Holiday Photographs

What sort of photographs do you take when on holiday? Away for a week in Pembrokeshire on a family holiday recently, I thought about the pictures I was taking. They fell into three main categories. Memories, creative, and identification.

Memories are the pictures which I think of as my sharing photographs. The ones to show people some of the holiday experiences, and to preserve my own memories of the trip. I tend to take a high number of images, which I then sort through carefully to keep my favourites. The photograph below falls into a ‘memory’ category. This was taken close to the beginning of a walk along the Pembrokeshire Coast Path from Little Haven to St. Brides. The picture holds memories of the weather and the view at a particular point in time. It also reminds me of the walk in its entirety. It’s the sort of picture I could use to tell other people about the walk, without needing to add too many words.

Photographs which come into the ‘creative’ category will hold personal memories for me of the holiday, but to others, won’t have the same meaning. The photograph below falls into the creative section. It’s quite evidently a black and white image, and the silhouette is recognisable as belonging to a member of the corvid family. Beyond those observations, to others, the image holds no particular meaning in terms of my holiday.

However, to me, it recalls the rookery which stood within a few hundred metres of our accommodation. I remember the flocks of rooks which circled the woods in the morning, and again at dusk. The picture brings to mind the raucous cries high above as I walked the dogs through the rook woods. I then remember the woods. The shaded pathways, the robin which would scold us as it followed our walk, and the potted plant which – strangely – stood alone and upright by a stone wall.

The final category is identification. This usually refers to birds, other animals, and plants. On this particular walk, the identification photographs were all of birds. Technically, they’re not great pictures. I accept that, when I take them. My aim is to capture enough information to allow me to identify the wildlife later on. The photograph below shows a small bird perched on the clifftop. I’d love to have been closer to the bird, but I didn’t want to alarm it, neither did I wish to venture too close to the edge. However, there is enough detail for me to identify the bird as a female stonechat.

I’ll add another identification photograph here, as we saw so many birds on our walk. Again, not a great picture, especially as the bird is walking away from me. However, I can see the detail around the eye, the colour of the plumage, beak and legs. Add to that the fact I recall it was a sparrow type of size, and that it seemed to be finding food among the rocks and seaweed, and I have enough information to identify a rock pipit. I should probably have known this really, as the birds are seen often on the sorts of beaches I enjoy visiting. Namely quiet places with rocks, seaweed, and pools. I suspect this is one particular identification which I have been through before.

The next image falls across two categories. Memories, and identification. The birds are oystercatchers, coastal inhabitants which I enjoy watching. Their bright colours stand out against sandy beaches, and they usually travel together. I was interested to note the differences between these two though. Was it perhaps a male and a female bird? Further investigation informed me that no, these are both young birds. The one behind is from the last season, as its eye has yet to develop the red ring. The one ahead is probably from the season before last. While it has the red eye ring, it retains a black tip to the beak. On maturity, the beak will be the same bright reddish orange colour all the way along.

Holiday photographs taken as a tourist are just as precious as other pictures. They might not be technically perfect, but they remind you of time spent away. However you categorise your holiday photographs, relax, and enjoy the opportunity to photograph for yourself, creating your own memories.