A lot of people seem to be defending their prolific photo-taking on the grounds that the shots are personal mementos. Hey, if that’s your thing, go for it. I’ve been known to do a bit of that too.
Where my confusion arises is when such people then feel compelled to share albums worth of such photos with the people they know. It’s this act, and this act alone, that puzzles me. From my own experience, and from what I have observed of others, travel photos are far more interesting when you yourself are in the shot. They border on, and sometimes cross well in to, downright boring, if it’s just shot after shot of “random” scene/object/tower.
You don’t need to be hogging 50% of the viewport to place yourself in a photo.
When you say “compelled to share,” do you mean posting the photos on Facebook, or are people shoving their snaps in your face?
Some people upload their photos to Facebook because it’s an easy place to store them, and if people want to look through them they can. But nobodys making anyone look at them…
Yup. I don’t pull out slideshows or anything. I have maybe a few dozen photos on my Facebook account - and about 1/3 of them are of my rabbits, in their own album - and anyone who wants to see my photos can look at the album overview and note the lack of posed people in the vast majority of them and opt to continue no further, should they wish.
I’ve taken a lot of travel photos over the last five years or so since I got into digital photography. And I share the better ones on Flickr – of Australia, of the United States, and of other places. I like taking pictures of places that I’ve been, particularly of interesting old or new buildings. I don’t really want myself in the picture – the fact that I took the picture, and I can remember being there, is enough. And I share them on Flickr because I think they’re good enough for others to look at them.
So, here’s a picture of an interesting building that really took my fancy. Does anyone think the picture would be better if I’d put the camera on a tripod with a timer, and run around in front of the camera so I could be in the shot? I think it would have spoiled the whole thing, for no purpose: I know I was there, and anyone else would just be interested in a picture of the building, not of me.
And I am saying that I find the shots of tourists far less interesting than the shot of the scene/object/tower itself. Or in other words, in the same group of pictures, you and I would gravitate to different shots - it sounds like you’d be interested in pictures with people posing for the camera, I’d would not. I’d be interested in the pictures that are of the vista itself, you’d find those boring.
I post and share the kinds of pictures that I like to see. Pictures without me in them.
I know you said Bangladesh, but these pictures really remind me of India. Thanks for posting them, brought back some memories.
And now that I think of it, it’s not a hijack at all, is it? this is why people take environment shots. I never care about looking at 100 pictures of people I don’t know well. I hate wedding albums for this reason. I don’t really care who’s in there!
90% of my own photos don’t have me, or any other person in them. Pictures without people in them are better at creating the illusion that you’re looking directly at the subject yourself, IMHO.
Guys, take hundreds of photos. Take thousands. Take millions, and put yourself in none of them. Wonderful.
Just please don’t assume people are interested in seeing albums worth of stuff they could find themselves if they were interested and have an internet connection.
I’m with you with the variation that any person included in a photo will often make it more interesting. Not every photo, not every situation, but generally I believe a photo says more if a person is shown. For one thing it gives a proportion of scale.
I recall being subjected to a relatives slide and video show after they had visited some other relations in Australia. Roads, airports, trees, the odd kangaroo, wide plains…and not a single pic of the family they stayed with. :smack: No people at all.
Snap! Good man I did the same in India and used the images to illustrate talks to groups here at home. The photos would have been mind numbing and meaningless without the local people portrayed.
I’ve got a couple thousand photos of when I spent a year and a half traveling around the world. Some small percentage of them have me in them. The ones that do have me in them are typically of me and my travel companions so that I can remember the good times traveling with them.
I have almost no decent pictures of landmarks with me in them. It’s way harder to take a decent picture with a timer, and let’s face it, the average person you give a camera to take a picture of you is a shit photographer.
There’s a curious phenomena with some asian travelers I’ve met. Every single photo has them in it, and there isn’t a single interesting photo in the bunch.
Plus, I’m unphotogenic as all hell, and rarely force people to look at my pictures.
This is a cultural difference I’ve seen too. When I was in Vietnam I met a traveller who’d shown his (stunning) landscape photos of the country to a host family, and they returned it to him with much confusion and disappointment, saying “but where are you?” The host family’s pictures were 100% exclusively of them (usually making the peace sign) in front of things.
You’re familliar with the cliche in any given sitcom where in one clueless guy says: “Hey let’s all check out my slide show from my trip to _____” and then the rest of the cast will groan with anticipated boredom?
Yeah, I think it’s safe to say most people don’t want to look at your (The general you. not the OP personally.) damn pictures if you’re in them or not.
To the OP: You’re one of the people who crowd around everything I want to see, and I have to wait patiently for all of you to leave, so I can get some good shots in. My photos are of things I can’t see at home, whether famous landmarks or an interesting doorway. Why would I want everything covered up by friends or family . . . people I can see every day?
“Here we have the wife and kids blocking the view of the Eiffel Tower.”
“This one’s of Junior. He’s the one giving the peace sign. If you could see it, that’s the Mona Lisa behind him.”
“This is the Grand Canyon. Well, it would be, if the kids were transparent.”
“I asked a stranger to take this picture of the entire family. I don’t remember what we’re in front of, probably something important.”
“I’m counting 247 pictures of me, 430 or the Missus, something like 500 of the kids. Funny, I don’t remember anything we’ve actually seen on this trip. But we sure do have lots of pics of each other. I think we would have saved lots of money, just taking the pictures in our back yard.”
I promise I won’t bore you with my 7,000+ photos of southern France.
Oh, and about all those photos that you can get online, so you don’t have to take them yourself . . . who do you think took those pictures? And you may notice that new photos are continually added. Who took them? Have you noticed that these images don’t contain the photographer? Why is that?
I like to think these are the types of travel photos I’d take, if I were into photography, which I’m not. In fact, I find a lot of the time, taking pictures gets in the way of what I’m actually doing; I want to experience my travel, not spend all my time documenting it so I can show other people. I don’t mean that as a criticism of jjimm or anyone else who does take picture; it’s just not a hobby I enjoy.
I find I’m in the minority. Mr. Athena and I didn’t even take a camera with us when we went to France for 3 weeks on our honeymoon. Judging by the reactions of most of my friends and relatives, you’d think we’d spent the 3 weeks killing babies and kittens. The idea that you’d take a major vacation WITHOUT A CAMERA apparently is Just Not Done.
I care about the interests of my friends and family. Seeing their pictures goes beyond the subject, per se, but let’s me share in their experience. What possible difference is there really between a shot of the Eiffel Tower alone, or with my friend in front of it? Either I’m interested in sharing their experience or I’m not.
Frankly I’m more interested in seeing what they saw and did than I am in seeing a photo of them doing it, unless it’s something special (like my mom riding a camel!).
My son went to Costa Rica and took the most beautiful nature shots. I can see a photo of a bat anywhere, but the one he took is special because I can imagine him doing it and that makes it unique. Plus, he took amazing nature shots that are the ones people look up on the Internet! As with anything, if I share an album I expect only people who are interested will look and couldn’t care less if you don’t.
Look at this photo:
. It’s beautiful. It’s something I haven’t experienced. And I can think of him spending the day hiking through the rain forest turning over each leaf photographing what he saw. How would his face add to that?
Here’s another example. The Eiffel Tower is probably the most photographed object in the world. I’m sure it’s been shot from every conceivable angle.
On my last trip to Paris I took this photo. I don’t care whether there are already million of shots from this angle. I just love the fact that it reminds me of a Georgia O’Keefe composition. The tower itself is very phallic looking, so this view shows it to have a sort of male/female ambiguity.
Would it be improved by adding people in the foreground?