A Shot in the Dark - or - The Odd Couple

People who meet us sometimes remark that Penelope and I are an odd couple.
"I would never have put you guys together. How did you two hook up?"

How indeed?

Just before a trip to Vietnam, close friends threw me a farewell party. A mutual friend brought Penelope to the party and we started chatting. She confided in me her fantasies of traveling (Koalas are not, by nature, big travellers) and how she wished she could join me.

At the time, I spent a few minutes pondering the possibility of Penelope joining me. There could be some benefit to me, too.

I love taking photos when I travel but the same photos have usually been taken by professionals and sold as postcards. So why not just buy postcards and save myself all the trouble? The answer is, of course, that my photos have meaning if I am in them. But for that to happen I need a friend who can take the shot.

I agreed for Penelope to join me, provided she learned to photograph me. Our relationship, all in all, has worked out quite well. At first she was not quite proficient with the camera, but I knew it was important to be patient. A few days before we flew out to China I purchased a large DSLR camera with a very a heavy zoom lens. It's not so easy for a young female koala to manipulate such heavy equipment. (Don't get me wrong, it's even more difficult for male Koalas). But despite her fragile appearance, Penelope proved that she is made of tough stuff. I have been quite impressed with her skills, which are improving all the time. In addition it has been great to have a travel partner, someone with whom I can share all these amazing experiences.

Penelope has proven to be quite a model herself. She is extremely gregarious and gets on with most people we meet, always managing to elicit a smile. And truth be told, she relishes modelling for me. (It has occurred a couple of times that I woke in the middle of the night to find both Penelope and the camera missing. On both occasions the bathroom door was closed with a crack of light shining through underneath. And I knew that she was in there, admiring the shots I took of her that day. Is it because of something that happened during her childhood that she needs a confidence boost? Has it to do with a certain element of female vanity? Or maybe it's just the sort of thing that koalas do? Whatever the case, I am not fussed. As long as she's having a good time and I get my pictures).

It has worked out particularly well on this trip, considering the way the Chinese locals take pictures. They just LOVE taking photographs of themselves everywhere. And every tourist site we visit, there they are, taking pictures of each other. But here's the rub; one gets the impression that many of them are not so bothered by background. So at every temple, at every mountain, at every Kung Fu show, at every grand building, I have seen someone posing in front of a wall to have their photo taken. A blank wall. Sometimes a retaining wall, sometimes a city wall, sometimes a concrete wall next to the ticket office. God only knows how they sort out their photos and show them to friends. "We went to the most beautiful place with stunning waterfalls - look, here is a picture of me next a wall. And then later on we took a taxi to see this gorgeous palace. The artwork were so intricate, the colours so amazing. Look, look at this! I got a photo of me next to a wall outside the palace!"

More than once I have spotted a man taking photographs of his family, looking through the camera with the lens pointed backwards at his nose. As the family stood smiling, and the photographer tried to work out this new fangled technology, I grabbed his camera and turned it around for him. The entire family thanked me. "Xie xie" they say. And I wave them off with a smile: "Pu Ka Chi", you're welcome.

This local photographic expertise does not bode well when I want someone to photograph me and P.  To avoid these problems I also carry a small automatic camera. I can simply hand it to any random passerby who then just needs to point and shoot. (In some countries, they call this a PHD camera - "Push Here Dummy". Not so in China). As I stand back, posing with Penelope by a famous statue, they look for a digital screen behind the camera, expecting an image. Unfortunately my PHD camera is an early model with viewfinder only. "No, no, look through the eyepiece" I explain. Dutifully, they hold the camera in front of them at arm's length, one eye closed, trying to look through the eyepiece from a distance. "No, no, hold the camera up to your face and look through the eyepiece". Eventually they realise what's going on and, like everyone in China, they begin to count down. "San, Er, Yi" (3, 2, 1). And then, instead of pressing the shutter button, they press the on/off switch. An electronic sound ensues and the lens retracts back into the camera as it switches off. And with Penelope losing patience, I simply tell them thank you and move on.

It has happened that locals have actually succeeded in taking a photo of me. But in all the time I have been here, almost never has a photograph of me been in focus (quite a feat when using an auto focus camera). And when it is, half my head has been chopped off.

Having said that, I won't pretend that my experiences with western tourists have been that much better. It's just that compared to all the Chinese, there are so few of them to ask.

At one stage, P and I took to hiding behind trees, waiting until a tourist (Chinese or otherwise) holding a big fancy looking camera came by, in the hope that they would know how to take a good photo. But, you know, that just felt silly.

All this goes to explain why Penelope and I have made such a great team, and why you'll seldom ever see photographs of the young lady and me together.

Penelope thinks I'm being too harsh in my comments. There are lots of good Chinese photographers she says and of course that is true. It's just so strange that I have rarely bumped into one.