So yesterday we went to the Vanderbilt Mansion in Hyde Park, New York. They had undergone a renovation over the past few years since we were there last and decided a holiday weekend was a good time to go check it out.

This particular Vanderbilt mansion is one of forty built by the family during the Gilded Age, the smallest of the lot, with only 40 rooms. Otherwise, it certainly fits the image of the Gilded Age with heavily decorated rooms, murals on the ceilings, antiques galore, and whole rooms dismantled from struggling European castles and chateaus and move moved to their homes.

I take a lot of pictures when I visit places like this. I am kind of a camera bug anyway, so I am sure no one is surprised. I came home with about 300 shots yesterday. It will take a while to go through them all. But I noticed one thing that I probably should have noticed earlier about myself.

When I go to touristy places, be it a Gilded Age mansion, Disney World, or one of the great cities of Europe, I take relatively few shots of the things that make that place famous. No, I take pictures of the corners and byways, the intimate places, the quiet places.

Those are the places that draw me, I suppose. I am more interested in the little corners where people gather for a one-on-one conversation, or where they might go to get away from the crowds. It appears that, even in my photography, I am an introvert.

I don’t know how I missed this about myself, but as I went back through twenty years of photographs, I realized how true it is. Those places, and what they represent, intimacy, quiet, and peace are what I seek in life. Is it possible to even SEE as an introvert? Apparently so.

And so there you go. A new realization of an old guy, 66 years in. You’re never too old to learn. Even about yourself.

Be well. Travel wisely. Take a look at what you see, and why. It could be interesting.

Tom