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Photographers, Instagrammers: Stop Being So Selfish and Disrespectful

• tjr225 7y ago
  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.
  • intuitionist 7y ago
    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."
  • word-reader 7y ago
    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.
    • siphon22 7y ago
      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.
      • squirrelicus 7y ago
        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.
        • siphon22 7y ago
          You are right. People typically won't know how good they have it until they are separated from it, either temporarily or permanently.
        • modernthumb 7y ago
          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.
          • vinceguidry 7y ago
            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." He was 100% right.
    • paganel 7y ago
      > 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) [1] https://monoskop.org/images/0/0f/Kracauer_Siegfried_The_Mass_Ornament_Weimar_Essays.pdf https://monoskop.org/images/0/0f/Kracauer_Siegfried_The_Mass...
    • arvinsim 7y ago
      > 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.
    • J-dawg 7y ago
      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.
      • silveroriole 7y ago
        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...
        • collyw 7y ago
          Kind of like how people criticize them on internet forums to show how much better they are than that.....
      • nkrisc 7y ago
    • notyourday 7y ago
      > 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"
      • word-reader 7y ago
        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.
  • deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
• jrockway 7y ago
  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.)
  • nkrisc 7y ago
    Sounds like one officer each evening issuing citations might do the trick.
  • JudgeWapner 7y ago
    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.
    • michaelmrose 7y ago
      Content aware fill is great for everything listed except for the stink!
    • siphon22 7y ago
      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.
      • JudgeWapner 7y ago
        They make money from selling lavender. Not from having pretty fields. If the police won't do their jobs, you can take matters into your own hands.
• werber 7y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ugly_American_(pejorative) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ugly_American_(pejorative) 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
  • smacktoward 7y ago
    Neal Stephenson saw this coming nearly 20 years ago, in his essay In the Beginning... Was the Command Line (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Beginning..._Was_the_Command_Line https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Beginning..._Was_the_...) From the section titled “The Interface Culture”: 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.
• cgrealy 7y ago
  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.
  • Deimorz 7y ago
    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. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Louise_(Alberta) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Louise_(Alberta)
    • huehehue 7y ago
      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?
• aaron695 7y ago
  Outrage culture FTW 1% of the population is not the world. Stop saying it is. And the OP is part of the problem, going somewhere to take a photo? Experience life instead. I get it's their job and hobby but they are no different in the act, they get the journey so they still get life, but don't pretend their set up photos are real. They are fake, they admit they take days to get a good photo, that .1 of a second in time that really doesn't exist creating a culture of people also wanting that fake .1 second of life. They are feeding the beast. If anything jumping on a floating bit of ice is actually experiencing the world. Not really sure we have to say don't trespass and the rest is complaints that now there are so many people you can't 'fake' a photo pretending there are not.
• CPLX 7y ago
  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.
  • cm0000cm 7y ago
    one can only hope
  • siphon22 7y ago
    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.
    • rofo1 7y ago
      > 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.
      • Nasrudith 7y ago
        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.
• 9nGQluzmnq3M 7y ago
  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.
  • donretag 7y ago
    Sounds good, but in the end the Instagrammers will instead charge the farmers for "exposure".
• bobwaycott 7y ago
  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.
  • lm28469 7y ago
    > 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.
• rhacker 7y ago
  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.
  • la_barba 7y ago
    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.
• 40acres 7y ago
  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.rosewinemansion.com/about-2019 https://www.rosewinemansion.com/about-2019
  • OkGoDoIt 7y ago
    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.
  • Freak_NL 7y ago
    One look at that website and its immediately obvious that it is one of those social media photo staging expositions. What made you think otherwise?
• tayo42 7y ago
  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.
  • drivingmenuts 7y ago
    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.
    • ghaff 7y ago
      I remember when people would joke about the Japanese taking so many pictures. Today many, perhaps most, put that level of photo snapping to shame.
• astura 7y ago
  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/?hl=en https://www.instagram.com/publiclandshateyou/p/Bu_qnY7hjhQ/?...
  • arvinsim 7y ago
    > Now, after the proliferation of cheap DSLRs Mirrorless cameras are the rage nowadays.
  • missjellyfish 7y ago
    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”. Sigh.
    • la_barba 7y ago
      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.
  • 0x5002 7y ago
    I find this to be very true. 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.
• OkGoDoIt 7y ago
  https://instagram.com/insta_repeat https://instagram.com/insta_repeat 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!
  • joshwa 7y ago
    My personal favorite in this vein: https://thekinspiracy.tumblr.com/ https://thekinspiracy.tumblr.com/
• sarcasmOrTears 7y ago
  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
• cryptos 7y ago
  I wonder if a CO2 tax would fix that, too...
• jwmoz 7y ago
  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.
  • thaumasiotes 7y ago
    They probably wouldn't notice, but if they did they'd be unlikely to mind. If you go to China, Chinese tourists will want to take pictures of you (assuming you're white). And they really like taking pictures of white kids. It's kind of funny, but I've never seen anyone react by thinking the Chinese are all selfish jerks. That just wouldn't make sense.
    • mdpye 7y ago
      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? Perhaps you'd tire of that more quickly?
      • thaumasiotes 7y ago
        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.
        • mdpye 7y ago
          It's the taking of the photos which is an intrusion, not the photos themselves.
• tonymet 7y ago
  Editorials like this make is sound like society has shared values.
• julius_set 7y ago
  I am disgusted by these people. Absolutely revolted. I understand this is a subjective statement but something inside me recoils at these people,
  • speedplane 7y ago
    > 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.
    • VvR-Ox 7y ago
      That sounds like a lame excuse - sorry. 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.
      • speedplane 7y ago
        > That sounds like a lame excuse 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.
• atemerev 7y ago
  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?
  • marcodave 7y ago
    > 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
• rofo1 7y ago
  > 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. Maybe it's best not to think about it :)
• ptah 7y ago
  instagram needs to be shut down tbh. it is damaging society in myriad ways
  • nativespecies 7y ago
    ....what
• roadbeats 7y ago
  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 https://youtube.com/watch?v=FyPIqCDocxY
• sejtnjir 7y ago
  I think this will be a passing craze. Younger instagram users are much less interested in showing off perfect shots than their millennial predecessors.
• robocat 7y ago
  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.
  • trax 7y ago
    Everybody wants to travel but nobody wants to be a tourist.
  • collyw 7y ago
    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.
• dustinmoris 7y ago
  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.
  • nativespecies 7y ago
    So your experience is ok since it happened in 2012. Got it.
• mlang23 7y ago
  > But this was crazy. And rude. And selfish. And utterly, disgustingly, narcissistic. That pretty much sums up 2/3 of our society. Dealing with stupidity of the masses will be one of the bigger challenges of the future.
  • KuhlMensch 7y ago
    I think of it more as a continuing challenge. There is just bigger groups of us now.
• unicornporn 7y ago
  PLEASE change the URL from the blog spam Petapixel site to the photographer's own! https://www.paulreiffer.com/2019/07/photographers-instagrammers-stop-being-so-damn-selfish-and-disrespectful/ https://www.paulreiffer.com/2019/07/photographers-instagramm...
  • dhekir 7y ago
    The author's blog says: All site content © Paul Reiffer 2019 and may not be used without permission And Petapixel's post credits him, and includes in the end: About the author: (...) This article was also published here [link to author's blog]. So, I assume it has been authorized by the author? Does he prefer to have a link to his own blog directly?
    • unicornporn 7y ago
      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.
      • Freak_NL 7y ago
        > 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.
      • jasode 7y ago
        >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. [1] https://indieweb.org/POSSE https://indieweb.org/POSSE
• bump64 7y ago
  My personal favorite is this instagram profile making fun of influencers taking photos and videos in the famous Rue Crémieux street in Paris. https://www.instagram.com/clubcremieux/ https://www.instagram.com/clubcremieux/
  • astura 7y ago
    Do these people not realize that they are at someone's house, not a god damn movie set??? How could one be so obnoxious?
    • yifanl 7y ago
      Instagram has made any setting a movie set, that's the implied value of all these pictures.
• Bouncingsoul1 7y ago
  Some months back when this was posted https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17944934 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.
  • Nasrudith 7y ago
    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.
• jddj 7y ago
  "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'.
• jillesvangurp 7y ago
  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.
  • rjtavares 7y ago
    The scale at which it happens is a new thing, and it definitely matters.
  • lm28469 7y ago
    > This is as old as photography is a thing. 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.
  • 7y ago
• DoubleGlazing 7y ago
  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.
  • atoav 7y ago
    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.
• Cryptokrates 7y ago
  One of the comments on this site is just the perfect description for this phenomenon: <<Addicted to the release of dopamine when someone likes their photographs, these "fauxtographers" will do anything to get another shot of that dopamine. This is not photography, this is social masturbation.>>
• sideshowb 7y ago
  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.
• pard68 7y ago
  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.
  • sprainedankles 7y ago
    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!
    • pard68 7y ago
      Stonington!
• AJ007 7y ago
  This is a fixable problem. AR lenses so there is no longer a benefit to being somewhere just for the photo.
• rmrfrmrf 7y ago
  Remember this the next time a photographer cries about "theft" of their intellectual property on social media.
• un-devmox 7y ago
  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...
• dsfyu404ed 7y ago
  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.
• ashelmire 7y ago
  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).
• aphextim 7y ago
  https://www.reddit.com/r/Instagramreality/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Instagramreality/ is one of my favorite subreddits when I need to be reminded about all this craziness.
• crazygringo 7y ago
  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.
• larrywright 7y ago
  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. [1] http://larrywright.me/photo/ http://larrywright.me/photo/
• wellactually 7y ago
  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.
  • khalilravanna 7y ago
    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.
  • rv-de 7y ago
    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".
  • sowbug 7y ago
    https://imgur.com/a/e1cfdMT https://imgur.com/a/e1cfdMT This photo didn't quite capture the full effect, but at the time I was shocked how many people were facing away from the painting.
• whack 7y ago
  > 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.
  • JangoSteve 7y ago
    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.
    • whack 7y ago
      > 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.
• jddj 7y ago
  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.
• sneak 7y ago
  No one was harmed by any of the things that the author is complaining about.
• Rainymood 7y ago
  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?
• FraKtus 7y ago
  We have the same in Belgium in the Haller Bos (Bois de Halle). People walk on the flowers, pick them. https://www.halle.be/node/61837 https://www.halle.be/node/61837 Each year there are more restrictions to enter the wood while the flowers are there.