My travels are specific. A focus on my own country with the western states as a priority. Rarely traveling east of Wyoming for any extended period of time. This of course is under the assumption that any travel takes place during vacations almost exclusively. Like most, travel presents an opportunity for photographs outside my known area with a familiarity that presents itself through nearly all locations. This assumed structure of a landscape is poised opposite the tourist looking off at a designated viewpoint. Though this is not to say the images of popular destinations are ignored; yet when I've returned home and am able to sift through what I've captured, it's the vacation images, the reproductions of every other image taken at those spots that are the first to be discarded.
But of images not thrown away, and instead kept for purposes not yet defined, the subjects themselves are not always known to either the self or the viewer, and the delineation between what is kept and what is left falls instead on color and composition - not clearly defined though seemingly understood within the photograph itself. These choices dictate that the image often is not one of clear importance; rather, ordinary scenes that fall between the cracks of well defined landscapes often relegated to our sub-conscious and ignored with no animosity or intent. Any action that is to be taken on our part must be proactive, through that, we see then photos that become embodied through their ability to showcase (that is, remind) the viewer of what they often ignore.
It's through this action that we can begin to understand the images and what they may represent. This is why I find myself drawn to the living areas within the urban core. My home resides in this space, it's what I understand and am able to best represent, not as 'new', but as a retelling of what has always existed. And through this perspective is where the specificity in my travel is born, that I am content with the known and expected existence of a type of space within a given landscape