That’s a gorgeous shot!
I tried to get in the photo of the wild dogs chasing that warthog, but they wouldn’t pose with me. I really wanted to throw my arm around the cheetah that had just run down the lechwe, but he was a bit testy about it. And that charging hippo must have objected to my using an improper f-stop or something as he was right pissed. And yes, people do like to see these sorts of photos of places they haven’t been and things they haven’t seen, and the stories that go along with them. I don’t show them hundreds of photos, but a good sampling is appreciated, particularly if the topic comes up.
Now we need a photo thread, cause I want to see those!
Why are you assuming that no one wants to see these photos just because you personally aren’t interested? If other people’s Facebook travel photos are so boring to you, don’t look at them. They’re being posted for the benefit of those who do want to see them.
Funny, I’d assume that people posting these kinds of photos on facebook would be a good thing then. If you’re interested and you have an internet connection, there they are for you to find! A whole album’s worth! Ta daa!
If somebody on my feed posts a bunch of photos I’m not interested in, I don’t go look at the album. It’s as simple as that. Now if they’re all up in your face “Didja look at my pictures yet? Huh? Huh? Didja? Whadja think?” then that’s a different problem, and one that long precedes facebook (see Shakes’s example.)
I love the travel pics of scenery and landscape. Makes me wish I was there.
If my family is having fun with an activity, I’ll take a pic with them in the pic. But scenery and famous landmarks…I love the pics without people in them.
Shockingly, people are different. Go figure!
Some love seeing themselves sucking in their cheeks, or flashing peace signs in front of everything they visit. Does nothing for me, sorry.
Some insist on a person in every shot, for depth, for scale, for artistic interest. Some are great, some are just ridiculous.
Some people shoot 500 pictures on holiday for 3 wks. Some people find taking photos, turns them from participant to spectator, and so take many fewer photos.
Some people find themselves, somewhere awesome, and just cannot help but take a dozen shots of one sunrise or sunset.
Some people love looking at your travel photos, regardless of their nature. While others are just being polite and can’t wait for you to stop.
None of this is surprising, really.
What’s surprising is that a grown adult seriously thinks their way, of capturing holiday photos, is magnitudes better than others, who choose to do it otherwise.
How can an adult possibly care this greatly about how anyone else takes their travel photos? If we all say, “Oooh, you’re so right, and everyone else is clearly so wrong!”, will that give you what you’re looking for?
I like to travel alone. It makes it hard to get a shot of myself. I love the nature photos without people in them!
If you are referring to my family members, the answer to the OP is as follows:
…people share albums worth of ‘personless’ travel photos, and force you to look at them to make you pay them back for the meaningless trinket they purchased for you from said travels
I think the OP is asking two different questions. Why do people share lots of personless photos is a different from why do people take lots of personless photos.
I, personally, I am diametrically opposed to the OP. I’ve got a friend who travels a lot, and just about every photo has her in the foreground in exactly the same pose. I know what she looks like; I want to see where she’s been. I want to see what she saw, and what she found interesting enough to capture on film.
On my recent travels I find it very frustrating that hordes of tourists are battling to get photos with them in the foreground, rather than standing actually looking at and experiencing the sight they are seeing. That includes a recent visit to the Taj Mahal. People fighting and pushing each other out of the way to get that shot on the “Diana” bench, rather than taking a moment to actually appreciate the stunning sight before them. Same in the Louvre - the first thing most people seemed to do on seeing the Mona Lisa or the Venus de Milo was actually** turn their back on it**, put on an inane grin, and pull out their phone to try and capture themselves.
I mostly take photos on holiday for my own benefit. I share them on Facebook, sure, and get quite a few positive comments. But I ask you: which photo better captures my memories of a recent trip to Havana - This one or this one?
This reminds me of that old joke.
“What shall we get little Johnny for Christmas?”
- “How about a book?”
“No, he’s already got one of them.”
ETA: IvoryTowerDenizen that Eiffel Tower picture is stunning, and (to me anyway) highly original. Love it.
Opposite of the OP.
I enjoy photography for the craft and challenge, and traveling gives me amazing to subjects to take photos of. It’s ridiculous to stick my face, or a companions, into every one as some sort of record keeping.
I also take plenty of people pictures and companions too, usually of us in a restaurant, toasting with drinks, or having a laugh. This isn’t “photography” though in the craft sense, it’s snapshotting a good time.
As an album viewer, for travel albums I prefer the albums that don’t have the person stuck in every shot.
The OP just jostled my (long suppressed) memories of my late grandfather, who loved to travel the world. Every time he returned from a trip, he would torture us with slide shows of all his photos of landmarks that would last for HOURS. Each photo, which was projected onto a large white screen, was accompanied by his commentary.
“This is the Eiffel Tower. The French call it the ‘Tour Eiffel’. It is the tallest structure in Paris and among the most recognized landmarks in the world. You’ll have to go see it someday–it’s magnificent! It was named after the man who designed it, an engineer- Gustave Eiffel. Did you know that Eiffel was actually German? His family changed their name from Bönickhausen. I used to know a family from Virginia named Bonickhausen-wonderful people! Their oldest daughter, Kristina, married my cousin’s son, Marty. Marty was an interesting fellow. He got a PhD in marine biology. Which reminds me of…”
So I’m with the OP. Perhaps she also suffered some childhood trauma that included hours of torture with personless travel photos.
It’s not 98%, but I end up getting a number of cool shots of the places I’ve been. Like the aquarium in Waikiki. I got a lot of great shots of the interesting fish. I also took some of the sun setting over the beach and got a couple of shots just as the sun was touching the horizon that made some neat effects. Yes, there are also a number of pictures of my SO and I but the scenery was really amazing and I wanted to capture that as well.
Back in the day, my fater would bring maybe one roll of slide film on a vacation, and take a couple of establishing shots of us in fron tof the place’s sign or other recognisable background.
He would then buy sets of professional slides at the gift shop to have good images of what we had gone to see.
I still believe an album needs a few face shots mixed in with a lot of location images.
I love seeing my friends’ travel photos, especially when they’re not in them. I can see what they saw through* their* eyes. I mean I can imagine it. I’ll never go to Italy but my best friend took hundreds of photos and talked about the adventures she had with her mom and daughter and I enjoyed every shot and word.
But that’s just me. I even enjoy going through the photos on our local zoo’s FB page despite the fact that I’ll probably see the same settings a dozen times in a year.
I agree… But it wasn’t mine! Wish it was though…
Now, I can understand the POV that looking at other people’s travel photos is boring, but I fail to see how seeing 100 pics of your friend’s dumb mug is going to somehow make it LESS boring.
A lot depends on the photographer’s eye. Endless shots of rolling landscape with no eye relief is boring. Huge vistas are almost impossible to capture and still be interesting. Composition is everything, folks.
Whoa. I love photography. With the advent of digital cameras, and lately, my phone camera’s superiority to my stand-alone, I take a lot of photographs, and try to always be improving. I don’t believe photography, excessive or not, is necessarily a low-brow activity.