The Photographer’s Holiday Dilemma: Big Camera or Leave It?

Every year, the same dilemma. Do I pack the big camera?

On one hand, holidays are when you travel somewhere new, see interesting things, and have the time to actually look at them properly — arguably the ideal conditions for photography. On the other hand, the moment a camera comes out, part of my brain goes into work mode. I start thinking about light, composition, whether a shot is actually good or just a record. The holiday starts to feel like a busman’s holiday.

Then there’s the question of what happens to the images when I get back. Client work gets edited, refined, delivered. Personal holiday photography tends to land in a folder and stay there.

Where Instagram actually helps

My current approach is to leave the big camera at home and shoot on the phone. Instagram specifically has changed this for me — it gives personal photography a natural home and a natural endpoint. You take a shot, apply a quick treatment, share it, and move on. You’re not trying to make it into anything more than it is.

What used to take an afternoon in a darkroom — cross-processing, push processing, grain effects — can now happen in a few taps. The quality is different, obviously. But for personal photography on holiday, immediacy and simplicity are exactly what you want.

The value of switching off

There’s something useful, actually, in leaving the professional toolkit behind occasionally. You notice things differently when you’re not trying to make a great photograph — just observing, being present, seeing rather than composing. It feeds back into the work in ways that are hard to quantify but genuinely real.

The shots above are from a recent trip. Phone camera, no planning, no second chances. A different kind of photography — and a different kind of pleasure.

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Related reading: Personal Work: Portraits, a Motorbike and a Lot of Doors.