I think there’s a whale in that photo somewhere. That black dot. That’s it. Frankly, that photo doesn’t capture the moment well at all. Pretty much none of my photos from a recent vacation do.

It’s why sitting through someone’s vacation slides has become shorthand for “bored out of your mind” no matter what Don Draper says.

I was showing my pics to an – admittedly game – friend the other day on my phone. “Well, this doesn’t really do it justice,” I kept saying as I flipped between them. “Sorry.”

A 4.7-inch screen just doesn’t show the scale of a mountaintop sunrise, a mile above the clouds with a sprawling 12-mile-wide volcanic crater below.

“That cliff is about 100 feet tall,” I’d say, showing a photo of a waterfall that looked more like a backyard koi pond.

“And those breakers are 25 to 30 feet tall,” I’d say, trying to clarify that they may look like ripples but they really are huge waves.

I recently saw a stat that more photos are taken in a month than in the entire first 100 years of photography. About a trillion this year. At best photos are poor synecdoche our experiences.

The general unworthiness of photos first hit me a few years ago during what could only be called a once-in-a-lifetime experience for a dorky civilian like me. I was on the deck of the aircraft carrier Eisenhower about 10 yards from F/A Hornets blasting off.

It’s impossible really to fully describe it, the jet fuel smell, the noise, the crew rushing around, the facefull of afterburner blast that could melt paint off a car. And hanging over it all was the feeling that if anything went wrong, chances of survival were somewhere around zero.

I realized I was mainly concerned with getting video. I would never get to experience this exact moment again, so I put my camera away and watched.

I have video of the scene, but as video of carrier takeoffs goes, it’s not all that good. At max, it proves I was there.

I find myself putting away my camera a lot. Passengers on my whale-watching trip rushed from railing to railing to shoot pics, but I stood on the bow enjoying a warm breeze and tropical blue water while whales repeatedly breached and slapped their tails.

I shot subpar video of the Nakalele Blowhole but I spent most my time watching it explode in a column of spray over and over. Top tip: Stand upwind or you end up with blowhole all over you. That, or bring a towel.

Red Sand Beach in Hana is the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen. The sheer cliffs, the rainforest, the red sand, the natural breakwater. I arrived at the golden hour and it was simply breathtaking. My photos of it are terrible.

That’s why I don’t vacation through a viewfinder.

Great moments are here and evaporate. Best to enjoy them and let them go.