In thinking about the reasons why we travel, it strikes me how different our reasons for travel are today versus in the past. We travel mostly for work or for pleasure these days. As a result, our scope of thinking about travel has narrowed. The noble quest that consumed months or years of one’s life has become more of a vagabond’s wanderings. The pilgrimage that cost us more than just the extended time of being on the road has been reduced to a one to two week missions trip or volunteer vacation.
So just as I was thinking that we’ve lost the “bigness” of travel, the epic or heroic nature of it, I came across this short blog post on Spain-based photographer Alejandro Ferrer Ruiz’s exquisite macro (close-up) photography. In this case, it’s a visual essay on ladybugs in the rain.
These beautiful images remind me, once again, that beauty and wonder and discovery are all about us. We don’t always have to go far or even go “big.” Sometimes much of what we travel for lies in the small revelations that are ours to experience if we have but eyes (or in this case, the photographic lens!) to see them.
I don’t want to give up on the big quests. I think we need such journeys to pull us out of ourselves and become more than we are currently. But those big trips tend to be few and far between. In the meantime, we can learn to see – and appreciate – the small journeys available right where we live.
You can view more of Alejandro’s close-up work here: http://500px.com/Aleandro