Revelation on Mount Tai

Mount Tai, China

See things with your eyes, not just through the camera lens.

Admittedly, you don't have to meditate on the summit of Mount Tai for this revelation but it did come to me here. By coincidence. It should be common sense. But is it?
Taking pictures is getting easier and quicker and more and more people list "photography" as their hobby - especially travel photography. I do, I have to confess. With a digital camera you can take hundreds of photos, shoot everything if you want. So, when going to interesting places, doing interesting things you take lots of snaps to show off to friends and relatives - "check out where I've been!"
Unfortunately, the temptation is to look at something once, take a snap and turn away and move on - "I'll always have the photo to remind me." You want to go more places and then later look at the photos. But what if something happens to the precious pictures? Printed photos fade or can be lost, digital ones - well, it happened to me. Twice even. A single hard drive crash can erase hundreds - thousands - of photos. With my USB hard drive broken - for good, I have to assume for now - I know what that means. That moment more than 4000 photos went down the toilet. All that remains are memories.
So, now I hope that I really looked properly at all the places I went. I certainly try but sometimes temptation is too great to line up a shot and leave the rest to the camera. I know, from now on I'll look at everything with double attention. I still take pictures but from now on I want to make sure I don't miss a thing. As a friend said: "What's important are the memories in your head."