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When I was young and easily swayed, I took life advice from a well-known Dutch comedian (Youp van 't Hek) who loved to mock tourists taking those cringe “holdin

When I was young and easily swayed, I took life advice from a well-known Dutch comedian (Youp van 't Hek) who loved to mock tourists taking those cringe “holding up the Leaning Tower of Pisa” photos. The message was clear: tourist photos were tacky, and besides, you could always find a better photo in the gift shop anyway. So for years, I smugly avoided taking photos—too cool for clichés. It only hit me much later that I wasn’t missing out on better shots of monuments… I was missing pictures of the people I was with. Family and friends looking younger, sometimes happier, and—how shall I put it—sometimes still alive.

memhole 1y ago
On a backpacking trip, a guy and I were hiking together for a moment. I was snapping photos of the landscape and he started to chastise me for it. He made the same point. It’s about the people you’re with. Eventually, all the photos blur together. He’s not wrong. I’ve got tons of pictures of the outdoors. Not that they aren’t beautiful. Pressed, I mostly couldn’t tell one from the other.
- XorNot 1y ago
  Conversely having high res camera phones is magical when you have children. They really do grow up so fast.
  - riffraff 1y ago
    From the other side, having good pictures of your parents (ideally with your kids) is a good idea. They also go away faster than you expect.
- Gigachad 1y ago
  I kind of do agree about photos of landscapes. There's nothing that really ties me to those photos. Tend to stick to photographing people and particularly interesting things rather than just a good view of some hills.
- kmoser 1y ago
  He's not wrong...unless you're planning to use that landscape photo in a way that will give you some sort of benefit in the future (emotional, financial, etc.). It's easy (an often correct) to assume that most such photos will never be seen again, or maybe scrolled by quickly at best, but the fact is one doesn't know the motivation of the photographer, nor how they might change their motivation in the future to actually make use of that photo.
- 1659447091 1y ago
  One of my main reason for using Strava* is for keeping context with my travel photos. Even if it's just walks around a city center, I have a thing for photographing street art, and uploading the different photos to my walks and it places them at their locations on the recorded path/map of the walk (or hike) to be revisited/replayed when feeling nostalgic. It also helps to be more discerning about what photos to keep (do I really need another wide landscape shot?) But once the "worthy" photos of my walk/hike are added, I remove the others from my phone and make the recorded activity private for me to enjoy. The context + notes with the photos in one place makes it all mean so much more when I revisit them. I completely ignore all social bits of the app, but this might appeal to some since you can share/fork an activity to the accounts of people that where with you. *I don't work for them, but been using it over a decade now
  - zoover2020 1y ago
    Tangentially related: on each trip I make, I try my best to get a run in on Strava during which I explore a city or area with one or two pictures I make _during_ the run. They're my favorite memories. NY's Central Park, London's Hyde Park, Norway's fjords, Barcelona's beaches... The best part is that these feel like very tangible memories and take zero physical space to store!
- gj5904wj90wop 1y ago
  Completely disagree; photographs are just another kind of symbol, whether they be with others or not. I rarely travel with other people, and I despise having my own picture taken. All my photographs are of landscapes or objects; they're not terribly pretty but they do have meaning to me. There one of of a non descript mountain turn with a small gravel pullout. There's a million prettier pictures but that one means the most meaning to me. I almost died there; crashed on my motorcycle. Took the turn just a little too fast, panicked and just went over the edge trying desperately to stop. I don't remember much of the crash itself; just green, brown, and blue. Just that when I finally managed to get myself together, my leg crushed under the bike on on dirt that felt like concrete. No chance of pushing the bike off. No chance of digging or wriggling free. No chance of being seen from the road. My only hope was 911. Except... I couldn't bring myself to call. There was nothing technically stopping me; good signal strength, modern phone with enhanced positional reporting. Just one little button press and help would be on the way. But why? Why should I call for help? Why did I want to keep living? Why do I deserve to live? Damned questions that I had been asking myself nearly every day for almost 26 years of my life by then. And here, finally at that mountain road I couldn't run from it any more. But it was also the first real chance I had to put myself to the test; to know myself one way or the other. So I turned my phone off. And left my mortality to the hands of fate. For 7 hours I just lay there, nothing else to do but watch sun and cloud drift in the sky with waiting for an end. And yet there was a stillness there that I had never experienced before in my life. No more voices demanding that I meet their expectations. No more fear. No more uncertainty. Just a blessed silence with a light at the end of the road that I had no seen in a long time. It seemed almost cruel when motorist looking to relieve himself found me. Part of my wished he hadn't but there was not much else that could be done then. Him and his buddy played the rescuers, and I played the victim; freed me from my entrapment, got my bike on the road, kindly offered to call for help or stay with me, and I declined as graciously as I could and limped both myself and bike home. But after so long, I had an answer. I don't want to live. I don't deserve to live. My life has no meaning. But it also means that I don't have to care anymore either. Not about trying to maximize my career. No more forcing myself to fake smiles to make friends I can't find any connection with. No worry about finding a partner. Not about measuring myself or trying to improve or anything. That photograph on my phone is meaningless to everyone else. To me, it was where I finally found peace. And nothing can ever replace that.
- 05 1y ago
  We're getting closer to effortless vlogging with automatic follow-me drones, so you don't need to choose between shooting and actually experiencing things as much as you used to.
- throwawaybob420 1y ago
  That guy sounds like a dick.
FredPret 1y ago
Being too cool for school really steals a lot of joy from the people who subscribe to that idea. I was a tourist at Pisa not long ago and we really unironically enjoyed "leaning" into our roles as tourists, and now we have fun pictures.
marticode 1y ago
I had and followed that advice but in a slightly different delivery: "take photos of peoples, not things".
- andrehacker 1y ago
  Yes, I ended up exactly there... 20 years later.
- zirgs 1y ago
  We are no longer in the film era. You won't run out of storage. So I take pictures of both.
__MatrixMan__ 1y ago
I have a friend who refuses to take pictures without people in them. It seemed dumb at first but after several years of pictures piling up I can see he had a pretty good point.
- riffraff 1y ago
  This is old advice, I remember it being framed as "if I wanted a picture of a monument I'd buy a postcard", and postcards basically no longer exist. It made some sense to take pictures of panoramas or art when you could show something to people that could not see it otherwise, but in this era it makes no sense (unless you enjoy photography as a hobby). A goofy picture of you kissing some old bronze statue? Dumb, but yours.
  - JKCalhoun 1y ago
    It’s not just “making it your own”. I took the girls all around the US, around the world even as they were growing up. I had grown up in a “camera family” so always had one on trips as a parent too. Now, with two decades behind me, the photos of my young daughters, wife are the vacation photos I return to. Oldest daughter is wearing a kimono sipping tea at some place in the mountains of Japan… Two youngest are chasing each other on the beach of some island in Hawaii…
    - brabel 1y ago
      I suspect those photos would have been as precious to you if they were taken in your backyard.
      - JKCalhoun 1y ago
        You’re right. And I have those too. I was responding to the camera + vacation specifically though.
  - card_zero 1y ago
    Turns out that the things I wish I'd taken photos of were: bookshelves (with titles visible), crappy old computers and things on the screen, posters I used to have on the wall, my everyday clothes, streets with parked cars, the inside of an art supply store. These are not achievements, or unusual places, or humans. The things I'd like to see are stores of subtle cultural information than gets lost because it seems unimportant, and then a couple of decades later I want to look at all the details of it again but I can't. What was that car I used to be slightly interested by every time I walked past it? What range of items used to be for sale? What books did I have? What was actually on that poster that got torn and thrown out and now it's impossible to find another? Instead of answers, I have holiday snaps and pictures of humans.
_glass 1y ago
I missed out so much. When I was a college student, I rejected photos, as digital cameras where everywhere, and I was a snob, in my high school times taking analog camera photo. I read a lot of books about Zen, living in the moment, but now I regret this. The view photos I have I cherish as very dear memories.
- j45 1y ago
  Taking photos and videos for yourself or family is very different than for public posting.
- kccqzy 1y ago
  When modern smartphones first came out, I rejected them as a snob too. I continued to believe a dumb phone plus a dedicated camera was a better choice. But of course I often forget to bring the better camera out and I missed out on so much too. There's a reason people say the best camera is the camera you have with you.
assimpleaspossi 1y ago
I've started more traveling the world the past two years. The pictures I review when I get back didn't seem as interesting as those with my wife in the scene. Even a crowded street scene with multicolored houses was just OK except the one with my wife looking at a fruit stand. From now on, I will include my travel companions whenever I can.
lupusreal 1y ago
I generally have disdain for picture taking on vacations, but leaning on the tower is definitely one I would make an exception for. Sure it's tacky and unoriginal, but that's what makes it mandatory!

memhole 1y ago

On a backpacking trip, a guy and I were hiking together for a moment. I was snapping photos of the landscape and he started to chastise me for it. He made the same point. It’s about the people you’re with. Eventually, all the photos blur together. He’s not wrong. I’ve got tons of pictures of the outdoors. Not that they aren’t beautiful. Pressed, I mostly couldn’t tell one from the other.

XorNot 1y ago
Conversely having high res camera phones is magical when you have children. They really do grow up so fast.
- riffraff 1y ago
  From the other side, having good pictures of your parents (ideally with your kids) is a good idea. They also go away faster than you expect.
Gigachad 1y ago
I kind of do agree about photos of landscapes. There's nothing that really ties me to those photos. Tend to stick to photographing people and particularly interesting things rather than just a good view of some hills.
kmoser 1y ago
He's not wrong...unless you're planning to use that landscape photo in a way that will give you some sort of benefit in the future (emotional, financial, etc.). It's easy (an often correct) to assume that most such photos will never be seen again, or maybe scrolled by quickly at best, but the fact is one doesn't know the motivation of the photographer, nor how they might change their motivation in the future to actually make use of that photo.
1659447091 1y ago
One of my main reason for using Strava* is for keeping context with my travel photos. Even if it's just walks around a city center, I have a thing for photographing street art, and uploading the different photos to my walks and it places them at their locations on the recorded path/map of the walk (or hike) to be revisited/replayed when feeling nostalgic. It also helps to be more discerning about what photos to keep (do I really need another wide landscape shot?) But once the "worthy" photos of my walk/hike are added, I remove the others from my phone and make the recorded activity private for me to enjoy. The context + notes with the photos in one place makes it all mean so much more when I revisit them. I completely ignore all social bits of the app, but this might appeal to some since you can share/fork an activity to the accounts of people that where with you. *I don't work for them, but been using it over a decade now
- zoover2020 1y ago
  Tangentially related: on each trip I make, I try my best to get a run in on Strava during which I explore a city or area with one or two pictures I make _during_ the run. They're my favorite memories. NY's Central Park, London's Hyde Park, Norway's fjords, Barcelona's beaches... The best part is that these feel like very tangible memories and take zero physical space to store!
gj5904wj90wop 1y ago
Completely disagree; photographs are just another kind of symbol, whether they be with others or not. I rarely travel with other people, and I despise having my own picture taken. All my photographs are of landscapes or objects; they're not terribly pretty but they do have meaning to me. There one of of a non descript mountain turn with a small gravel pullout. There's a million prettier pictures but that one means the most meaning to me. I almost died there; crashed on my motorcycle. Took the turn just a little too fast, panicked and just went over the edge trying desperately to stop. I don't remember much of the crash itself; just green, brown, and blue. Just that when I finally managed to get myself together, my leg crushed under the bike on on dirt that felt like concrete. No chance of pushing the bike off. No chance of digging or wriggling free. No chance of being seen from the road. My only hope was 911. Except... I couldn't bring myself to call. There was nothing technically stopping me; good signal strength, modern phone with enhanced positional reporting. Just one little button press and help would be on the way. But why? Why should I call for help? Why did I want to keep living? Why do I deserve to live? Damned questions that I had been asking myself nearly every day for almost 26 years of my life by then. And here, finally at that mountain road I couldn't run from it any more. But it was also the first real chance I had to put myself to the test; to know myself one way or the other. So I turned my phone off. And left my mortality to the hands of fate. For 7 hours I just lay there, nothing else to do but watch sun and cloud drift in the sky with waiting for an end. And yet there was a stillness there that I had never experienced before in my life. No more voices demanding that I meet their expectations. No more fear. No more uncertainty. Just a blessed silence with a light at the end of the road that I had no seen in a long time. It seemed almost cruel when motorist looking to relieve himself found me. Part of my wished he hadn't but there was not much else that could be done then. Him and his buddy played the rescuers, and I played the victim; freed me from my entrapment, got my bike on the road, kindly offered to call for help or stay with me, and I declined as graciously as I could and limped both myself and bike home. But after so long, I had an answer. I don't want to live. I don't deserve to live. My life has no meaning. But it also means that I don't have to care anymore either. Not about trying to maximize my career. No more forcing myself to fake smiles to make friends I can't find any connection with. No worry about finding a partner. Not about measuring myself or trying to improve or anything. That photograph on my phone is meaningless to everyone else. To me, it was where I finally found peace. And nothing can ever replace that.
05 1y ago
We're getting closer to effortless vlogging with automatic follow-me drones, so you don't need to choose between shooting and actually experiencing things as much as you used to.
throwawaybob420 1y ago
That guy sounds like a dick.

FredPret 1y ago

Being too cool for school really steals a lot of joy from the people who subscribe to that idea. I was a tourist at Pisa not long ago and we really unironically enjoyed "leaning" into our roles as tourists, and now we have fun pictures.

marticode 1y ago

I had and followed that advice but in a slightly different delivery: "take photos of peoples, not things".

andrehacker 1y ago
Yes, I ended up exactly there... 20 years later.
zirgs 1y ago
We are no longer in the film era. You won't run out of storage. So I take pictures of both.

__MatrixMan__ 1y ago

I have a friend who refuses to take pictures without people in them. It seemed dumb at first but after several years of pictures piling up I can see he had a pretty good point.

riffraff 1y ago
This is old advice, I remember it being framed as "if I wanted a picture of a monument I'd buy a postcard", and postcards basically no longer exist. It made some sense to take pictures of panoramas or art when you could show something to people that could not see it otherwise, but in this era it makes no sense (unless you enjoy photography as a hobby). A goofy picture of you kissing some old bronze statue? Dumb, but yours.
- JKCalhoun 1y ago
  It’s not just “making it your own”. I took the girls all around the US, around the world even as they were growing up. I had grown up in a “camera family” so always had one on trips as a parent too. Now, with two decades behind me, the photos of my young daughters, wife are the vacation photos I return to. Oldest daughter is wearing a kimono sipping tea at some place in the mountains of Japan… Two youngest are chasing each other on the beach of some island in Hawaii…
  - brabel 1y ago
    I suspect those photos would have been as precious to you if they were taken in your backyard.
    - JKCalhoun 1y ago
      You’re right. And I have those too. I was responding to the camera + vacation specifically though.
- card_zero 1y ago
  Turns out that the things I wish I'd taken photos of were: bookshelves (with titles visible), crappy old computers and things on the screen, posters I used to have on the wall, my everyday clothes, streets with parked cars, the inside of an art supply store. These are not achievements, or unusual places, or humans. The things I'd like to see are stores of subtle cultural information than gets lost because it seems unimportant, and then a couple of decades later I want to look at all the details of it again but I can't. What was that car I used to be slightly interested by every time I walked past it? What range of items used to be for sale? What books did I have? What was actually on that poster that got torn and thrown out and now it's impossible to find another? Instead of answers, I have holiday snaps and pictures of humans.

_glass 1y ago

I missed out so much. When I was a college student, I rejected photos, as digital cameras where everywhere, and I was a snob, in my high school times taking analog camera photo. I read a lot of books about Zen, living in the moment, but now I regret this. The view photos I have I cherish as very dear memories.

j45 1y ago
Taking photos and videos for yourself or family is very different than for public posting.
kccqzy 1y ago
When modern smartphones first came out, I rejected them as a snob too. I continued to believe a dumb phone plus a dedicated camera was a better choice. But of course I often forget to bring the better camera out and I missed out on so much too. There's a reason people say the best camera is the camera you have with you.

assimpleaspossi 1y ago

I've started more traveling the world the past two years. The pictures I review when I get back didn't seem as interesting as those with my wife in the scene. Even a crowded street scene with multicolored houses was just OK except the one with my wife looking at a fruit stand. From now on, I will include my travel companions whenever I can.

lupusreal 1y ago

I generally have disdain for picture taking on vacations, but leaning on the tower is definitely one I would make an exception for. Sure it's tacky and unoriginal, but that's what makes it mandatory!