Blog Episode 4: lessons from Norderney

 This week, I had an incredible experience in a variety of our adventures. With that said, this blog post is going to be a bit different. When we got the honor to have a lovely tour of the Bademuseum on Thursday afternoon, I expected to be impressed and possibly learn a thing or two. However, I walked away with a deep impression made upon me by a simple lesson learned that I will carry with me for the rest of my life.

In the scope of a young travelers ambitions lies objectives such as capturing their adventures and sights with the lens of a camera in a perfect aesthetic for their next post. With this mindset, our eyes often drift to the most striking or picturesque aspects of our experiences, sometimes ignoring context or those views that are perhaps not as artistically appealing. I definitely fall victim to this habit, as one of my hobbies includes creating small photo reels from events and excursions with cohesive content documenting the setting. I have attempted to take photos that more holistically capture what I’m doing or where we are at instead of just trying to get “good content”.

This gets particularly difficult in certain situations, namely, the Bademuseum. As one’s eyes naturally drift to beautiful art pieces and photos, I found myself snapping pictures of many of the advertisements and posters that were framed on the walls. Among them was one that contained some of my favorite colors, appealing beach graphics, and German words that I wasn’t familiar with. A perfect art piece addition to my Instagram album. After taking the picture, I was adjusting its rotation to orient it in the frame of the screen when I realized that the red flags that waved from the tops of the beach huts in the background boldly displayed a familiar black cross symbol circled in white. Immediately taken back I decided to edit the flags out of the photo, careful to not include the Nazi’s flag in the art I was celebrating in my posts. The edited photo was produced and, it was then that I had an important realization. Nazi flag visible or not, the poster was created to promote the Aryan ideal. Including this picture, even edited, would be an ignorant promotion of something that represents such a dark message.

The overarching message that I’m trying to emphasize that I learned is that, as travelers, students, and responsible citizens, its essential that we pay more attention to the photos that we take to post. I aspire to put forth content that I am proud of, content that represents people and movements that I support, and content that is supportive and inspiring to me and others as well. I acknowledge that I don’t need to be an expert on every piece of art that I take a picture of or know the full history of every building I stand in front of for a nice background. However, I can take the initiative to learn as much as I can and be conscious of what I am promoting while traveling.

I didn’t delete the photos, unedited and edited version. I wanted to be able to show my family and friends as reference to this realization that I’ve acquired. I’ve attached them below for you, the reader, to see as a friendly reminder to harness the same awareness in your endeavors!