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.
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You do have to understand a certain point to reason about "Why?".
ReplyDeleteTypical tourists are not artists like you, me or probably most of people in your friends catalog. Actually most of the people in the world are not artists.
Now, you are in a place with something you will never ever experience again. An artist might take the shot about it and hang it on their wall, since they know how to take "art". Typical tourist does not take art, so they take memories. They might not even want "art", just a picture that will show you in 10 years how fun you had.
If they even tried to take that artistic shot, it might not even interest them, since it is just a place frozen in time. Now here we get to the point that makes the tourist-shot so personal and interesting:
They are in it.
It might look like some self-lovin' when you take a shot of yourself, but it is good for memories. What did you look like? What did you wear? Remember how that stain got to your shirt?
In simple from the view of the regular people.
Artistic shot: really bland thing i took from a place that i went. Has served me no purpose since i am not a photographer and i dont know how to make it the best picture in flickr.
Shot with me in it: Preserved memory that i will never forget. Might not serve the interests of others, but i know that i want to remember me in there after 30 years.
Groupshot: Another memory with the people i liked a lot. Boy, i wonder what happened to that guy. And she in that picture has changed a lot. Maybe i'll show this to her the next time we meet. Or maybe she would enjoy this in facebook.
Now i end this with a personal thank you to my friend Jani. Thank you for actually taking a pictures of me from time to time.
I am the photographer so i am never in any shots, i get no memories. I dont get to see what i was like when it happened.
But thanks to him, i can. Also i don't need to be a sad person for taking the shots myself.
I agree with previous comment. Typical tourist does not take art, so they take memories.
ReplyDeleteWhat is your all anger about? Just skip the tourist photos and don't look at them, but don't make people feel bad about that they like those photos and they are having fun while taking them!
What is your message with this post? Stop taking tourist photos? Stop taking photos of yourself in front of any object? Stop putting them in facebook? I guess, if you don't like those pictures, it is your problem, not others.
Now everybody has plenty of photos in their computers in digital format, some time ago, when I was 12, my home burned down and every picture was gone. Then we didn't have everything digital. I am really sad about my parents' youth photos and my birth photos. As I have this experience, I can look into the future and I think that I will be happy looking at these stupid erasmus photos when I will be 30, 40 etc. I also hope that my kids will look at those photos and say- oh, here I look like my mom! and all those silly/sweet things you can say about the photo of your relative.
And if "you are doing good" why not to show it to everybody? It is your free choice to look at that gallery, or just skip it. It is sharing with memories and if you are far away from home, you friends, relatives and parents are glad to see even stupid photo of the look through your window, or how your flat and how your other erasmus friends looks like.
Thank you for attention, stupid erasmus/tourist photo taker- Kristīne G.
Whoa, comments. I should read my own blog more often :)
ReplyDeleteBoth of you have slightly misunderstood my point. I'm not against of shooting people (gotta love English :). I'm not saying that one should only take photos of objects and try to make art. No. This has nothing to do with art. All I'm saying is that I hate posing, forced smiles, faking, bragging etc.
I guess everyone has taken at least one photo by mistake that has turned out to be a "masterpiece". Maybe the composition was unordinary or maybe the person in the photo had an expression that "looks just like him/her". The thing making it so great is that it wasn't staged or done as you wanted. Instead, it's an actual moment. And that is exactly what I'd like to see.
The whole concept of "Say cheese!" and "now everybody look at the camera" just makes me puke. That is the essence of tourist photography and the point of my rant: people are faking.
I understand that majority wants a picture of themselves in front of the Eiffel Tower. But is it really necessary to be in every other picture that you take while in France? What if you knew that no one except you could see the photos. Would you take those? If not, then you just want to brag.
I also understand group photos when there's a reason behind them. A class reunion, the first/last day in [insert place] etc. But I don't get why people are taking them every day. You don't need to have a memory of every cloth your friend had on.
Speaking of memories: When is the last time you took a picture of your friends having a fight? You wouldn't have to wonder how the stain had gotten into the shirt. You would remember that the jealous boyfriend punched the other so hard that his nose started to bleed. Now that's what I call a memory.
All I'm saying is that I'd like to see people as they are. Why not using the camera for documenting instead of just creating illusions?
I like, what Jarrko wrote! :) I can agree with some of his thoughts! :)
ReplyDeleteMarek Grisins