External stimuli

I’ll admit it, I’m easily influenced when it comes to locations – take ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ for example – that last shot of Rey finding Luke on Ach-to? That led to a week’s holiday in the west coast of Ireland and boat trip to Skellig Michael.  I also visited the ridiculously photogenic Puzzlewood after learning that it was used in the same film, and a ridiculous number of other movies and TV productions.

The trailer and title of the last of the final Star Wars trilogy ‘Rise of Skywalker’ was presented at Star Wars Celebration Chicago in April this year. The opening scene is a fantastic shot of Rey in the desert. It was a great relief to my bank balance when it was confirmed as a location in Jordan. Now that’s somewhere I have already been to, I visited Wadi Rum as well as Amman, Jerash and Aqaba part of a tour I did of Jordan and Egypt back in 2004.

Wadi Rum has been used a many times in feature films, often doubling as an alien planet such as Mars in ‘The Martian’ and also Jeddha in ‘Rogue One – A Star Wars story’. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wadi_Rum I’d happily go back there though – I went in the pre digital camera era – I had a good old practical film camera – which took 27 or 36 pictures per film! Today it’s no exaggeration to say I can take literally hundred in one day – I can’t imagine now just taking one or two a day. That’s all you could take though, and I don’t remember feeling deprived that I couldn’t take a picture of everything.

I’ve just checked my album for that Jordan/Egypt trip – 78 pictures over I think would have been 12 days…wow! Here’s all the ones I took ‘on location’ – all 6 of them –  and I did know it was film location back then – ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ was most definitely in my mind when I visited. The quality is fine for the time but looks rather grainy compared to more modern digital cameras.

I do feel that we now take pictures of things without truly looking. I used to work in an art gallery and often people would wander the rooms taking pictures of the art. Presumable to enjoy later or show friends. With most public art on the internet now, why bother taking pictures? Who are you going to show them to?

A few years ago, I took an organised tour around Morocco and one member of our group was travelling on his own didn’t take a single picture – nothing, nada, zilch, not even a quick pic on his phone. Now I remember thinking that was odd, as did everyone else on the trip – but when you actually think about it, honestly – how often do people actually go back and look at their albums – especially now when most pictures never leave the confines of a phone of memory card? Did he have the right mind-set – is it best to just look?

Of course, if you’re seeking out locations used in film and television – not taking any images would be in a way be rather hypocritical. Plus you’d lose out on the bragging rights…

So, I think a happy compromise is best, look more with the eyes but even then, I know I’ll easily take a couple of hundred pictures in a day. But I’ll put a heavily edited highlight set for friends and family on Facebook. The rest will probably linger on my laptop or get saved to a CD or external hard drive. A few at most will get physically printed, which is mainly due to cost and laziness, and honestly lack of storage space.