I am fortunate to have been able to travel and, as a photographer, it was natural to take my camera with me. I came to realize, however, that I was concentrating, not on seeing the world, but on trying to find interesting images of the famous monuments and places I was visiting. I was looking at the pictures when I returned home, instead of experiencing the physical things in front of me at the time.

This was driven home one morning in the Louvre as I was admiring the Venus de Milo and I looked down the long corridor at the crowds streaming toward it. People who were still great distances away were pulling out their cameras and taking a picture, glancing at a great work of art and then moving on to capture their next trophy. I realized that I had been doing much the same thing.

I resolved to try to 'be here now' when I traveled and attempt to truly see the world, not just look at it through the camera.

It was then I started noticing the interesting things that tourists do when they travel. I'm not normally comfortable photographing people - I tend to prefer inanimate objects - but I found a lot of humour in observing how people act when they are not on their home terrain.

I travel with the most minimal of equipment: a small, fixed-lens 35mm rangefinder camera loaded with (gasp) black and white film. It allows quick and quiet photography. Prints are made on traditional silver gelatin papers, archivally processed and toned.