If there’s one thing I can’t suggest enough, it’s to remember to enjoy the experience. No matter where you go and what you do, this is what will stay with you. Your thoughts, feelings and sights, this is what YOU will remember. A photograph will only be able to capture a moment that you can share and try to portray, but only you will have the true experience.
Take it from me for example. My first time to Nepal was truly amazing. So many different sights, sounds and smells, so much to take in and savour. It really is a wonderful and colourful place with mountain views akin to nowhere else. If you’ve never been, you really should put it on your bucket list.
I was out there to hike to Everest Base Camp. I have no interest in getting to the summit of Everest itself. I’m just more than happy to see Everest with my own eyes and enjoy the surrounding Himalayan atmosphere. Yet the journey to it in itself is pretty epic.
Lukla airport, or as it now known the Tenzing-Hillary airport, is renowned for being the most dangerous airport in the world. Multiple incidents have happened over the years. The runway itself sits on a slope that only specially trained pilots can land on with a stone wall lying at the very end. It’s pretty spectacular watching planes come in and out of it, but actually landing on it is something I have never experienced before. This is the only way in and out unless you fancy a multi day hike in from Kathmandu.
You can see Everest from the air on the way in to Lukla among many of the other surrounding peaks. It’s pretty epic I must admit. The descent into Lukla however is a descent like not other. At the time I was pretty fixated on trying to capture the journey as I wanted to make a little documentary of the whole trip. The runway was in my sights. I had a great view down the line of the airplane, into the cockpit and through the windows with the runway square in the centre. I couldn’t have asked for a better shot.
Yet it wasn’t until a couple of minutes before touchdown, that I realised there and then that I should really be enjoying the moment, rather than trying to capture it. This may be the only time I could enjoy this moment, yet I was adamant that I really wanted to capture the shot, and so disregarded this thought and kept on filming. It wasn’t until after we had touched down and landed safely that I realised I should have really taken it all in and enjoyed the descent. After all, not many people can say they have landed at the most dangerous airport in the world!
But this notion of enjoying the moment, has since carried on with me. I am much more acutely aware of myself and my surroundings when I’m in a unique situation that I may not be able to encounter again. I make sure to take some time out, even if it’s just for a minute, and enjoy the moment for what it is rather than to continually try and capture it instead. It’s a bit like the scene from ‘The Secret Life of Walter Mitty’, where the photographer pauses for a minute to enjoy the moment, to take it in and savour it, before taking a photo.
The same could be said about many other events that take place. It’s common places these days to see so many people with their phones out trying to record whatever it is they’re seeing. I get that you’d want to record a potion of it for posterity, show friends and family and relive a memory. But life is for living after all, not recording.