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June 18, 2010
Seth Mydans has a post on tourism at Lens, the New York Times blog on photography, video and visual journalism blog. He says:
For many travelers, the goal of tourism now seems as much to be recording the trip as living the experience...the spread of cameras has made tourism — from museums to mountains — a less passive pursuit than in the past, for travelers and subjects alike.
He adds that with cameras everywhere, one of the challenges photojournalists face is finding new ways to present familiar scenes.
Gary Sauer-Thompson, tourism, Freycinet National Park, 2010
So why not make mass tourism and camera-carrying tourists taking photos of natural beauty the subject of photography? Martin Parr comes to mind.
As expected Susan Sontag has something to say on this kind of tourism in On Photography:
The very activity of taking pictures is soothing, and assuages general feelings of disorientation that are likely to be exacerbated by travel. Most tourists feel compelled to put the camera between themselves and whatever is remarkable that they encounter. Unsure of other responses, they take a picture. This gives shape to experience: stop, take a photograph, and move on. The method especially appeals to people handicapped by a ruthless work ethic - Germans, Japanese, and Americans. Using a camera appeases the anxiety which the work-driven feel about not working when they are on vacation and supposed to be having fun. They have something to do that is like a friendly imitation of work: they can take pictures.
Isn't the story the effects of tourism on locals?
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