I don’t know about you, but whenever we travel, we invariably photograph people, their houses, their kids, or perhaps their villages. Of course, they want a copy, but it’s not like the old days when we did Polaroids and could hand one out. Even in today’s world, especially in third-world countries, not everyone has e-mail. So, what to do?

Giving someone a photograph you did is one of the nicest thank-you gifts possible if you are not using that image for commercial use.

For a number of years, Homer has given us permission to photograph in and around his man shack. It’s a very picturesque place and full of neat and funky things. He is always welcoming, and we usually see some of his buddies there basking in the late-afternoon sun and enjoying their beers. We get a kick out of chatting with them. They’re a fun group.

Every year, I’ve given Homer our card and asked him to write us so we could send him some photos. I never heard back from him, spring or summer. This has been going on for several years now.

At first, I thought he lost the cards, but each time we returned, he’d assure me he still had them. Finally, quite recently and totally out of the blue, months after our last visit, Homer e-mailed a nice note, and I put together a mini slide show for him with images from our participants and us. This photo is one that Arnie made a couple of years ago. I did get a kick out of the placement of the mermaid over the middle mullion!

As we’ve said before, one cannot go to Spain, especially Andalucia, and not visit the famed Alhambra. The Alhambra is to Spain what the Taj Mahal is to India, or la Tour Eiffel to France. They are icons that scream their country’s names.

And so, we took our group to Granada a couple of hours away. We were all struck by the amazing detail, the confectionery nature of the carvings, the surprise views out wooden-grilled windows for those erstwhile, cloistered ladies.

In one of our final stops of the day, we were photographing a famous reflecting pool. Color caught our eyes, and off to one side, two sisters and their mother, garbed in fashionable versions of traditional dress, were enjoying the sites as much as we. They spoke impeccable English; in fact, they were from London.

They kindly posed for us, and I gave one of the sisters my card and asked her to write after we returned home. Zainab did write, and I e-mailed her a nice assortment of 4″x6″ photographs of the three of them, together and individually. This is one of those I did of Zainab.

Some of you have seen Tutti Turi Tour on our YouTube site; many have seen the gallery from Sicily.

We wanted to thank Turi for the wonderful day he hosted for us, showing his Sicily and introducing us to some of his friends on Mt. Etna. The YouTube piece was one thing, but I thought he would also like his own gallery of images.

The regular Sicily gallery has photographs from all the places we visited, not just our day with Turi, so I gathered images I thought he would enjoy of our tour and posted it so he could share it with his family and friends.

He wrote back that he really enjoyed both the YouTube video and the slide show. The photograph here is one Arnie did while Turi was on the phone in his restaurant making arrangements for our outing.

On that same day, we visited Elena and her mother, Maria, high on the slopes of Mt. Etna. They prepared a sumptuous lunch for us, complete with their home-made olive oil, quite a few bottles of their very fine wine, bruschetta, freshly-baked bread, salad, grilled sausages, and various condiments. We sat around for a couple of hours, enjoying good conversation, and learning more about viticulture and their winery.

After lunch, they showed us around the old building that houses huge barrels of wine, and we made a lot of images there.

At one point, I showed Elena this photograph after she asked what I was seeing in the old door. She loved it, and I included it in a special flash gallery I put together for her family. In it, I also included many more photographs from their winery than were in the main slide show on the website.

We returned not so long ago from Belize, as some of you know from the blog series I wrote while there. We visited a number of little villages down near the Guatemalan border.

Electricity is a scarcity in this part of the world. Electric lines come into some of the larger villages, but more remote settlements must settle for solar panels if they are lucky.

Even where there is power, many people don’t have computers. They are, after all, extremely expensive, made more so by the stiff import duties.

One of our friends, Joanie, had the great idea of putting together little books as thank yous for the families who host us and share their lives with us, if even for a short period of time. We make an impression on one another, as we found out this year when people recognized us and we started talking about our fond memories of our visits with them last year.

Photographs mildew. They easily fade and disintegrate in the jungle climate, so the book idea was a great one. We all sent Joanie a selection of photographs so she could put together a nice, durable, coated booklet for each family. This was an image that Arnie did when we were visiting the Bo family and learning how to make tortillas the traditional way. With Mrs. Bo inside in the kitchen building, two of her children were doing their homework outside the house.

Waino doesn’t have e-mail, but his best friend and harbor-master, Stevie, does. Waino is always a fabulous host to us, and we really enjoy his company and listening to his wonderful view of life. He has a twinkle in his eye and a heart of gold.

We have gotten to know Waino over the years, so that we have been given permanent permission to photograph on his pier. That said, of course, we always ask permission anyway. It’s the right thing to do, and I know he appreciates it, even though he says, “You know, you don’t need to ask permission. You’re always welcome.”

We’ve been bringing our group there a number of times now, and everyone really likes him. How could one not?

Finally, we learned that Stevie had Internet access, and I asked him to e-mail me, so I could share our photos with them all. I did a flash gallery and called it Waino’s World after a spectacular sign he had made some years ago by a now, well-known artist. This was a grab-shot I did of him one day when he took us out on his boat.

We are not paparazzi. Let’s show our appreciation for the time people spend with us. Think about the people who have so generously allowed you to photograph them. There are many ways to share your images with them. E-mailing 4″ x 6″ 240-ppi, jpg/jpeg files is one way. Sending 96-ppi versions also works for those who don’t print out their photos. Making a “blind” gallery for them is a nice thank you. Taking the time to do a YouTube video is an even more appreciative way to say, “Thank you.”

Those of us who travel a lot have too much paper on the road as it is. Hand out a business card and note the date after which the people you met should contact you. It’s easy, saves you the hassle of keeping track of yet more little scraps of paper, and allows you to easily share your photographs with your subjects.

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