pdf file for ease in showing on other computers.
An audio slide show is a variation on the on the slide show/CD/Powerpoint concept. Here you actually record music and voice that accompanies the slide show. I think this technique is best when you have a short story to tell with photos rather than for your entire presentation. You can sometimes embed this within the larger presentation or show separately. A short audio slide show can also be added to your blog or website and may even be able to be sent as an e-mail attachment, depending on the program and the file size. For Windows users, Microsoft Movie Maker is built-in (downloadable if you have Windows 10) and is reasonably good and easy to use.
Scrapbooks were the rage for a while and still represent a great way of recording your memories and sharing with a couple of folks at a time. You can include photos, narrative, plane/train tickets or boarding passes, postcards, museum passes, and other two-dimensional items picked up during your journey. Be sure to include stories, caption while also aiming for brevity. My wife inherited forty years of travel scrapbooks from her mother with far too many photos and not nearly enough information as to the story behind the photos. But, still interesting to puruse.
You can also design and print your own photo book, complete with narrative. Not an inexpensive choice, but lasting and easy to share. Two of the better choices are www.blurb.com and www.magcloud.com. I’ve done photo books with both and have been very pleased with the results. My Publisher also runs lots of specials during the year, so if interested, sign up for their e-mails. The books can be shared on-line and you or your friends (or even the general public if you so desire) can also order extra copies at any time as gifts or for other purposes.
This has been a brief discussion of photo sharing techniques. It is not meant to be fully inclusive or provide lots of detail – merely to suggest various starting points for your consideration. Remember to edit and share highlights, rather than reliving the entire trip in real time!
Journey On! My final recommendation upon coming home from a vacation or journey or trip or sojourn or sabbatical or getaway is to start planning your next trip! Life’s too short not so see and experience the world. It’s only by being alongside other cultures and experiencing the Grand Canyon, the Eiffel Tower, the Great Pyramids, the Taj Mahal and Old Faithful that you can truly appreciate the wonders of the natural and built environments. And its only dancing with the Finns and Swedes at the Kaustinan Folk Music Festival and sitting around the campfire at the Pushkar Camel Fair in Rajasthan (India) and taking part in the Epiphany processions in Addis Ababa and sitting down with the family at the family grave site along Lake Atitlan in Guatemala on Day of the Dead or sharing a meal with new found friends that you can truly experience the lives and cultures of this great and diverse world. So, figure out your next trip objectives, save a few dollars and a few weeks of vacation time and Journey On!!!!