I used to volunteer at a heritage railway in Northern Ireland. We had several old restored trains and we went to great lengths to make the station areas look authentically old. Naturally photographers loved it.
Most photographers were Okay and respected the rules, but some some just refused and couldn't handle being called out. For example one rule was do not get in train cabs, unless by prior arrangement - which involved doing a safety briefing etc. Still some photographers just did their own thing. Some would jump on to the footplates of in service steam locomotives to get their shot, that was dangerous but they didn't care. I was driving a diesel railcar and had a passenger bang on the cab door so he could take shots from within the cab. He kept banging for about 10 minutes until we got back to the station and was then had a go at me for refusing him access.
Another strict rule was no tripods on the platforms. It was dangerous as they created a tripping hazard and just ruined the atmosphere for other visitors. But come a sunny day or special event the forest of tripods would be out in force.
And the worst of all was the ones who would walk off the end of platforms and setup alongside the railway line. Most wouldn't even bother to wear a hi-viz vest either. Completely dangerous, but they didn't care they just wanted their special shot.
These weren't just our rules, many were in place because of laws and insurance requirements. We didn't want accidents, nor did we want a few visitors to ruin the atmosphere for others. But when we called called out such people we often got abuse, which would then be followed up by long rants about how unaccommodating we were in various photography and railway forums.
The thing is we would allow photographers to access cabs, use tripods and go alongside the line - so long as they arranged it with us first. And during special events we would often have an hour set aside specifically for photographers to go to town. But for some that wasn't enough.
For a lot of heritage railways in the UK and Ireland the misbehavior of some photographers has got so bad they have a blanket ban on cameras with remediable lenses.
I don’t really get it. I studied film and therefore had to talk to many places about permissions (often without beeing able to pay any compensation) – usually just asking nicely and explaining whatbyou want can get you a long way. Sometimes people will even come on their day off and help you out.
This is about mutual respect: if anyone takes the time and effort to open a place for people with cameras, if what you want disrupts their usual flow, the least you should do is ask for permission.
I was talking to a bus driver recently who said someone had lost their card and demanded rudely the driver let him on anyway. The driver said words to the effect of, please be polite and I will. The guy said he wasn't going to be polite. So he didn't get his ride.
I did a lot of street photography, when I lived and worked in the downtown core of a major city. I still do whenever I can, making road trips to a nearby major city from my home in a minor one. I think it's the most difficult photographic genre to do well. On the one hand, a good street photographer is trying to document peoples' natural public lives - observing, but not interfering. On the other hand, it's rather invasive to single out a living subject in a photograph without their permission, even if the subject is in clear view in public.
Wildlife photographers don't need the animals' permission. Trees and mountains don't care about the people making landscapes. Buildings don't care about people capturing architecture. People sitting for a professional studio portrait sign model releases up front. Journalists generally only care about not getting in emergency services' way.
But us street folk? We're in that odd zone where we need our subjects to both give permission (either implicitly or explicitly) and act natural. Many can't manage that balance. They either start doing urban architecture with silhouetted people and pretend that it's street (which I am frequently guilty of), or they go full-scale Bruce-Asshole-Gilden and rampage their way into people's faces.
Bruce Gilden springs to mind when you mention "obnoxious" photographers. His technique is to just shove a camera in somebody's face and take the shot. Often there's a flash involved too. Watching a YouTube video of him doing his thing on the streets of NY was both quite horrifying and very, very cringey. I'm genuinely surprised nobody hit him yet.
I wasn't familiar with Bruce Gilden, but the first YouTube video I watched was https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkIWW6vwrvM. My take is that this is a very different kind of "obnoxious" than what was described in the original article. Most people attempting to imitate him would be that bad kind of obnoxious.
I haven't done much research, but Bruce Gilden strikes me someone who is a pioneer of (NYC) street photography. He has been doing it for a long time and doesn't seem like a photo hipster. Maybe he was considered one when he started out. The fact he wears photography attire is probably disarming in a way. If it was someone trying to blend in then it might be different. The photos from the video are not derpy photos as my wife likes to describe my portraits of hers so he is trying to show an interesting side of life. I'm sure a lot of pictures don't meet his standards.
Within photo groups in my city, I see a lot of people into street photography because it's the cool aesthetic that matches with their urban lifestyle. It's cool to be into photography, so they got a digital rangefinder and jumped into it without thinking about the art or technique. They form a cargo cult, but often they get broken from it upon discovery that there is more to photography that they are missing. The obnoxious instragrammers are not likely to have the same outcome.
This is obviously terrible behaviour. As an amateur photographer myself I particularly dislike the Instagram driven “race to the bottom”.
However... I do think in a situation such as this it’s a missed commercial opportunity.
If I managed a highly “Instagrammable” private location I’d aggressively enforce good conduct and at the same time have paid access to alternative times for photographers.
You want to be a selfish dick and ruin the common good so you extract more value for yourself? Pay for it.
You're a lavender farmer. Do you also want to run a tourism business, including hiring security to enforce that only paying customers get the exclusive benefit you are now selling? I doubt it.
That "aggressively enforce good conduct" is key. There are dozens, hundreds of people showing up at the same time at some of these places.
I think that, sadly, that decision was taken out the farmer's hands once the hordes of instagrammers started showing up. The choice he's faced now is "run a tourism business that keeps it skmehwta quarantined from your main business" or "run an unmanaged tourism giveaway that harms your main business".
From a fellow Northern Irish person - thanks for volunteering! I'm a photographer and it really horrifies me when I see people acting like this. I research what is appropriate gear and technique for shoots. I try to influence situations when I see staff are under pressure from patrons, or someone is asking questions that have been clearly answered elsewhere, but it's often a losing battle.
People here in the US can be obnoxious at times, but I don't generally see the level of abuse that I've seen in NI. It's horrible that people even take this stuff online.
It's obvious you've never been to a place that has a wall of tripods setup. It doesn't have to do with being stabbed by a tripod, it has to do with a human taking up way more space than they should be in a crowded area. You're free to take up as much space as you like, but if you don't like people being upset at you (rightfully so?) then don't?
Let's take your tripping argument at it's face value, does tripping + trains sound like a good idea?
The better take is, if you don't like the rules you can simply leave.
> t doesn't have to do with being stabbed by a tripod, it has to do with a human taking up way more space than they should be
That was not the argument that was put forth.
> does tripping + trains sound like a good idea?
Yes, I've often seen people trip and fly 6 metres through the air in front of a train.
> The better take is, if you don't like the rules you can simply leave.
That's just a silly discussion stopper. As I already said in my previous comment, there are many more possible options than a "strict rule of no tripods". These kind of sites exist for people to enjoy their hobby and heritage, and the smart and empathic course of action is to enable that for as many people as possible, and if that includes tripods, then so be it, and that should be accommodated as best as possible. "Strictly no tripods", finger-wagging, and rulebook-thumping is unconstructive at best.
People using tripods are less likely to be aware of their surroundings than those who are holding their cameras -- think about it -- if you're using a tripod, you're probably peering into the viewfinder and hyperfocused on fine-tuning intricate settings on your camera to set up your tripod shot, right? If you're holding the camera in your hands, you at least have a part of your brain focusing on making sure you don't drop it or it doesn't get bumped out of your hands.
People like to complain about "health and safety gone mad" but there's usually a psychological component to blanket-banning things. It's usually the path of least resistance.
That sounds like an extremely flimsy post-hoc explanation to me.
> People like to complain about "health and safety gone mad" but there's usually a psychological component to blanket-banning things. It's usually the path of least resistance.
That doesn't mean it's the right thing to do, or even that it's the sensible thing to do.
In addition, after having lived in several different countries, I found that the extreme institutional distrust of everyone to act even vaguely sensible is rather specific to the UK, as is the almost gleeful willingness of the British people to enforce these kind of rules on others even in the most pedantic of circumstances. Other countries with fairly strong Health & Safety cultures – mostly UK-infuenced countries like Ireland or NZ – also have some tendencies, but people also tend to be more flexible and apply at least some judgement in specific cases, which is much rarer in the UK.
The original comment wasn't about if tripods should be allowed or not but people using them despite not being allowed.
Have you been to that place? Because it sounds to me that you want to solve the issue of people breaking rules by allowing them in the first place, when you might not even know any specifics of the environment where it's applied?
The railway exists to give all its patrons a fun day out. When people with tripods and massive lenses ruins it for the family who just want to take a quick smartphone family picture in front of the old train, then we have a problem. There have been multiple instance where the tripod guy has prevented a child a quick picture because they see their picture as more important.
Leave aside the safety issues. When people set up tripods so that they can get their picture, whilst denying others the same opportunity - it's not cool.
> There have been multiple instance where the tripod guy has prevented a child a quick picture because they see their picture as more important.
I think that there is virtue in patience.
That tripod guy has patience to setup the tripod and camera and carefully compose the shot for perfection because this might be his way to have a perfect Sunday.
Why do you want to deny this because somebody does not have enough patience to wait a little?
Children generally only take up the space for a few seconds, so being patient with them is easy. Someone who is taking their time setting up a tripod is blocking the space for significantly longer. If you want to close off a space for a while so that you can carefully compose the perfect shot, either do it somewhere remote or consult with the owners to arrange an appropriate time.
You seem to prioritize parents instant gratification. The fact that you may service large volume of them does not make it more right automatically.
I do not agree that photographing a child is certainly faster.
First you have to position your child and only your child in front of the object. This means that at the same time other parents and also tripod guys and girls can't take the picture.
So now instead of letting tripod users to take the picture and move on, they have to endlessly wait for the moment where no parent is blocking the view.
Naturally these two groups are in conflict and it is up to event organizers to realize this and organize two different kind of events.
Indirectly related, living in the UK there seems to be a growing culture of 'fuck you' in this country. Not a lack of etiquette or the trivial please and thank-you, those I can do without, you can still be sweary and abrupt and still considerate, I mean a fundamental selfishness. It seems to be bigger among younger people, 20s to 30s, and I will emphasize that it's uncommon and that the great majority of people at any age still behave very decently, but I can feel it.
> Indirectly related, living in the UK there seems to be a growing culture of 'fuck you' in this country.
Well, when the elite are all shining exemplars of "fuck you, I got mine" with demonstrably no consequences for those actions, and TV is full of reality shows pushing the same message, people (especially the young) will pick up on that.
No, this is different an may come from a very different source. I worked in the city and was expecting to meet spoilt brats in suits, well why not, they earn a fucking fortune some of them[0] they don't need to bother with manners.
At a personal level I found them very decent and considerate, deeply and genuinely so. The problem in the city of scarfing up too much money seemed to me to be down to them just not understanding how much it hurt other people. They were born, if not wealthy then certainly nowhere near poor, so never understood what the stress of not knowing you can pay the rent does to you. I felt it to be an ignorance problem not an attitude problem.
Though YMMV as americans say.
[0] which mostly they didn't deserve. They were no more competent than the average man on the street and in fact considerably less so in some ways as they'd been 'poisoned' with abundant corporate money - they didn't understand you can get a lot done with moderate cash; they expected to throw cash at everything. It produced a very inefficient way of working, exactly the opposite of what the capitalist culture should have done. It made them stupid. It made it an incredibly frustrating place to work and I had to hand in my notice.
I read somewhere that the designer of the original ARM cpu said his boss had given him 2 great gifts, no money and no staff. These were not gifts the square mil hands around easily.
Edit: sorry, I realised how far I've wandered off-topic. Happy to delete if you wish.
> “We defy anyone who goes about with his eyes open to deny that there is, as never before, an attitude on the part of young folk which is best described as grossly thoughtless, rude, and utterly selfish.” - 1925
Which I now regret saying as it seems to have been taken as a curmudgeonly dissing of 'yoof' in general. I never meant it thus. I was quite careful with my words, but not careful enough apparently.
At these point I feel compelled to remember that quote from Socrates about how the kids are all rude and disrespectful these days. So maybe nothing ever changes and we're just getting old and grumpy.
But your comment definitely rings true. It's something hard to pin down but I notice it all the time.
> At these point I feel compelled to remember that quote from Socrates about how the kids are all rude and disrespectful these days. So maybe nothing ever changes and we're just getting old and grumpy.
It's this. Sorry to break it to you. People also change their behavior to you based on your age. As a single example, as you age and slow down, younger, faster folks will be more frequently annoyed with having to dodge past you on the sidewalk, which will predispose them to be more rude around you in general. It's a whole complicated host of things, and as you say, it's been true since the beginning of time.
"I should have said, I'm the sort of person who likes to speak my mind. Yes, that's the thing about me I'm afraid, I don't really hold with political correctness, I mean when you think about it why should I have to filter what I say because someone else might not like my opinion? Now I just called a spade a spade."
It has been authorized. The deal works like this: Petapixel pays nothing and the links in the footnotes hopefully drives some traffic to the photographer's site and social media. In this game Petapixel is the influencer that asks for free ice cream in exchange for an Instagram post. Blog spam 2.0.
I don't see why one wouldn't want to link the source and at the same time support the writer directly instead of hoping a fraction of the readers will find and follow the links in the footnotes on Petapixel.
>Blog spam 2.0. [...] I don't see why one wouldn't want to link the source and at the same time support the writer directly
I wasn't the one who downvoted your comment but in this particular case I disagree. I wouldn't call this "blog spam". The petapixel post is more like the author strategically choosing syndication[1].
As a reader of articles, I find the petalpixel url more relevant than the photographer's own website. After I'm done reading the 1 article, I can see more "trending" articles on the righthand side to read more.
In contrast, the photographer's website is less relevant because I'm not interested in buying prints that cost $1100 to $13000 USD or contacting him to book luxury expeditions.
Just wanted to provide a different perspective and why I think the Petapixel url is more appropriate for the HN audience. In fact, sending a potential "HN hug of death" directly to the author's website with virtually no one "adding to shopping cart" while using up his hosting bandwidth seems to be the opposite of supporting the photographer.
> I don't see why one wouldn't want to link the source and at the same time support the writer directly instead of hoping a fraction of the readers will find and follow the links in the footnotes on Petapixel.
Isn't that between the author and Petapixel? The author seems to have granted permission to reproduce his work there.
"I had a privileged life and I got lucky and I’m unhappy. They say it’s like the “me generation.” It’s not. The arrogance is taught, or it was cultivated. It’s self-conscious, that’s what it is; conscious of self. Social media is just the market’s answer to a generation that demanded to perform. So the market said, ‘here, perform everything to each other all the time for no reason.’ It’s prison. It’s horrific. It is performer and audience melded together. What do we want more than to lay in our bed at the end of the day and just watch our life as a satisfied audience member?
I know very little about anything, but what I do know is that if you can live your life without an audience you should do it."
- Bo Burnham, monologue from the special 'Make happy'.
I honestly expected this article to be another "damn kids, get off my lawn" post, but reading it, I 100% agree with the author and I'm kinda horrified to see some of those scenes.
I'm lucky enough to have been to some of those places in the past (Wanaka, Angkor) and while there were some crowds, it wasn't anything like depicted in the article.
It's the essential conundrum of tourism. The more people that go to a place, the more they ruin what made the place special in the first place.
I live a couple of hours away from Lake Louise, Alberta [1], which is a really famous photography spot because the lake (and nearby Moraine Lake) have beautiful bright blue colors. You've almost certainly seen one of them in Windows wallpapers, /r/EarthPorn, etc.
A few weeks ago, we had a friend from the US visiting, and we decided to take him there. We hadn't been there in about 10 years now, and it was insanely busy even though it was just a random Wednesday. The road from the town of Lake Louise up to the actual lake was a traffic jam the entire way (about 5km), and there was no parking at all anywhere near the lake or in the town. I ended up having to drop my wife and our friend off at the top and drive back down, then down the highway for almost 10 minutes to the "overflow lot" to find anywhere to park (and it was almost totally full too, even though it's huge).
We've talked to some people about it since, and apparently that's just how busy it is all the time now. The amount of over-tourism to some of these Instagram-famous places is getting ridiculous, and (like it goes over in the article) they're just really not able to handle it and it turns into a huge mess of people behaving selfishly because once they're there, they're not leaving without the photos they want.
I spent a week at Lake Louis in winter 2017. There was hardly anyone there, even around the Fairmont! Maybe 5 cars in the huge lot right by the water. Just a few dolts trying to take selfies in the middle of the frozen lake.
Shame that it's usually swamped but it makes sense, it's a beautiful area. Maybe try again in the winter?
I was there in the winter once too (to ski), the blue lake was frozen though, covered in snow, and the entire week the temperatures never exceeded 0 Fahrenheit!
Sums up everything I detest about photography and mainly typical instagrammers. You have the same problem where I am in Bali - idiot instagrammers using the farmers rice fields for their selfies, whilst the farmers are breaking their backs.
I wonder how they'd feel if tables were turned - farmers all photographing young people on their laptops in cafes etc.
On a recent trip to some more remote areas of Southeast Asia, I had this exact experience.
Since westerners were a rare sight in many of the villages I visited, my friends and I found ourselves constantly being photographed, with the local teens and even older adults alike all posing in selfies with us in the background. I’d say we were photographed roughly 20-30 times per day, for the the month we were there. I’m not kidding.
I’m sure we looked like clowns to them with our height and big noses. I found it hilarious and am glad I brought some amusement to these folks.
Side note: I see every person on this thread thinks they aren’t part of the problem. It’s the other people of course! Tourists complaining about other tourists has a real irony to it. Rich people getting mad they have to share the worlds treasures with a growing population of other rich people. Boo boo. A certain percentage of the population is always going to be assholes, whether they live in a place or are just visiting. Instagram isn’t the root cause to why people suck, this too shall pass.
Instagram, Facebook, and other social media act as behavioural feedback loops.
We're literally talking about behavioural modification here. FB + INSTA may not make people assholes, but they certainly reward certain classes of asshole behaviour.
They're not unique in that, but other asshole-promoting loop systems have been around far longer, so we tend to assume they're how things are rather than questioning them.
Which is why "This too shall pass" may not be a valid assumption.
I also had this experience in Africa. Was in a location where few tourists went, most foreigners were NGO workers and workers in some capacity. Locals would take photographs without even asking. In other parts of Africa, the locals were too poor to have good cameras.
> I see every person on this thread thinks they aren’t part of the problem.
It depends on what problem you're referring to. People going onto private property and damaging locations are a special kind of asshole. They're not regular tourists.
> Instagram isn’t the root cause to why people suck.
That's even more depressing (if true) than this abomination of "social networks" that we are seeing right now.
But still, even if your point might be true, we should stop giving people easy ways to be degenerates. There should be repercussions or something, but good luck codifying it into a law :)
> this abomination of "social networks" that we are seeing ... we should stop giving people easy ways to be degenerates. There should be repercussions or something, but good luck codifying it into a law
You don't always need laws to stop bad behavior. Influential social shame and scorn are often just as effective.
> I wonder how they'd feel if tables were turned - farmers all photographing young people on their laptops in cafes etc.
I wondered if we could get a contest running: for every "influencer" picture, see who can find the most unflattering backstage picture for that set. Maybe once people realized that behind each "young and carefree" photo there's a professional photographer, lights, a mobile wardrobe, a ladder, and hundreds of people doing the same, then the madness would stop.
But then I realised that I just re-invented the paparazzi. And if they haven't changed people's perception of Hollywood glamour, neither will this plan.
There's a power imbalance there. You're on holiday, exercising your economic power and generally having a good time.
How would you feel if hoards of Chinese people came over to photograph you in your native environment, say, stuck in traffic on your commute, or late to drop your kids off at school, or while they're standing in your front garden while you're up a ladder trying to clear the guttering?
There is also an old-fashioned way to put it without reaching into the social justice toolbox: people doing something pleasant gawking at people doing something unpleasant. Imagine a tourist having a minor traffic accident or dropping their backpack into the mud, and locals standing around it taking pictures.
It is less about a global power imbalance and more about a situational one.
That is what I meant (situational). The people you're you're meeting on holiday may well take nice holidays too, but they are not right at that moment :)
Why? What happens if I show up in a Chinese photo album?
I think the problem in this subthread started when jwmoz decided the "equivalent" of tourists coming to your fields, trampling your crops, and cutting and taking bunches of produce for themselves was tourists coming to a Starbucks and taking pictures.
The reverse situation is not getting stared at by local farmers when you visit a foreign country; but when Chinese tourists visit your country, walk into your private garden, and stare into your house through the windows.
Which is exactly what happens in many countries. In the Netherlands this is a common (and recent) issue with Chinese tourists visiting folkloric villages that have normal people not living there who are not part of the tourism industry as well — like picturesque canal-strewn Giethoorn.
A friend of mine is of Ugandan extraction, and she had lunch with her sister in China. She said people were staring through the window watching her and her sister eat.
This is as old as photography is a thing. I've been to that area in France many times in my life. My parents actually lived there for a while after they retired and it used to be our default vacation destination when I was young. It's been a popular destination for tourists quite long and tourism is a big part of the local economy. Vincent van Gogh did some selfies there way back before photography was a thing (with a paint brush). The landscape is pretty (particularly the lavender fields), the weather is nice, and the food/wine are awesome. It's a nice place to go. Despite the tourists.
Most of the lavender grown there is used to produce the lavender infused tourist junk you can find all over that area. It's literally the primary reason for that farm to be farming the stuff. So, having the odd tourist come along and taking some photos is maybe a necessary evil.
Tourists misbehaving and spoiling things has been a thing for as long as tourism has been a thing. The only thing that is worse is locals destroying their environment to draw in yet more tourists and squeeze every drop of revenue from them. Many idyllic places have long turned into package tourism hell with lots of cheap constructions, masses of tourists getting drunk and stuffing their face with junk food and nothing authentic whatsoever anywhere in sight. Arles where Van Gogh used to hang out is a good example.
It sure is, but modern tech greatly increased the phenomenon. Old tech made photography way less interesting for narcissistic people. It was hard, expensive, took time to develop, you most likely had no audience if you weren't a professional. Now you can take a snapshit on your budget dslr, send it via bluetooth to your ipad, edit it right there and put it on instagram for free, some even get paid if they include a watch or a pair of shoe in the pic...
Sure in the bunch you have a few artistic people, but most of it is the same exact picture of the same exact thing. All of it for imaginary internet points. We don't have to watch black mirror anymore we're living in a lame and slow version of it already. Comparing Van Gogh to that is a bit of a stretch.
Some say Hemmingway killed himself over his dispair for introducting the world to the running of the bulls festival. It seemed idyllic, and amazing in his book - Went there in 2014, and it's a bunch of tourist getting absolutely shit faced, and trying to mess with the bulls.
There's been a few changes which increased the scale of it: (very) cheap flights with RyanAir et al, anyone can easily reach an audience with their amateur photographs, and that most people can afford a reasonably decent camera.
One trick I learned a while ago is that stepping back as far as possible and taking pictures of people taking pictures is far more interesting than yet another picture of the same thing.
There are only so many interesting photos of the Mona Lisa. But there are an infinite number of interesting photos of people maniacally taking photos of the Mona Lisa. If you're lucky, you might snap a pic of an instagrammer falling off a cliff, or getting hit by a truck.
I have a video of a woman holding a dog out over the edge of the Grand Canyon and having their friend take a photo, presumably trying to re-enact the Lion King scene. The level of absurdity on display is much more impressive than yet another picture of the Grand Canyon.
It's called a "meta". If you manage to take a picture of somebody taking a picture of somebody taking a picture - congratulation, you just earned yourself a "double-meta".
It feels more and more that people go to cool places just to prove they have as many resources as their peers.
Travel and social media is just an extension of "keeping up with the Jones's" but on a personal identity level- only at the cost of whatever destruction you are willing to put our planet through, be it that new camera you bought, or the jet fuel you paid to burn.
I couldn't help but feel guilty on the way to my last international trip- the homeless do less damage to the planet than I do.
Not nearly enough has been written about "travel as status-seeking". It is for some a way to portray that you're not materialistic, but still dunk on all the poors and other outgroup members while blowing thousands of dollars on what is ultimately a luxury. The sub-category of "travel as wasteful mating signal & ritual" deserves another novel on top of this.
It didn't help that for several years (though it has thankfully tapered off) there was a constant stream of "lifestyle" articles proclaiming that mass tourism "experiences" to capture some photo-totem were the scientifically confirmed path to happiness.
Absolutely. It seems to have become popular to value "experiences over things" as if that's somehow virtuous and makes you better than materialistic people who just want to accumulate stuff.
It's really just another branch of the same kind of materialism.
The mating signal thing is crazy too. I recently dabbled in dating apps (hopefully, never again). It seems virtually every woman on there is obsessed with travel (has "wanderlust", or wants to visit "30 countries before 30", or "couldn't live without my passport", along with a bunch of photos of them posing in front of familiar stock-photo tourist sites).
It's almost always like this: an obsession with travel itself, rather than a passion for a particular culture or region or language or activity that requires travel. (Which might not really be any better, but I'd identify with it a lot more easily).
What's driving this? Is it covert (or subconscious) signalling that they want a mate with the resources to fund this lifestyle? Or simply a feeling that this is expected of them to seem fun and interesting?
As you said, not nearly enough has been written. I wish a great writer with the requisite knowledge of culture and psychology would dive into this.
It boils down to accumulating "experiences" (or selfies) instead of things, but it's really the same. I mean, do you think these people are going to these places, taking only memories, and then cherishing the memories on their own? No, they flaunt it just as someone flaunts a supercar. It's intangible materialism, as silly as that sounds.
If you really want to experience something, don't take any pictures. Just be there. After a while you might not have vivid memories of everything you saw, but you'll still be able to recall the feeling of being there. Talk to other people about it face to face, describe what you felt and what it was like to be there.
I have no photos of a trip my family took to some lake house in Indiana when it was young. I couldn't tell you what the place looked like, but I can still feel the calm and relaxation of being there decades later.
I have no photos of a waterfall I visited with my wife in Grand Teton National Park, but I can still feel the cool air and the mist in the air. Couldn't tell you what it looked like, but I have what matters. And I didn't have to show it to anyone.
They definitely think it automatically makes them fun/interesting, but it also functions as a way to automatically become an expert on something. I like to watch nature documentaries. Someone I knew started bothering me about how I should travel like them and see REAL giraffes, lions etc rather than just watching. Did they know anything about the animals themselves? No, but they’d SEEN them, which they felt made them an authority. Same with the dullards on dating sites who put up photos with impoverished children - it’s a nice way to signal that you tooootally know and care about such things without actually having to do any boring learning. And everyone who travels will jump at the chance to lecture you interminably about “authentic” food and drink...
The first time I encountered the word was in 1980, reading a 1969 comic book containing the phrase "The Wanderlust begins to rise in my bosom!" Phineas T. Phreak was speaking, and I think he ended up going to Disneyland with two of his friends (with hilarious results).
It's a meme to make fun of Americans in "flyover countries" for not having passports. People who have only lived in the place they were born are made fun of for not being traveled, and therefore not cultured.
Is it a surprise then that more and more people want to travel in order to signal that they aren't an uncultured, passport-less hillbilly? The key thing to note here is that someone who does not have any regard for their environment and other people will be the same whether they're in Kansas or in Paris. Often, they'll be even worse, since it's not home that they're trashing up.
Flyover suburbanite here: I never understood travel culture, but I've seen it contribute to depression in my friends and neighbors because they somehow have been convinced that a meaningful life requires global travel, but find it difficult with mortgages and children. I view travel culture as very toxic as a result.
"I just want to see the world" I hear, a yearning for an experience that, when pursued, might temporarily stifle midlife crises but ruins marriages just as often. I feel so deeply sad for people who don't realize that everything they need is in front of them.
> I never understood travel culture, but I've seen it contribute to depression in my friends and neighbors because they somehow have been convinced that a meaningful life requires global travel ... I view travel culture as very toxic
Sure, traveling just to achieve certain bragging rights is superficial and silly, but that doesn't mean travel itself isn't valuable. Similarly, reading books just to say you've read the most or the hardest is silly, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't read.
Traveling allows you to viscerally see how people live and value things differently from you. There is much to be gained from it if you do it for the right reasons.
Very very few people “viscerally see how people live and value things differently” when they travel. And they can’t without an order of magnitude more time and money to spend on that travel.
Actually living in a different place will certainly do that, but “travel” almost never will.
> Very very few people “viscerally see how people live and value things differently” when they travel. ... Actually living in a different place will certainly do that, but “travel” almost never will.
Take one extreme case: a typical college grad doing a euro-trip to 10 countries in 14 days. They will certainly not be able to experience those cultures deeply, but compare that person to someone who never went to Europe, never saw their respect for the past, train travel, food cultures, and the high value they place on vacation.
Even consider those young travelers that mostly stay within the confines of their hostel and their group activities, or in a national bar where things appear familiar and comfortable: they are still better off than if they just stayed home and had not seen any of it.
Certainly, 10 days of travel is not much, but it's a lot more than 0 days. For some, those 10 days may be truly meaningful and eye-opening, for others, a familiar party with different scenery. Traveling is generally uncomfortable and different, and the experience can add something to even the most shallow traveler.
(caveat: It happens, although uncommon, that travel can be a detriment. Particularly, when someone goes to a country that is poorer than theirs, and attributes their lack of development to some genetic or racist defect. While this is possible, I do think it's exceedingly rare. When one sees how other people live up close, it's natural to look for the patterns and similarities rather than come up with differences.)
I had a good experience right after college. Went to Germany for 21 days. Stayed with an exchange student I had become friends with senior year in high school and we kept in contact.
We stayed with their family for a week, experiencing the smaller town life, hiking in the black forest and going to the market for fresh bread every morning.
We then rented a vehicle and traveled around the Autobahn visiting many major cities and either staying at a hostel ($20 a night per person plus an amazing breakfast included!), or with a mutual friend of her's whom she had met in college.
There are only a few Universities in Germany so she knew someone is almost all the major cities we stayed at and it was nice to converse with them in their home, trade stories and experience the night life as a local would.
We did go to a few tourist areas which were neat to experience, however most of the fun did come from 'off the beaten path' where you got to interact with locals and see more of the slower, simple life.
One thing that I found astonishing is the amount you can converse/communicate with someone even if you don't speak their language. Granted most people in Germany can understand English well, but with the few broken phrases I learned before going I was able to do quite well when our translator (my friend from high school) would not be with us sometimes.
I much would rather do this, go to one specific country rather than go to 14 countries in 10 days.
Haven't traveled since as work/school/family is now my priority but doing at least one travel to get out of your comfort zone is a good experience I think everyone should get to experience once (if they want to).
Nice echo chamber developing here. I couldn't care less about how and why other people travel, but for myself, it has shapen my personality (for the better) more than any other experience or activity in my life (and there are quite some, like weight lifting and climbing). It made me a better person on many levels. Is this selfish pursuit? Obviously, what in life isn't?
But there are many forms of travel. For me, it is and forever will be only backpacking-ish style. Done for example 6 months in India in very remote places. When you come back from such a visit, you are not really the same person inside that left. Or at least I can't imagine not being changed by all the positive and also negative things experienced. 1 week feels like 3 there, 1 month more like 5 years, and after 3 the idea of my life back was just a distant memory of a dream I once had. You can't tell properly others about those 1000s of small and big adventures, they wouldn't understand most of the appeal. Only those with similar experiences would. Photos or videos, even done with full frame equipment, tell only small part of the story.
And these instagrammers/'influencers' (that's a too pretty name for what it usually is, if they travel around like that they are rather 'influenced') ? Well they are for people with sheepish mentality. I would have to have utterly bland life to be interested in some John Doe's life, where he made this or that selfie and consistently follow them. I guess I am too old and experienced for Instagram bandwagon. With all the travel photo I do, I would anyway end up as one of those 'influencers' (at least that's what people tell me when they see my photos and the amount I create)
Yeah, traveling for a week for a vacation is very different from staying in a place and interacting with the local culture for an extended amount of time.
> Traveling allows you to viscerally see how people live and value things differently from you. There is much to be gained from it if you do it for the right reasons.
Yes, they also have tours to help you 'experience' the life of a local, like going through a favela in Rio. Anedoctal, but from what I've seen it can be really offensive to people on those places, because it works pretty much like a safari.
I can see your point but as a passportless 21 year old I can't help but feel I'm missing out on something. I've never really experienced anything outside of the US. It's such an exciting prospect to visit somewhere exotic that looks nothing like the place I've always known, has completely different food, language, animals. Maybe the joy is temporary but it's still joy and I hope if I ever get the chance to travel it's an experience that I'll be able to look back fondly on, or worst case use the knowledge to reflect and come to a conclusion such as yourself.
As someone who has travelled some, the tragedy of the modern tourism industry is that it has homogenized so many places that it’s hard to tell them apart. I first noticed it when I took a Caribbean cruise a decade ago. The port areas are dominated by tourist culture instead of local culture, and you’re hard-pressed to tell one from another.
Here in Iceland(1), shops downtown are regularly being replaced by copies of the same gift shop you’ll find everywhere in the world, and there is active discussion about coming up with “tourist-friendly” English names for landmarks because the Icelandic ones that have been used for hundreds of years aren’t enticing enough.
The tourism industry has figured out how to give people a good show, but it’s ultimately a shallow experience. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing: like everything else, travel needs welcoming, entry-level experiences. The trouble comes when it gets so prevalent that it starts to warp and destroy the local culture in order to sell more spectacle.
(1) Full disclosure: I first came here as a tourist, and would never have moved here without that initial exposure, so I can’t completely comdemn the tourism industry.
> And that’s not necessarily a bad thing: like everything else, travel needs welcoming, entry-level experiences. The trouble comes when it gets so prevalent that it starts to warp and destroy the local culture in order to sell more spectacle.
Kind of like software development these days, on the web in particular - the "entry-level experience" makes most money, so over time it starts to dominate and push out everything else.
Don't let anyone or anything stop you from traveling. I once dropped everything and took a 2 month long trip to Colombia. I wanted somewhere close, out of the country, non-Anglo, not in the Caribbean or Central America, which I judged to be too dangerous / touristy at the time. Colombia was safe and interesting. I took Spanish classes and bounced around different cities for a few months.
In the beginning it was about exploration and at the end it was about discovering my priorities in life.
The genesis of the trip came about when I started talking to someone at a language school about taking language classes. He started asking me why, then said, "just go there. You'll never get a better chance than when you're young."
Being passportless in USA isn't a big deal, the USA being such a large country. You can still travel large distances and see many different places. Perhaps it's not exotic enough for some though.
I recommend if you feel you're missing out is to travel to parts of the USA that you're not familiar with. If you're a city-folk, visit a rural agriculture town. If you're from a more rural area, visit a heavily populated region like NYC. Visit Chicago. St Lois. Baton Rouge. Austin. Phoenix. Portland. San Francisco. Buffalo. Detroit. Etc.
Gawd I don't think I've ever seen something as silly on HN as 'travel depresses you'. You are missing out on something, you should do it, and it wont depress you.
Sure there are people who seem to travel with the intent impress people, but traveling is a character-building in a way that everyone should experience. Its not the kind of spirit-quest that some people make it out to be, but it will give you interesting stuff to think out for years.
You are missing it. Not because you are not travelling, but because you are 21 with no real responsibilities and you are not using that time frivolously.
Get a passport, save $5-10k and go slumming in Europe for 6 months. Backpack for clothes. Laptop. Camera. Condoms. If you decide you don't like it in three-four weeks, come back. Otherwise spend time there stretching your money as long as you can until your budget runs out.
I'm from California ;). I'm just saying, urbanites have no one to blame but themselves for the influx of shitty, uncivilized tourists everywhere. After making fun of people for not being traveled and not having a passport, did you really not expect more and more people wanting to travel so that they don't get made fun of or because they really fell for the thought that traveling would make them a better person?
> Not nearly enough has been written about "travel as status-seeking".
The German film-critic Siegfried Kracauer wrote a very interesting essay against tourism as a mass phenomenon in the 1930s or so, just as the phenomenon was about to be born. Really interesting piece, you can find it in an essays book called "The Mass Ornament", and the book itself can be read in here [1] (warning, big PDF)
> Not nearly enough has been written about "travel as status-seeking".
What are you talking about? Travel is status seeking and status displaying. It showed up after WWII.
"I travel" is a polite way of saying "I am rich enough to travel". "I like going to places, seeing new things, meeting the locals and blah blah blah" is a polite way of saying "I'm rich enough to be able to take off work time for going to new places, seeing seeings, meeting the locals and blaj blah blah"
This might be frequently true of travel qua travel, but people also go places for other reasons, like business, meeting & having fun with friends, specific activities that can't be done at home, or just relaxation sans broadcasting it to all their peers and the world.
> Not nearly enough has been written about "travel as status-seeking". It is for some a way to portray that you're not materialistic, but still dunk on all the poors and other outgroup members while blowing thousands of dollars on what is ultimately a luxury. The sub-category of "travel as wasteful mating signal & ritual" deserves another novel on top of this.
We are definitely getting to the point where since everyone is doing it, it's not special anymore.
Much like a bachelor's degree used to be something sought by companies. But now, they are considered the baseline.
It's nothing new; Ray Davies wrote a song about it fifty years ago! Only the front-facing camera didn't exist, so it was called "People Take Pictures of Each Other" rather than "People Take Selfies."
So, NZ is on the receiving end of some of this, and here's my opinion:
* Our popular areas are completely overrun during tourist season - I personally think not much fun for tourists or locals (unless a crowd is good e.g. party zones)
* As a local, I can usually find something way better when I travel in NZ that isn't overrun by tourists (e.g. from article, that one lavender farm in France is overrun, but I bet there are plenty nearby that are not).
* I personally love the vibe of the high tourist areas. Generally having tourists is good for nightlife, great for meeting other cultures, and tourists create heaps of economic opportunities (very often in places that would struggle otherwise).
* When travelling overseas, I skip anything "must see" that is in a guide or otherwise recommended (unless you want a tickbox or it is totally off-season). I go to small towns that are in non-tourist areas, and find my own awesome shit.
* When travelling, try to meet locals in a low-density tourist area. You get to see the real country. In reverse, I try to be super welcoming to travellers I meet (I have no problem giving a hitchhiker a room in my home if they pass my sniff test).
* NZ isn't a big country, but there is a huge amount of amazing places to visit everywhere, if you have your own transport and more than a few weeks to travel.
* Try to avoid staying in tourist high density areas. Avoid the easy tourist transport means, avoid the tourist backpackers or hotels.
* Yes, tourists often leave a mess (NZ has a real problem with tourists travelling by vehicle shitting everywhere), but the benefits of tourists really outweigh the downsides IMHO
* I would love NZ to introduce a visa fee per travelling day - that pays for cleaning and pays for free entry to high traffic tourist destinations. We should be striving to attract the high value tourist, and not nickel and dime them once they are here. Tourism can be a Veblen good.
Summary: there are places that are tourist destinations, but there are heaps of places that tourists don't go to that are incredible.
> When travelling overseas, I skip anything "must see" that is in a guide or otherwise recommended (unless you want a tickbox or it is totally off-season). I go to small towns that are in non-tourist areas, and find my own awesome shit.
These things are kind of like Paris Hilton or Kim Kardashian: famous for being famous, not for any actual intrinsic qualities they may have.
There are exceptions. For example Venice is VERY touristic, but also for good reasons IMHO.
I was actually in Wanaka last December, and yeah, it's a funny looking tree, but to go out of your way for it? Yeh nah. There were many more memorable/fun aspects of our Wanaka outing.
Agreed. I live in a very popular tourist city. A lot of people complain about the tourists, but its big enough that there are lots of places to avoid tourists. Tourists tend to stick to the same playground area in the centre anyway. I wouldn't have ended up here if I had't have come here as a tourist in the first place.
Took my teenage sons to Paris for their first trip abroad last week. Even they were shaking their heads at the ridiculous lengths to which people were going for a selfish pic:
— wearing wedding dresses into the Sacré Cœur and marching past all the no-photo signs to the altar for a fake I-got-married-here pic
— posing unnaturally with rapid-change outfits and accessories in the middle of street traffic on the Pont d’Iéna facing the Eiffel Tower and at l’Arc de Triomphe, ignoring all the honks and drivers and pedestrians alike yelling at them, until a police car stopped and turned on its sirens
— couples dragging strollers with infants and toddlers up to the Mona Lisa to take selfies
— throngs elbowing for position to take a selfie in front of a piece of art—and then moving on without even spending a single moment contemplating or appreciating the artwork
We saw a dozen or more such scenes every day. It was awful.
> wearing wedding dresses into the Sacré Cœur and marching past all the no-photo signs to the altar for a fake I-got-married-here pic
I was hiking to a remote castle recently, 30 min drive + mud roads remote, I got there and saw a parked car (there is no parking spots btw), immediately thought "eh, you got to be lazy to come here by car, half the fun is the walk". Five min later I stumbled upon a couple in suit/wedding dress and two photographers, I think I physically cringed at the sight.
This just sounds like poor law enforcement to me. Stopping your car on the side of the road is typically legal. Photographing something from public property is legal in the US. What isn't legal is littering, trespassing, and theft. If you were there to damage the lavender because you thought that would be a fun thing to do, that to me is the same as being there because you want to take a selfie. You should be arrested and charged with trespassing. The fact that this isn't happening is a failure of law enforcement, not a failure of social media. (Though my own photographic philosophy is that a picture with people in it is ruined, I realize that not everyone agrees.)
This is true of the first anecdote about the private property, but the other issues are still issues. We have a few “hot” locations in Colorado, most notably Maroon Bells in leaf season, and the level of general disrespect is shocking: ladders, fights, overcrowded parking, and so on. Sadly I have no idea what a solution is - the land is public and limiting access numbers is exclusionary and easy for the privileged to “hack.” It’s really a challenging cultural and philosophical question: how does one define and perpetuate common decency in an increasingly crowded world? And, going back to the distaste for people “in the shot” and the DIY attempts to make locations less appealing, is anyone entitled to an “unspoiled” view by their own definition? To some extent Christo and Jeanne-Claude explored this concept from an artistic perspective decades ago, but cultural shift doesn’t have a finite end in the way an installation does.
I was in the area the week that the road opened up and went for a sunrise. I was the second person there at 4am, but by 5-6am there were around 30 people there!
I can't even imagine what Maroon Bells is like during high season.
In addition to this, I wonder if the farmers could set up props to discourage photography and sabotage the shots. Ugly banners, balloons, drones with ribbons, blaring offensive music, signs with semi-offensive verbiage. Or boxes of rotten fish to stink up the side of the road.
Thats the equivalent of asking girls to dress unsexily to prevent harrassment/rape. Those farmers have a right to maintain their beautiful and appealing environments without having them messed with by tourists and other idiots.
Why buy lavender if you can just be a photographer/instagrammer and steal them? Pretty fields are what brings potential buyers to their farm in the first place, no?
Have you ever travelled to a farm because its pretty to buy their lavender? If I buy lavender, its because I want lavender, not because the farm is pretty (and Ill probably buy it from a shop and not the farm directly)
The weird thing for me is the people are literally taking a picture of themselves committing a crime. It seems like it would be easy to bring a case against someone doing this?
I went to what can only be described as an "Instagram trap" earlier this month. It was the Rose Mansion exhibit (?) in NYC, I can only describe it as a mix between a fun house where the rooms are explicitly designed for Instagram and a cut rate wine tour. [0]
I sense a market for a consulting firm that specializes in managing photoshoots at locations like the one in the post explicitly for Instagram.
I feel like the San Francisco ice cream museum is like that. It’s ostensibly a museum about ice cream, but it’s basically just a whole bunch of really weirdly designed rooms that people take selfies in and post all over Instagram, Tinder, Facebook, everywhere. Apparently they made quite a bit of money doing it.
And here is the end result. This account basically takes Instagram photos of the exact same location/style and groups them together. It’s kind of mind blowing!
I used to think photography was an interesting hobby, not for me, however.
Now, after the proliferation of cheap DSLRs I now think photography is the most obnoxious thing ever. Now ever asshole imagines themselves as a photographer and acts like a dick to get that one picture. I was out with a wannabe photographer friend and watched her climb over a safety barrier and dangerously close to the edge of a cliff in order to take a photo. I was shocked.
Before smartphones were a thing, I used to have a side-gig as semi-professional photographer for metal concerts. Semi-professional means in this case, I had an official accreditation for the venue and the band, experience, equipment and most importantly, professional courtesy an respect, but was working for a not-for-profit heavy metal magazine that just had to cover server costs - all volunteers who happen to be really into the music and wanted to share that and support artists, big and small.
There are some very easy ground rules: You are in the photo pit for the first (usually) 3 songs, no flash, not getting in the way of other photographers, and not disturbing the performance or audience.
This worked out great - as few people were able to capture the concerts, people actually appreciated our work, both in the magazine I wrote for as well as on my personal photography blog. It's a great way to re-live some moments of a great performance, for free.
I stopped doing that after more and more kids with smartphones spent entire concerts on their phones, trying to get front-row selfies, crowd-surfing for the purpose of their friends snapping a picture, kids who somehow got into the pit with a phone and the flash on full power, and of course unprofessional "influencers" who only cared about getting a shot for their Instagram page and their own self-image and brand, not for the reasons I highlighted in the first paragraph.
As someone who‘s doing photography as a side business - so much this. Actually, let‘s add „I‘ve got a DSLR, so I have to produce good photos“ to the list. In reality though most of them have no sense for the moment or good composition.
And the worst part is: “my $relative has a DSLR and he’d shoot for free, do it for free and you’ll get exposure”.
Interesting comment to read on HN where a lot of people want their software to be free too. :) Just sayin'..
But yeah, I get your point.. its super annoying when people do those things or when they say "you must have a nice camera" instead of complimenting your skills.
I just returned from a trip to Washington D.C. I’m an amateur photographer[1] - I don’t get paid for my photos, I do it for fun. One thing I noticed in D.C. when visiting monuments and places like the Library of Congress (which is a stunning building inside), was the sheer number of people standing around taking selfies in these places. In confined spaces (Library of Congress) it was difficult to take pictures because there were so many people taking selfies. And not just a single one - it’s almost always a series of them in various poses and facial expressions. It was quite annoying.
I tried to temper my annoyance by reminding myself that they have just as much right to be there as I do - these are public places after all. What stood out though is the behavior described in this article, which is the complete focus on themselves and no awareness or concern for the location or the people around them who might also want to take a picture - or even just enjoy the place they’re visiting. I didn’t see anything like the destruction and theft described in this article, but that’s likely just because of the nature of the places I visited (lots of armed guards).
I worry that we’re allowing (and reinforcing) some horrible behaviors, and wonder what kind of people they will grow up to be. Narcissism is a harsh label, but I don’t have a better one.
Ive been curious, without knowing how to prove it or not, If social media/instagram is really a significant contributor to over tourism? I guess I have a hard believing its not coincidental.
People have always taken pictures around the world. But recently travel is becoming a lot cheaper, a lot safer, developing countries are developing so they are easier to get to, its easier to get to far corners of the world, chinese are traveling more, americans are pushing off buying homes and having kids until later in life leaving them free to travel. The world is just more populated now too.
Probably something to do with the ubiquity of cameras these days, as well. Anecdatally, I remember when my grandfather bought a Canon A-1 in the late 70s and it was A BIG DEAL. While lots of people had Polaroids and other low-level stuff, this was the equivalent of a prosumer camera, at the time and it was expensive for the time, too.
The slides he took were for his own amusement, and the family’s, just like most other people’s photos. They weren’t shared instantly with the world. That was very much a professional’s conceit.
Now, everyone with a phone has a camera that’s very high resolution and usually internet-connected. The cameras keep getting better (for no good reason that I can tell) while the phone itself remains relatively unchanged. Sure, it can run more apps, so it’s now pretty much a personal computer that incidentally includes a phone,, but because we feel the need to be always connected, we’ve always got a camera.
Consequently, everyone feels the need to overshare every moment of their life, as if they will somehow become important, or that we’ll magically care. It’s too cheap and it’s too easy to spam the world with the beautiful moments that, incidentally, are just like everyone else’s beautiful moments.
My grandfather had a probably almost-unique collection of all 250-plus courthouses of Texas at the time, without competing with anyone to get them, just because he thought it was a neat idea. Now, there are probably hundreds of that collection, produced by ridulously competitive amateurs who want to be Instagram-famous.
I'd agree, it's the ubiquity of digital cameras, plus social media making it normal/expected that people will post photos from a trip.
In the past photos were mainly for your own use and you'd talk to people about your trip. Now photos are how people tell each other about what they're doing and where they are. As social media has become competitive for many people that compounds the effect.
When I was travelling around SE Asia twenty years ago with a film SLR I was a novelty. At a viewpoint most tourists would take one photo with a point and shoot and I'd take perhaps 2 or 3. The rest of the time was spent looking & exploring.
I’m reasonably skeptical about the Instagram theory as well to explain the crowding. And if it is a factor, I’m pretty sure it’s not the only one.
You hit on a lot of them: Reduced cost of travel is certainly one. And, as you say, young professional couples are more likely to be sans children for at least a period.
The somewhat related popularity of some urban areas probably also fuels the experience over stuff meme. If you live in a small Brooklyn apartment, your cost of living may be high but you also aren’t going to accumulate a lot of possessions because you’d have nowhere to put them.
Instagram/Facebook is definitely one of the main contributors for the crowding of specific spots. That particular tree, that particular view of a lake or a mountain, etc.
For tourism, air travel becoming cheaper and the mobile Internet becoming ubiquitous (mainly for booking and review sites/apps) are much more important.
I think it's social media combined with accessibility.
It used to be that you might find a nice secluded place because a family member or friend went there and told you about it or showed you by sending you a physical photo in the mail or showing you a photo album. The exposure might be counted in the tens. It would then be a substantial financial endeavour to go visit that place.
Today, all it takes is one "influencer" to find something new and within a week it's seen by tens of thousands to millions of people, many of whom can afford to visit it if they wish.
I mean this type of photography is a style right? Like the more people do it the more cliched it will get and then it will go out of style right? Every generation wants to do something new.
I think [0] posted elsewhere in the thread shows that it's already very clichéd. For the most part the audience doesn't care. As long as there are good looking people in exotic environments, they're satisfied.
I don't think it's going to go away any more than things like magazines or travel shows are going to go away. At best, some subset of the "influencers" will find something else to signal about.
We need to make it so cringe to behave like this that people will stop doing it naturally to distance themselves from those people. I already look down on people like this myself. People in the West do not utilize societal shaming enough I feel, so much focus on individuality that people are forced to tolerate that some people are terrible humans because otherwise they'll be on the side of NAZIS or whatever for wanting people to be civilized.
I think it's already trending that way, but the effects are slow to arrival.
> People in the West do not utilize societal shaming enough I feel,
Critical point. Only when people start to think about this topic, they'll realize that shaming was invented for a reason, and a great reason: it works. It kept order into civilizations for millennia.
Really that is a very idealized version of social shaming. It sucks and hasn't been focused where there is any actual utility but instead the stupidest fucking most injust things. A young woman has a naked body under her clothes! Shame and forced resignation from pagents regardless of source. The twisted values of shame culture include major "not unless you get caught" fundamentally. To the point of absurdities where in Japan it is shameful to be identified drunk despite getting smashed being the company norm. And that is before getting into the sociopaths behind these social order ideals.
Really fuck social order and fuck social shaming - may they die and stay dead and buried and we have to deal with petty problems instead of this bullshit.
People will be people (unfortunately). But what I don't understand is:
1) Why doesn't the farmer call the police on them for trespassing? And post clear warning signs explaining the penalties... as farmers and other people with large areas of private property have been doing forever
2) And/or make money off it -- charge $$$ for exclusive use of the field for 30 min, do your photoshoot, trample all the lavender you need because you'll be paying top dollar for it
Farmers deal with all sorts of pests threatening their crops, this is just one more. And they're businesspeople. I'm certainly not defending people's bad behavior, but this situation in particular seems pretty manageable.
Some months back when this was posted https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17944934 , I thought about doing a POC about this topic. You could scrap a lot about tourist data from state/regional/communal websites and make travel suggestion for the least tourist plagued locations in a given area. The problem in the long run is the more successfull you are, the worse the experience will be, in short term tourism/vacation is to crowded currently to get it flying.
That would probably be better on tourist economies if it took off and had influence at least - a more even level of flow as tourists choose between their preferences is more sustainable and less likely to have nasty "invested to handle the flow better and they are gone" shocks.
> I’ve seen photographers edge further and further into the water – ruining the view for others, shouting at kayakers who “dare” to exercise their right to paddle around the lake while drifting into their shot
It's ironic that the author is defending the rights of kayakers to do what they enjoy in the lake, while simultaneously berating photographers and "instagrammers" for "ruining the view for others" with their mere presence.
The article does raise many good points. Fences, property-rights, and rules should be respected. But much of the article comes across as paternalistic virtue signaling. Anyone's choice of hobbies or livelihood can be psychoanalyzed as being selfish or narcissistic or parasitic. The author loves to shame instagrammers for being driven by "likes" and "attention", and I'm sure someone else out there would love to shame the author for profiting off of nature instead of toiling as an unknown environmental activist. Unless you're a psychologist or mental health professional, perhaps we should all just let others enjoy life in any way they want, without feeling the need to judge and condescend to them.
I'm not sure the author was berating the photographers for ruining the view for others. I read it as revealing the hypocrisy of the photographers shouting at kayakers for doing the thing they were currently doing themselves.
> From a beach with a few locals walking through each evening, to now, what has become a honeypot for crowds of photographers getting in the way every “golden hour”...
> I’ve seen photographers edge further and further into the water – ruining the view for others...
> For instagrammers, and wannabe “influencers” – learn that there are people on the planet who might not be interested in YOU. They might want to see the view without you in it. They might even want to just sit and enjoy a scene without a camera (shock!). While it’s easy to get wrapped up in this stuff online, they have every right (or maybe even more) to enjoy a place without it being ruined by your need to be “liked” by people you’ll never meet.
It sure sounds like he's berating photographers for ruining the view for others.
For places like this, we need to enforce trespassing laws. Use it as revenue to pay for more enforcement of those laws. For public spaces ruined by the photographers, pass laws requiring licenses to photograph and distribute it (where possible). Make other rules for public spaces to keep them useful to the public for things other than photography (no mounting a camera within 50 feet of the water, for example).
> I am disgusted by these people. Absolutely revolted. I understand this is a subjective statement but something inside me recoils at these people,
I understand how many can feel that way, but what if these photographers were genuinely interested in the underlying work. They did put in the effort to travel all the way to a farm to check it out. They took pictures of it in appreciation. Maybe they did not know how to properly respect the people and the place, maybe they should be taught rather than chastised.
Every child knows that you don't do whatever you want on the grounds of other people, in their gardens and homes.
Stop being jerks and just ask people politely if it's ok for them that you take a picture.
Also I don't get how they all need a picture of the same place.
In the end all they do is to deprive themselves from real happiness and the possibility to just enjoy the moment. Their POV changes in the moment they see the world through the lens of their cam and they don't even seem to get this.
> Also I don't get how they all need a picture of the same place.
It's because they don't care about the place, they care that they've been there. This is a problem as old as photography; I remember watching tourists on my daily commute coming to the same spots, day in, day out, and shooting the exact same photos of the exact same buildings from the exact same angles. All I could think of is, "your exact photo is on Flickr already in 10 different copies, why are you doing this?!". The rise of social media (Instagram in particular) only made this worse.
I think they are harming themselves by doing this because they can't really enjoy the moment and just "be" there.
I rarely take pictures because I always think "there's already awesome pics of this on the net" and also when I'm back I don't want to overwhelm people who want to see them with a collection of "just 1000 photos of me in front of the Louvre".
Of course I'd love to have a picture of me standing in front of Taj Mahal but in the end it's not so important. The pictures people haven't seen yet are much more interesting (to me), especially places where tourists don't want to be or perspectives they shouldn't see.
E.g. the "Golden Beaches" in Bulgaria. Stay in the tourist zone and you'll have the typical beaches, hotels, bars etc. But the exciting part of the area is when you leave this "paradise" and see the massive destruction tourism, the hotel lobby etc. bring to nature and the people.
Seeing these scenes changed my mind and I realized I'd never want to do "all inclusive" at the places where all people go again.
I think people need more stable personalities so they can break out of their "hive-mind-thinking" and start sensing their environment and enjoying themselves without the constant feedback of "the hive". Behaviour like this reminds me of the Lemmings and the Borg.
My parents rationalize this by saying that they want to have something to reminisce about once they're too old to travel or even to move around without pains. On the other hand, the photos they take on their travels do not end up on any social media, but in a private collection on a family file server...
I didn't mean to excuse this behavior, what they are doing is certainly not good. My point is only that in their desire to photograph, there must be some level of appreciation for it, and it would be more productive to develop that appreciation than shut everything down.
As a simple example, the next farmer that gets instagram-mobbed, rather than putting up a "No Trespassing" sign, could instead put up a sign at the front of the property asking visitors to "come to the porch, say hello, and learn about farming". Many of the people who trekked all the way out to a farm to photograph it, will likely take the extra few minutes to get a deeper understanding. The farmer will maintain (or improve) her dignity, and maybe the instagramer will learn something new.
I'm just saying there are better potential solutions than mocking and distancing yourself from a group of people, you can bring yourself closer together.
Basically yes. But I would maybe like to be left alone on my beautiful farm without all the people visiting me.
If I'd want to have so much company I'd have opened a store or museum I think.
Where I come from we really had something that was called "privacy" and "intimacy" and when we were at our place it was given to us without struggle.
When I think about massive tourism, satellites in LEO and drones above our heads I see this in decline without a real choice or possibility to avoid it from coming to my little farm.
Of course I'd not want to have to put up signs or even technology to keep people, drones etc. off my grounds but I'd rather do that than being disturbed by strangers (or strange technology) every waking minute.
It's not like one person comes over on a sunny Sunday to ask me about farming but the 1000 people who have the same idea that day or the couple who want's to shoot their love scene in my yard at midnight in the moon light while I just want to fall asleep with the sounds of the crickets and not some fuck-fest.
Don't get me wrong here - I am very open minded. But I value my privacy etc. and I see it being taken away without me having a chance to decide/stop it/whatever. It's not the one person, but the mass of people who care more for their damn picture than respect for nature and people who happen to live there.
> These are people so obsessed with their own sense of self-importance for the sake of a few instant “likes” on their social media profile that they find it perfectly acceptable to trespass, steal, disrespect the workers and their land – all in the name of “influencing”.
...
>They’d damaged the land. They’d stolen the owner’s products. They’d ruined the fields that had been tended to with hard work for months. But even the farmer’s final attempt to put and end to it wasn’t enough – they wanted more.
Oh, can't wait the day when we are going to look back at "social media" platforms and go: "what the hell were these creatures thinking?"
I really think social media is one of the worst tools for the human psyche ever conceived. It's a net loss for sure.
It's addictive and also messes up with dopamine generation. Not to mention the vanity/envy aspect of it: people comparing to selective representation of other people. It's remarkably insane when you think about it.
Part of me thinks this is nothing new. Sure, social media has changed the flavour slightly but tourist honeypots have existed since forever... and in a way, they work. A huge number of people go to the Lake District and don't leave Ambleside; Ambleside prospers with its cafes and outdoor shops and the rest of the area is slightly less overrun for it. This was the case long before we even had digital cameras.
You'd think social media would disperse the honeypots as people spread out to emulate photos scattered over a greater number of locations, yet I gather from national park authorities etc it has the opposite effect entirely.
If we're not going to change human nature then I think that implies the opposite policy on "ticketed locations" mentioned by the OP: do charge money at honeypot spots, and reinvest it to repair the damage.
Is this a recent phenomenon? I traveled to Valensole two years ago, and haven’t seen anything like this. There were some people taking Instagram shots, of course, myself included, but nothing disrespectful, and certainly nothing like that. What’s even the point of being the “influencer”, are people looking up to it?
> What’s even the point of being the “influencer”, are people looking up to it?
Economically, you might get "famous" enough for small brands to send you free stuff to show in the photos, in the long run they want to win the recognition lottery and get more and more famous. It's very self-referencing
Wow the last photo of Angor Wat is shocking. I actually feel sick and disgusted by looking at this photo. I travelled South East Asia extensively in 2012 when Instagram was not a thing (yet) and honestly this place was almost empty and one of the most magical things I've ever seen. If I was to go there today and this would be my experience then I would have never gotten the travel bug. What's wrong with these people, honestly the majority of people are just dumb sheep, no self respect, no dignity, no respect for our planet and other living beings. Nobody with a tiny bit of self respect would put themselves into this crowd just for a narcissistic Instagram photo.
this new mindset that you need to spend your money on experiences instead of things is beginning to show its ugly side. I wonder if the carbon and environmental footprint is better or worse than buying goods
Whenever I see this kinda stuff, I can't help but think of the "Ugly American" trope and how it seems like it's an insanely (and desperate to be) visible minority of the whole world now
We are free and prosperous because we have inherited political and values systems fabricated by a particular set of eighteenth-century intellectuals who happened to get it right. But we have lost touch with those intellectuals, and with anything like intellectualism, even to the point of not reading books any more, though we are literate. We seem much more comfortable with propagating those values to future generations nonverbally, through a process of being steeped in media. Apparently this actually works to some degree, for police in many lands are now complaining that local arrestees are insisting on having their Miranda rights read to them, just like perps in American TV cop shows. When it’s explained to them that they are in a different country, where those rights do not exist, they become outraged. Starsky and Hutch reruns, dubbed into diverse languages, may turn out, in the long run, to be a greater force for human rights than the Declaration of Independence.
A huge, rich, nuclear-tipped culture that propagates its core values through media steepage seems like a bad idea. There is an obvious risk of running astray here. Words are the only immutable medium we have, which is why they are the vehicle of choice for extremely important concepts like the Ten Commandments, the Koran, and the Bill of Rights. Unless the messages conveyed by our media are somehow pegged to a fixed, written set of precepts, they can wander all over the place and possibly dump loads of crap into people’s minds.
Orlando used to have a military installation called McCoy Air Force Base, with long runways from which B-52s could take off and reach Cuba, or just about anywhere else, with loads of nukes. But now McCoy has been scrapped and repurposed. It has been absorbed into Orlando’s civilian airport. The long runways are being used to land 747-loads of tourists from Brazil, Italy, Russia and Japan, so that they can come to Disney World and steep in our media for a while.
To traditional cultures, especially word-based ones such as Islam, this is infinitely more threatening than the B-52s ever were.
> Words are the only immutable medium we have, which is why they are the vehicle of choice for extremely important concepts like the Ten Commandments, the Koran, and the Bill of Rights.
Uh, certainly also maybe perhaps because written words were the only medium at the time? I imagine video and audio recordings will be just as important for future historians as writings have been to our time's historians
For photography abuse, I don't see Americans singled out by anyone--not even the author at Petapixel--as being better or worse than any other group of people.
Not sure if it has English subtitles, but there is a documentary about a family who works in one of those famous rice terraces tourists fill up for taking photos:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=FyPIqCDocxY
As someone who grew up in an area where tourism was the only substantial industry I have zero sympathy (for the first world areas affected by this at least). When all the people complaining about idiots inconveniencing everyone taking pictures go on vacation they do the same damn thing.
Contrarian opinion: this sounds like a business opportunity to me. I'm pretty sure an enterprising lavender farmer could make a lot more money in season by charging for access to their fields, taking a deposit to cover damage, and selling lavender bunches as props for $20 a pop.
In Buenos Aires there's a beautiful old cemetery called La Recoleta.
One of my most jarring and bizarre memories from my time in Argentina was watching as hundreds of tourists took smiling/sultry pouting/peace sign selfies with the various graves and mausoleums.
I had a similar experience taking some relatives to Yellowstone last week. I was actually impressed that my 17 yo niece and 21 yo nephew absorbed the views primarily with their eyes and not there phones. As for the hoards of others...
Grew up in one of those picturesque Maine villages you see, this is definitely getting worse as time goes on, but it is hard to put a stop to this because it also brings in lots of money to otherwise impoverished areas.
Which village, if you don't mind my asking (fellow Mainer here)? I grew up in a beautiful area that has never (and probably won't) seen the effects of tourism due to accessibility (read: The County), but have since moved to Southern Maine.
Maine has done a pretty good job of keeping tourism in check (I would say) despite being labeled the Vacationland, but I wonder if that has to do with our state having a more "plain" natural beauty? For example, Mount Katahdin is obviously impressive for the area, but it is nowhere near as dramatic as mountains out West. Then again, perhaps the strict enforcement of Baxter's vision for a forever "wild Maine" has served us well.
Or perhaps we are fortunate to have fairly brutal winters that give us a break from those who don't snowmobile!
Maybe this is an out of the box solution but ... start charging an entry fee for the Lavender fields and designated areas to pose in so the real fields don't get trampled?
Same thing is happening in Monument Valley Utah/AZ... It's like an entire generation just discovered that the earth has some beautiful areas and they're coming to ruin it all.
Not to dismiss your point, but there was also a generation of people who wanted to mine the grand canyon. I think that as people we still have the same psychological trappings as we did before. But I do think we're becoming more conscious. Certainly, if you asked any of those lavender tramplers about setting of dynamite in that area to unearth copper or whatnot, they'd probably not support such an idea.
Most photographers were Okay and respected the rules, but some some just refused and couldn't handle being called out. For example one rule was do not get in train cabs, unless by prior arrangement - which involved doing a safety briefing etc. Still some photographers just did their own thing. Some would jump on to the footplates of in service steam locomotives to get their shot, that was dangerous but they didn't care. I was driving a diesel railcar and had a passenger bang on the cab door so he could take shots from within the cab. He kept banging for about 10 minutes until we got back to the station and was then had a go at me for refusing him access.
Another strict rule was no tripods on the platforms. It was dangerous as they created a tripping hazard and just ruined the atmosphere for other visitors. But come a sunny day or special event the forest of tripods would be out in force.
And the worst of all was the ones who would walk off the end of platforms and setup alongside the railway line. Most wouldn't even bother to wear a hi-viz vest either. Completely dangerous, but they didn't care they just wanted their special shot.
These weren't just our rules, many were in place because of laws and insurance requirements. We didn't want accidents, nor did we want a few visitors to ruin the atmosphere for others. But when we called called out such people we often got abuse, which would then be followed up by long rants about how unaccommodating we were in various photography and railway forums.
The thing is we would allow photographers to access cabs, use tripods and go alongside the line - so long as they arranged it with us first. And during special events we would often have an hour set aside specifically for photographers to go to town. But for some that wasn't enough.
For a lot of heritage railways in the UK and Ireland the misbehavior of some photographers has got so bad they have a blanket ban on cameras with remediable lenses.