I first visited the Rocky Mountain parks of Alberta in August 1983. The scenery was spectacular and the weather was pleasant. The crowds, traffic, and expensive accommodations were not so nice. Nor was my travel companion, a then-friend who was, to put it charitably, “difficult.” Since I was disappointed with the pictures I took on that trip (due to shoddy photofinishing), I decided to go back in 1992. According to my careful research, late May would be the ideal time to enjoy the scenery at its best— and to take some spectacular new pictures. Spring would be in full flower, with mild weather but without the tourist throng. So I planned a two-week solo trip and bought an appropriate quantity of Fujichrome RD100 slide film.

It didn’t turn out according to the books. As the plane descended into Calgary, the pilot announced the weather: One degree and snow! I was sitting next to two teenage girls from Edmonton. When they saw the horrified look on my face they giggled, and then reminded me that it’s one degree Celsius. Gee, thanks. As a Southern California native I had no experience with snow. And now I had to drive in it for the first time, on a freeway at 110 km/h.

My rental car accumulated 18 centimeters of snow that night. I know that because the owner of the motel measured the pile before helping me remove it. He said that was more snow than they got in January and February. Thus began a smorgasbord of what everyone apologetically assured me was unusual weather. Days of continuous heavy rain were interspersed with gray slushy snow. Fog persistently shrouded the mountains. The glacial lakes that weren’t filled with muddy slush and dead fallen trees were covered with ice. And against all of this was a leaden backdrop of elephant-gray overcast.

I won’t call the trip a disaster. I didn’t get sick or injured, and I didn’t crash the car. But I wasn’t having a good time. It did not help that the area is renowned for world-class scenery rather than for indoor activities a solo traveller might enjoy. I even called the airline about the possibility of going home early. When they told me this would cost over $600, I decided to stick to my itinerary. I caught glimpses of the scenery hiding behind the fog and raindrops, talked to some friendly Canadians, ate some nice meals in restaurants by myself, and counted the days until I could come home.

I did manage to take a few rather nice pictures during the moments of sunshine between acts in the Alberta Meteorology Variety Show. You can see them on the Canadian Rockies page. One of them, Patricia Lake, is typical of what I had to deal with. I was staying in a cabin on the lake, near Jasper. It was raining when I went to bed, with a forecast of continued rain. Sunshine streaming through the window woke me up early. I threw on some clothes, grabbed the camera and tripod, and walked a few steps toward the lake, which I had previously only seen covered in dreary fog. There I found a tranquil composition with very nice light. When I said “moments of sunshine” I meant that literally. Ten minutes after I took the picture the sky had turned completely gray. After half an hour it was raining.

Let me contrast that trip with one I took to Québec in early September 1996. Once more the Canadian weather ignored the books. It was rainy, overcast, and unseasonably cold the whole time, except for one nice day in Québec City. Could I perhaps have inadvertently offended some Spirit of the Great White North?

This time I was travelling with a good friend who then lived in St. Louis. We flew separately to Montréal. When I met him there, he greeted me with “I’m getting a cold.” By the next day he was feeling miserable. As soon as he started to get better, I started to get sick. The whole trip was soggy, cold, and sickly for both of us. But looking back on it, I had a good time and pleasant memories. Going with a friend (one who isn’t “difficult,” that is) makes all the difference, even with a viral stowaway. Had I been alone, I probably would have been miserable. I have only seven pictures of very photogenic Québec City on my Web page because, during the whole eight-day trip, there was only one day that wasn’t rainy or heavily overcast. That was also the only day I took any pictures.

Lessons:

1. Respect Murphy, since his Law governs the Universe. No matter how much research you might do about when to go somewhere, the inherent unpredictability of Nature means it sometimes doesn’t behave according to statistical averages.

2. Check the weather for a few days before leaving on an “outdoor” trip, particularly if you’re going alone and/or in the off-season. If it’s anomalous, think about canceling. By “anomalous” I mean truly unusual, such as once-in-a-century flooding or persistent snowfall in June when it’s normally all gone by April. Given the notorious imprecision of meteorology, a mere forecast of rain or overcast is not a reason to cancel.

   You’ll possibly have to forfeit a lot of money if you have a non-refundable airline ticket. As airlines continue to lose money, they are tightening restrictions on leisure fare tickets; you may not be able to change your itinerary or apply what you paid to a future flight. But forfeiting the ticket might be better than spending even more money on car rental and lodging for a disappointing (or worse) trip. You might decide to go anyway, since it’s always possible that the weather will change. Or you could adjust your itinerary to spend time in a nearby city with indoor attractions. At least you won’t panic when the pilot announces that it’s snowing.

3. If it’s at all feasible, travel with a compatible friend, relative, spouse, or “significant other.” (No, a laptop computer or PDA does not qualify.) Solo travel can be interesting, rewarding, and even fulfilling. But the trips on which I look back most fondly are not the ones I’ve taken alone. Sharing driving and meals, or merely having someone to talk to, can mitigate the inevitable hassles of travel, and alleviate the tedium of a long drive, congested traffic, or the wait for sunshine between storm fronts. Of course, it is better to travel alone than with someone “difficult.” And if no compatible companion is available, it’s usually better to travel alone to somewhere interesting than to stay home alone (but don’t overlook the travel possibilities in or near your home town).

4. If you do travel alone, especially in the off-season, expect and plan for at least some “down time” due to bad weather or fatigue. If you’re gregarious, you might seek out hostels, bars, or other places where other travellers or local folks congregate. If you’re not gregarious, bring plenty of those books you’ve been wanting to read. Or practice being gregarious. With the proper attitude, the “down time” can prove valuable, even if it’s only a respite from the routine at home.

5. Possibly the worst part of traveling alone is eating in restaurants. Travel writers seem to believe this only bothers women, but I think men are just afraid of admitting to it. I doubt anyone is truly comfortable. The best way I’ve found to reduce the discomfort is to Arrive at Five. Get to your chosen restaurant at 5 p.m. (or whenever they first open the doors— it will be much later in France, for example). The place won’t be crowded, which means they’ll be more interested in serving you and you won’t have an uncomfortable wait. Alternatively, stop at a supermarket for a picnic dinner and eat lunch “out.” That’s usually cheaper, and for some reason I find eating lunch alone less much uncomfortable than dinner. If you’re a photographer, mid-day (with its useless light) is the appropriate time to relax and enjoy a meal.

   Even better is to stay in a hotel or motel with a kitchenette (or at least a refrigerator). This gives you the option of preparing some of your own meals, or at least having a picnic in your room if you’re tired. Besides reducing the restaurant problem you’ll save money and calories, especially if you’re in an area not noted for fine dining. If you’re a photographer, you can fully enjoy the late-afternoon “golden hours” without the prospect of a long wait in a crowded restaurant when you’re done. Wait for the inevitable overcast, foggy day to treat yourself to a 5 p.m. solo dinner.

6. If you are caught in unremitting bad weather, or if any other genuine problem prevents you from enjoying your trip, think about cutting your losses and going home. If you fly, airline fare structures make this a very difficult decision. You might have to throw away the return portion of your discounted nonrefundable round-trip ticket and buy a new one-way ticket at a stratospheric fare intended for business travelers with deep corporate pockets, and then endure a “secondary screening” from the TSA at the airport if you’re in the United States. But if you are truly miserable, lonely, soggy, or whatever, and you can see no way to salvage a trip, that $600 (or more) ticket home may be money well spent, even if you have to pay it off at a 25% credit card interest rate. Before you decide on this drastic solution, take some time to consider all the other options. Having a list of options in front of you can itself make things better. You might be very pleasantly surprised at what you come up with.

When I revisited the disappointing pictures I took on my 1983 trip to Alberta, I realized that much of the disappointment was from the original set of prints. Dull, flat, greenish, and slightly unsharp, they looked like they came from underexposed or heat-damaged negatives.

I had used the “premium” service of one of America’s largest wholesale photo labs, a company that disappeared many mergers ago. In addition to the extra cost of “Prestige” 10x15cm prints, the lab socked me with a surprise “400 ASA Surcharge” because I was using Kodak’s then-new VR 200 and 400 films (ancestors of today’s Gold and MAX Versatility). When I complained, they told me it covered the extra cost of resetting their machines to print the new films correctly. (That was a marginally plausible justification for this bit of film flimflam. Printing machines back then actually did require operators to select “channels” manually for each film type, a process that took around 15 seconds. Today’s computerized printing machines automatically adjust themselves to different types of film, but that still doesn’t guarantee good results.) Having paid for all this “special” service, I assumed that heat, airport x-rays, or perhaps gremlins must have damaged the film. So I threw everything in a box and hid it away in a closet.

Sixteen years later, when I was starting to put my Web site together, I took out those pictures. The prints, on unidentifiable paper— Kodak, Fuji, and Agfa put watermarks on the back of their papers— were as dull as ever, and had started to turn yellowish green. But the negatives under a magnifier looked better than the prints would suggest. So I tried scanning some of them. The scans were sharp and had accurate, nicely saturated color. It was a pleasant surprise to find some nice pictures hidden for all those years behind bad (and overpriced) photofinishing.

The only real change in the last quarter-century is that photo lab equipment has become much more automated, much smaller, and much less expensive. “One hour” mini-labs have thus proliferated like toadstools, so the local supermarket, drugstore, or bowling alley(!) can provide shoddy prints made right on the premises instead of at a distant wholesale lab. The ongoing transition to digital cameras means those mini-labs will be able to make prints from memory cards that are just as bad as from film. (But if you’re careful about post-processing your digital images, and you use standard profiled sRGB copies of the files, self-service kiosks can produce surprisingly good prints.)

Lessons:

1. Always examine your prints before you pay for them. Take your time and look at them carefully. A reputable mini-lab or camera store should let you do this. If any prints have unsatisfactory exposure or color, or if the entire roll is unsharp, demand immediately that they redo the prints. If they won’t do this, pay for the order, leave, and don’t ever darken their doorstep again. And tell your friends about the shoddy work.

2. With photofinishing, you don’t always get what you pay for. Some large wholesale labs offer “professional” or “premium” service at a higher price. Usually this means larger prints. Or the prints might come back in a fancy plastic “wallet” instead of a paper envelope. The actual printing may be no better than what you’d normally get— the “premium” really refers to the lab’s profit.

3. Before you bring in any film, ask what brand of paper a lab uses. If they tell you it’s Kodak or Fuji, you stand a somewhat better chance of getting decent prints. Paper from these companies is better and more expensive than that of other makers. If they’re willing to buy more expensive paper, it may indicate that they’re interested in quality rather than cutting corners. But even the best paper will only produce good prints in competent and careful hands.

Photofinishing in the United States is too often deplorable. That’s possibly because people don’t seem to care about the quality of a lab, as long as it’s quick and convenient. If they get a recognizable picture of their precious child to put on the refrigerator or send to Grandpa, it doesn’t matter that her angelic little face is ruddy magenta, or that the sunny backyard looks like the middle of a snowstorm. If customers keep coming back despite shoddy work, a lab owner may well feel justified in cutting corners to increase profits. Use the cheapest paper, hire the cheapest workers, don’t replenish the chemicals, and stuff pictures into the envelope without even looking at them. I suspect the amount of time most Americans spend watching television on improperly adjusted sets may make them tolerant of bad color printing.

When people show me their pictures I often can’t help pointing out bad color, bad exposure, or some other obvious (to me) printing faults. They’re usually genuinely surprised because they never noticed any of it before. Sometimes I’ll ask to look at the negatives so I can assure them that nothing is wrong with their camera. Conversely, if I see a good set of prints I’ll always ask what lab they used.

There are many labs that do decent work but charge no more than the labs that cut corners. It isn’t always easy to find them. In particular, paying a high price is no guarantee of good prints. Even if you do find one, it may go out of business or get bought out, or the owner may get greedy and start cutting corners. The only way to I know to find a good lab is to ask other people— which will more likely identify labs to avoid. Bring in a test roll or two before entrusting important or irreplaceable pictures to any lab.