Tourist, Documentarian, Voyeur?

When I travel I don’t want to be a tourist, but I am not native. I carry the camera and take pictures – am I then, by definition, a voyeur? What transforms the act of observing, of capturing, from voyeurism to documentary? Thus far, I’ve uploaded the images to flickr, some hang on my walls, I’ve used them in a slideshow…but I don’t think that’s enough. I am still tourista, still the voyeur.

Or does the intent enter into the designation? What was my intent in taking the pictures?

Weaving, fair trade and possibilities

Back to the states after 10 days in Nicaragua. And now to process the experience, think through some of the ideas stirred up by what I saw and felt. Where to begin and how to order what, for now, is a disorganized mass of concepts, ideas and desires?

And so here I am, with fond hopes of typing order into the chaos. Enforcing some words and order on what lays scattered in a journal, my head, scraps and remnants and images.