Photography and Traveling

I am not sure if I am the only one with this problem, but I often struggle with documenting my travels. I am not good with journals and deciding what to take pictures of has always frustrated me. However, within the last five years I have discovered a new approach to photographing my travels. My goal is to seek out images which inspire me or capture my attention, rather than images which I think represent the location I am visiting. You know the ones, the stereotypical photographs you could easily purchase a postcard of instead of actually visiting the landmark. I have been amazed at how liberating this approach is. The pressure to capture the typical touristic image is gone and what is left is the desire to find new and exciting inspirations without worrying about relevance to location. Last year I had the chance to visit San Fransisco for a second time in my life, the first was in high school.While the pictures I took on my second trip may not represent the San Fransisco image, they do inspire me. It is through that inspiration I am able to connect to the memories of my trip. A much better outcome than those wannabe postcard images I used to strive for.