Ship in a Bottle — Donna Hopkins

One of the frustrating elements of creating a photo book is that there will always be something you’d like to add or change AFTER the book has been sent to print. This is the nature of the work and something I accept. I’m not even sure this image would have worked in A Guidebook for Small Travels, but it sure looks like a good fit. After all, what’s more small + travel than a ship in a bottle. Turns out, it is actually quite difficult to photograph through glass in this way. There’s some kind of wavy distortion thing going on (which I will look up since I am a science nerd). But I kinda like it. It feels like a mirage or an impression of travel rather than the sharp focus of a definite destination. And maybe that’s exactly what the best travels give us . . . a change of perspective.