Taking photographs of the moment will stop you living in it

Over eleventy trillion photos are taken every day in the world and too many are being taken by people like you and me. Let’s face facts – we are not the most exciting people on the planet and our lives aren’t being turned into tell all memoirs that erupt into bidding wars over movie rights.

We aren’t the war zone entering, limb losing, civilisation discovering, Obama hi-fiving, golf cart jumping, snake brain eating, orgy having, mother disappointing types.

We are the having breakfast and wearing pants types. Which is why we’re travelling in the first place. To make ourselves more interesting. To come back home with scars on our skin, parasites in our intestines, our own teeth in a hanker chief and some dinner party stories that will finally trump your mate Dan’s compelling tale of “A monkey stole my Gatorade.”

This is why I think you’re wasting your time taking all these photos – literally.

Your life is draining away from you at a staggering speed. We all probably have the beginnings of what will kill us growing inside us now. You and I will be dead before we can say, “cheeeeeeeeese”. Gone. Done. Decaying. Yet, everywhere I go I see people wasting precious time with their iPhones and cameras in front of their faces or attached to selfie-sticks taking yet another boring photo, lowering the collective interestingness of the entire globe and defecating on the limited time they have left on this beautiful rock 3.

Not only that, but these time leeching photographers are forcing other people to spunk their precious time away too. By making them stand still and gurn out grin after grin while more pointless photos are taken. This is precious time that could be spent riding a scooter off-road, laughing at two dogs humping, eating a whole chilli, jumping off something into the sea, learning how to swear in a new language, dancing to the house music in a minimart, taming a sea horse, reaffirming a fear of snakes, telling lies to strangers so you can touch their wee-wee parts or cleaning sand out of your gusset after being bad-touched by a wave.

This is time you could have spent being young!

Plus you don’t need to take these photos anymore – Google Images is filled with a plethora of the photos you’re about to snap taken by people much more interesting than you or I and with much better cameras. Just wait till you get home (exhausted from having actual experiences) have a cup of tea and do some ‘click’n’drag photography’.

Here, look – I typed descriptions of the shots you’re about to take and got countless hits – use these.

 Bali Monkeys…

There are more photos of Ubud monkeys than monkeys in Ubud.

Bali Surf Lessons…

You can get good at surfing or you can get good at surf photography but not both.

Bali Love heart in sand…

I love not drawing love hearts in the sand.

Bali Sunset / Sunrise…

These happen every 12 hours or so pretty much daily. Do you have to photograph every one?

Bali Yoga…

Let you heart chakra shine and your camera flash be dark.

Bali Bar…

Do shots, don’t take them.

And, of course, Bali Herpes…

You have a little something on your… never mind.

See. Job done. But if you’re still not convinced and think you have something to offer the world by way of your camera – here is the no-holds-barred truth about your flicks.

No one actually cares

All over the world, people are cleaning the insides of their rubbish bins, writing an email to their mother, emptying the cat litter tray, looking at that weird mole on their back, putting the DVD’s back into the cases and reliving graphic and painful past traumas while sobbing into a pillow… rather than looking at your photos. The only people even considering peeking at your facebook album titled HOLIDAY PICS are insomniac meth addicts who have run out of Ambien and need to get some shut eye because they are robbing a bank in the morning. And, of course, your ex.

Every coffee in the world has that little love heart thingy in the milk froth

It’s not photo worthy anymore. It happens every time someone makes a coffee with milk in it. It doesn’t mean the coffee loves you. It doesn’t mean there’s love everywhere. It doesn’t mean you have a special eye and notice more than the rest of us. It means you paid $4.50 for coffee.

Taking photos of dirty-faced village kids is the new colonialism

Say cheese? WTF is cheese?

Your photos of local kids with dirty faces crowding around the camera smiling is not culturally rich, it’s simply new colonialism.

Instead of coming to their country with guns and mining their resources we come to their country with Canon5D’s, take photos of their kids and mine Facebook likes. Stop it. It’s gross.

Taking photos of temples is spiritual materialism for empty souled middleclass people.

Oh my 24-armed-Gods this is the oldest trick in the book. Take a photo of a temple and write a caption about togetherness. It neither makes you look interesting or like you’re on a path to personal growth. It makes you look like you wear velcro action sandals, have one dreadlock, halitosis and a couple of bad burns on your forearms from a fire-juggling accident.

Most relationships end and your photos are terrible reminders

Clearly staged and clearly featuring d-list model types.

Statistically speaking, you will break up with the person you are photographing. And when you look back at the photograph, it won’t be of a person – it will be of a shallow grave filled with the massacred hopes and dreams you once had, the relationship you thought was real and the happiness you swore would last forever.

Holiday Fashion Blindness

The thing about going on holiday is that you’re more sartorially adventurous. You’re rocking the sky blue trilby and banana print sarong. You’re wearing the shark tooth necklace and the beer brand singlet with your guns out. You have single handedly murdered your own personal style. Evidence should be destroyed, not gathered.

Polar bears are drowning

Your photographs are stored on giant servers in huge server rooms in expansive server farms. These humming concrete monsters drink electricity and that adds to global warming, melting ice caps and, eventually, makes polar bears drown. This is ironic because soon the only place you’ll be able to see a polar bear is in a photograph.

Instagram should be left for Rhianna and the children of Mexican drug lords

Every time you think about posting a photo to Instagram you should ask: Am I sexy, jetsetting, fashion muse, rockstar Rhianna or the ludicrously wealthy and nihilistic offspring of a Mexican drug cartel boss surrounded by gold guns and Lamborghinis with human skin seats? If the answer is still NO then put your phone away, Sandra.

Selfies make all people look like a deluded narcissist

Deluded Narcissists

Put down the iPhone you look lamiculous, which is a word I just invented by combining lame and ridiculous. Selfies are the lowest form of photo. They make you look misguided and vain. Unless you are taking a photo of yourself as evidence of head wounds you sustained whilst battling police in a riot that spontaneously erupted after you jumped a horse over a river to evade capture, and the locals thought you so baddass they picked up tools and, inspired by your act of rebellion, finally freed themselves from an oppressive regime – no selfies.

But if you still insist on documenting your every waking movement by taking those thrilling photos you’re so fond of – here are some tips for making them more interesting for the rest of us –in case we accidentally see some while trying to find hilarious buzzfeed lists.

Put Beyonce in them.

Bey makes every photo better. She just be like that, yo. She’s electrifying. She’s the greatest entertainer alive. Beyonce makes me wish I was gay.

Have a horrifying accident

No one is going to argue with something gruesome that ends up with a helicopter evacuation. That is some solid stuff right there. If you still have the use of your hands and eyes – you have permission to snap away. Shieeet, you can even get your selfie stick out.

Do you want to add travel insurance? Click here.

Big Foot

Discover and photograph a mythical creature/beast. These photos have a lot of traction and generate much interest. You’re basically looking for something that’s never been photographed. Try shooting someone looking at someone else’s holiday snaps.

Part man. Part barber shop floor.

Genitals

Feature gentials as much as possible. No one is ever uninterested in seeing genitals – the whole Internet can attest to this fact. Your gentials or someone else’s genitals will both work well. But yours AND someone else’s work best.

But my final advice on photographs: Don’t take them.

Leave the camera at home, stop recording everything like you’re going to forget it and instead, go live a life that you’ll remember forever.

This article was written under the influence of great coffee in the lush surroundings of Milk And Madu in Berawa.