Brief Pictorial Essay (Part One)

June 14, 2012

Brief Pictorial Essay (Part One)

Harvey Golub, former CEO of American Express, once said in a town hall meeting to fellow employees, "Perfection is the enemy of good". Each time I find myself attempting to put out the perfect project, the best creative endeavor 'du jour, I try to recall those words I heard him say in the late 90's.

I started this Blog without an outline, or a plan. Since the first posting, I have floated many ideas in my mind. I have practically envisioned an entire sequence of posts. A bit much for a newbie. To keep a reader's attention, there needs to be activity. I have been lapse in that area, and want to start with letting you know what you have to look forward to if you decide to stick around.

You know an interest in travel runs in my family, I've covered that topic. I share my passion for travel with my sister, who has spent her lifetime working in the travel industry. Her travels are extensive, and impressive as well. She can write her own Blog.

What I wish to do is get on with the task of sharing my travel stories, and photos with you. The challenge has been gathering the photos from the pre-digital era. There are also quite a few destinations for which I have no photographs, but only memories. When I go to write about a particular experience, I had hoped to have some type of artwork to display. Alas, the perfectionism coming out in me. Well the imagery will simply have to be in the words, unless I find something.

My rough outline, which I have now formulated (I knew unstructured wasn't going to last very long for me), is going to be a chronological perspective of my traveling adventures. I'll spare you mundane tales of family reunions, and holiday vacations to Florida. This Blog will focus on the more adventurous aspects of my travel life, i.e. separating from my group at the age of 16 with my Eurailpass to head off to Switzerland leaving them behind on the French Riviera. This was when I learned the first lesson of how effective it is to apologize afterwards, as opposed to asking for permission first. If you do not believe I did this, both my mother, and the group leader can attest to the fact I did. Not only did I do this, but I did it twice. The second time resulted in a police search party looking for me in Venice. My apologies to the group leader if she is reading this. It was all a misunderstanding of course, (between a 16 year old group participant, and a 25 year old group leader), right?

What I have for you now is a collection of photographs, each one a single representation from a country, or territory I have visited. This is Part One, because I still have quite a few photographs to scan. For those destinations which I have no photographs I will need to come up with some other type of artwork to use as a marker. For now, I give you twenty-five views of the world through my eyes. Many are pictures of people, as opposed to monuments, or city streets. As I mentioned, I am drawn to travel for the connection with people, and their cultures, as opposed to just the destination. For me, I will say it over, and over again, the journey is the destination!

Enjoy!