Hatred building up inside me: Tourist photography

Nowadays with Facebooks, Flickrs and Picasas it's really easy to predispose your entire social network with your vacation photos. Naturally, people wish to force feed their experiences with others, whether they asked for it or not. Don't get me wrong, vacation photos can be enjoyable to watch. However, in most cases, they are not. This is simply because people seem to have a need to take a photo of themselves at each tourist attraction. You know, a photo of themselves posing in the foreground, putting up a fake smile, while leaving the actual subject in the background.

After a while of studying this idiotic human behavior, I've reached a conclusion:
• people need to prove something
• people want to brag
• people love themselves

I would say the actual reason is a combination of all of these. People love watching themselves and to show "how good they are doing" and sure as hell want everyone to know about it.

The thing that breaks my pot is that these typical tourist photos don't serve any real cause. They are rarely good as portraits and never good as pictures of the subject.

Furthermore, I've noticed that people don't actually need to be witnessing something exciting, i.e. a tourist attraction or a beautiful landscape. Other reasons leading to photos filled with people with a stupid grin are:
• people are in front of anything
• someone finds a "funny" item, e.g. a hat
• people are drunk
• someone is taking a picture

Each given scenario ends up in a sequence of n+1 photos, where n is the number of people. The additional photo is a photo of the whole group. This leads me to the next subject.

No matter whom you're with, there's always some dipshit suggesting a group photo – the grandmother of sons of bitches of all times. It's the typical tourist photo times the number of persons in it. And naturally, you simply have to take those in front of every single rock and polar bear you come across.

The most ridiculous thing I've heard so far went something like this: "OK, the weather is really bad. Let's run fast to the waterfall, take a photo and return inside the car". Naturally, by photo they meant a group photo. A group photo of them smiling in front of a waterfall in a terrible blast, just to prove they were there. No one gave a rat's ass about the waterfall itself! Sometimes I'm wondering if people are traveling just because everyone else is.

Here are some hints on how to "untouristize" your future albums:
• Start taking pictures of the surroundings instead of taking pictures of yourself in the surroundings.
• If you're taking a photo of your friends, don't inform them. Try capturing the actual moment.
• Take group photos for a reason, not just because you can.
• Fuck Kodak moments and konichiwas.


P.S. Coming up: Erasmus – not a synonym for an exchange period.