I forgot my camera when I made my roadtrip to Moab this last weekend--but that's alright, because I'm reading Sontag's "On Photography" right now, and she reminded me of what I've long suspected: that photographs, far from capturing the moment, actually have the effect of alienating you from your subject.
To photograph something is to be separate from it, not participate with it. What's more, the photograph tends to supplant the original memory--you begin to remember the photo better than the subject itself. But now Delicate Arch is etched into my memory, not into a some facebook tag--I experienced the arch for what it was, in the moment, and not for how it could show me off later.
Driving through Arches, I felt like I as in the alien realm of Spaceman Spiff in "Calvin and Hobbes." Bill Watterson actually said that he modeled the alien landscapes of Spaceman Spiff on southern Utah. I now see that Watterson had specifically used Arches Natl. Park for his inspiration. This alien world wasn't alien at all: it was a visit to my childhood.
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