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Photographers, Instagrammers: Stop Being So Selfish and Disrespectful

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Re: Photographers, Instagrammers: Stop Being So Selfish and Disrespectful

#21

Post by bri3d »

jrockway wrote: post #3

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 arreste…

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.

Re: Photographers, Instagrammers: Stop Being So Selfish and Disrespectful

#22

Post by dahauns »

cgrealy wrote: post #6

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 plac…

>I honestly expected this article to be another "damn kids, get off my lawn" post

Weeell...technically it is. (At least it's not far off.) But sometimes "get off my lawn" is justified.

Re: Photographers, Instagrammers: Stop Being So Selfish and Disrespectful

#23

Post by siphon22 »

JudgeWapner wrote: post #8
jrockway wrote: post #3

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 arreste…

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.

Re: Photographers, Instagrammers: Stop Being So Selfish and Disrespectful

#24

Post by tayo42 »

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.

Re: Photographers, Instagrammers: Stop Being So Selfish and Disrespectful

#25

Post by astura »

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.

This one made me so sad: https://www.instagram.com/publiclandshateyou/p/Bu_qnY7hjhQ/?...

Re: Photographers, Instagrammers: Stop Being So Selfish and Disrespectful

#26

Post by siphon22 »

CPLX wrote: post #12

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.

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.

Re: Photographers, Instagrammers: Stop Being So Selfish and Disrespectful

#27

Post by huehehue »

Deimorz wrote: post #9
cgrealy wrote: post #6

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 plac…

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 bus…

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?

Re: Photographers, Instagrammers: Stop Being So Selfish and Disrespectful

#28

Post by word-reader »

tjr225 wrote: post #2

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…

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.

Re: Photographers, Instagrammers: Stop Being So Selfish and Disrespectful

#29

Post by siphon22 »

word-reader wrote: post #28
tjr225 wrote: post #2

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…

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 thankf…

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.

Re: Photographers, Instagrammers: Stop Being So Selfish and Disrespectful

#30

Post by OkGoDoIt »

40acres wrote: post #19

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. 0: https://www.r…

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.
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