'Selfie tourism' - AIBU?

[SunflowerPosers]

This weekend I went to a beautiful sunflower field not far from where I live (NC for this as don't want it to be too outing), and I just wondered if anyone else feels the same way as me or whether I'm being too judgey and unreasonable?

There I was with my little DSLR camera trying to get some nice photos of sunflowers, and I couldn't believe the number of people who clearly thought the place existed for their own personal photo shoot.

Women (of a range of ages, not just the early 20s 'influencers') all clearly dressed up, doing 'candid' poses (where they deliberately don't look at the camera for some reason), instructing increasingly exasperated partners to take 20 more photos of them doing very similar poses. People walking around with obnoxiously large 'selfie sticks' where they've got the camera trained only on themselves the whole time, rather than just taking a moment to put their phone down and be present.

Maybe it's my age, but I don't really get it, and just think it all looks so cringeworthy. Of course, I understand wanting to get one or two photos of yourself in a nice location, but some people seem to take it to an extreme level of narcissistic behaviour.

And it seems to be common at so many places now. Go anywhere pretty, and you can barely move for the amount of people with selfie sticks. I'm half convinced that a lot of people you see on walks are only interested in getting photos of themselves to show where they've been, rather than actually enjoying walking!

Apparently there's a term for this sort of thing that I wasn't aware of, selfie tourism. People who specifically go to a location to get the perfect photo of themselves, rather than appreciating where they actually are.

Please tell me I'm not the only one who thinks this is crazy?

No, you wouldn't "know it if you saw it". You think you see one thing, but others watching exactly the same scenario see something else. We don't know which is true unless we ask those taking the photos exactly what they're photographing and why.

I think the main difference between travelling now and traveling however many years ago is not the selfie culture but rather that so many more people have access to photography and thus more people are taking photographs. It was easy to be patient with a handful of tourists with their cameras. Much harder when every visitor has their smartphone. Yet we all want our turn.

I've been thinking about this since the discussion came up and it doesn't make me furious but it does jar me, even over and above the carving up public space thing.

It's kind of like, we all know the internet is on all the time, but still people bringing internet things and behaviour into real life right next me, especially in nice real life, I dunno, it just feels like media and commerce and all the rest of it is inescapable, and takes me out of whatever headspace I'm in, sitting on the beach or whatever.

No I think tourists all had cameras in the 1970s / but film was expensive so you were careful what photos you took. Holidays were so rare that the camera was a must

I find it interesting the amount of simplistic thinking - the inability to understand that a small amount of stuff can be ok so a large amount must also be ok.

there may be a grey area - at what point does taking selfies become antisocial ?

Yes, this. I don't know whether it's an old mentality of being taught not to draw too much attention to yourself in public that I've been brought up with, but I just can't help feel that a lot of these selfie takers are attention seeking and cringey. Quite frankly, if other people saw me making ridiculous poses in a public place, I'd probably die from the embarrassment of it. And if family members saw me doing that, they'd wonder what the hell I was doing. So I suppose that's why I don't really understand it.

The sunflower fields aren't really the best (worst?) example of selfie culture as they basically exist for photo-ops, and these kind of venues (lavender fields, pumpkin patches etc) have really expanded specifically in response to the demand for selfies. So the sunflowers might not even have been there for OP to photograph if not for the people staging elaborate photo shoots.

But I think you can acknowledge that and still be a bit despairing of the wider trend of "doing it for the 'gram" which to my mind is just making people more superficial and selfish.

Eh? Sunflower fields exist because sunflowers are a food crop. Like potato fields exist, and cabbage fields.

But the ubiquity of digital photography and smartphones could make us all just more used to doing quick, candid shots that don't require elaborate preparation - just capturing a moment.

Back when you might use 2-3 rolls of film over a 2 week holiday and were working with a finite number of photographs we had to carefully consider and stage our shots. So you could understand in those days that everyone wanted to get the iconic shot, make sure everyone is in frame and smiling and take a minute or two over it. If anything the issue of people hogging spots to stage photos could have been bigger then than it is now.

So I don't think we can just blame smartphones for this, it's a wider cultural phenomenon created by social media that people are going to much greater lengths to stage a certain style of photograph.

We went when the light and background were right. Some places were better known and busier than others. No, we didn't expect anyone to stay out of our way but we found people generally just naturally walked around us. We tried to be considerate. I can't remember pissing anyone off.

But I'm getting the impression that a lot of posters object to the fact that the photos are selfies rather than inconsiderate behaviour that would be obnoxious whatever you were photographing.

The ability to be able to pay to walk into fields (plus associated stuff like cafes, shops etc attached to fields) is a response to the demand for photo ops. I'm assuming that OP was talking about one of those kind of places (though admittedly her post doesn't actually say that explicitly, it could just be a regular field of sunflowers).

Oh yes.. My the marjorelle gardens were maaaad for people taking multiple poses/different groupings and completely bloody blocking anyone else.... Bloody busy too..

I did as you did..
To start with gave them a few minutes... When I was still standing there 5 mins later I asked to pass /see the view... I got an indignant... 'we're taking photos!'... Um yes... But you're also being madly entitled about this... We too have paid handsomely to see these gardens!

That's still very polite.

Them: But we're taking photos!
Me: Yes, you and every other self obsessed twat. If you want exclusive use of this space, pay to hire it out for your exclusive use. Otherwise, do one."

Ah, I’ve never come across anything like that. Just fields of sunflowers being grown by farmers as a crop.

I think the selfie thing ( as oppposed to objecting to people taking photos) is that it tends to go hand in hand - only people who are obsessively taking photos of themselves tend to be the ones taking over a place

you average good photographer is unlikely to spend ages on a standard shot

I think the style of the photography also demands space: the one that centres an individual perfectly framed against an idyllic backdrop.

You can have 10 people in a row all taking their time over a photo of a nice view, not getting in each others way. But if you want you-in-front-of-a-nice-view (without anyone else in frame, which the style demands) then you can't have nine other people standing alongside you.

People taking a regular snap of them/their family in front of a view tend to be over and done quickly ('say cheese' - snap - done) and be less preoccupied by achieving perfection.

Hopefully it will, as most things do, run it's course.

A lot of people who take selfies for "the gram/socials" know they are cherry picking the shots, posing, not really being as authentic as they are making out basically. And if they are doing it they must know that many others are.

So everyone will be making and looking at amateur, curated, fake photographs of everything and everyone else and eventually think this is a waste of time.

And yes we've seen it everywhere.

Usually followed by a mum-lecture to the teens, god nothing is going to get done with your generation is it? You might whinge at us lot (X-ers) but what exactly are you lot doing? (I would like to point out this is a general whinge, not directed at our teens because they don't really do selfies, "until your girlfriend makes you in the future there will be no getting away from it") you complain that past generations have fucked up the planet, you lot get more computing power in your pocket than they flew to the moon with and look what you are doing? Fake photos in front of, well anything, a pink wall for fuck's sake.

And on and on it goes. Some selfies spark me off more than others :-)
Think I might have scared them off. Or perhaps planted a seed to help them be part of the solution in future instead of part of the problem.

I take photos, I have a beautiful DSLR that is used on manual settings most of the time, with different lenses, we have been known to go out on photoshoots where I request they wear "clothing complementary to the background we are heading for" - none of these photographs end up online. Friends can see them, if they want to, when they come round.

Occasionally we take photos of things to send via private groups but the drive behind them is to make the recipients smile/laugh, they are not to be broadcast across the nations to make strangers feel, ????, what exactly? Impressed, jealous, happy?

So we understand photography, but this selfie stuff, yes it's technically photography but the motivation for it seems very different sometimes.

We did a whole summer of plonking the then children in front of "statement walls", statement fields or whatever when we were out for a personal album. Great fun, and it taught them that what you see on the camera is almost always very very different, or can be presented very differently to the actual reality.

"looks good in photo you wouldn't guess it was a grotty corner of a bog standard city cafe would you"

”great fun”

who for?

Interesting thread.

It doesn’t bother me if it’s the youth. I think “Aww, look at them having fun!”

It’s a fellow fully grown adult. I feel a bit repulsed.

On a recent visit to the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam it was really spoiled by people taking large numbers of selfies in front of pictures, often trying different poses for quite a while. I wondered why galleries don't try phone-free sessions as there must be others who just want to look.

This is the trouble with digital photography. The results can be reviewed instantly and if someone feels they look less than perfect they insist on retaking the photo.

When we visited Christ the Redeemer in Rio was ruined by people standing in front of it with outstretched arms mimicking the statue and by their partners lying flat on the ground to get them and the statue in the photo.

I had to vote YABU because you say you wanted to take photos and then were annoyed at others for taking photos!

Once you’re just getting down to distinctions between the way in which you were each taking the photos it seems a bit of a meaningless distinction to me.

You’re basically saying your desire to take photos should trump theirs!

I recently went on an adventure holiday which professed 'come and switch off from the world and enjoy the wild', the tagline didn't match the reality. The guides were making us do things 'for the drone' multiple times a day, or going ahead to set up cameras of people doing certain bits. I was so disappointed, trying to have a few days off tech just to have it in my face at every opportunity. However I was very much the only one seeming to feel this way, many others were taking selfies or had their cameras out at various points.

Then I took the kids to an Aardman sculpture trail recently. We wanted to actually view the sculptures, walk around them, look at them etc. This obviously takes longer than taking a selfie, but noone wanted us in their photo, so we were kind of rushing to enjoy these moments to get out of people's way so they could take a quick photo and then leave. I didn't want to rush, but equally felt bad that we were taking quite a while compared to other people. I swear noone else paused or admired, they just got the code, took a selfie and left. There was space for multiple people to look at them at once, but not if they were paying for a picture really because you don't want background artists. Some of these sculptures are proper works of art, they're so beautiful.

For all of us! Wouldn't do it otherwise
Statement wall babies let's go!
To be fair there were some great photos but they were very prettily curated walls - that would look great on 'the gram' - take the photo 3m out, not the same.

It was a good learning curve for the nippers - don't believe anything you see on social media, look how easy it is for something mediocre look dazzling!

@Ademasstudio I never post anything online, I wasn't making the kids pose for some social media kick, we have an printed out album of the best shots of that summer. One each for them to keep. It was a photography project and a selfie learning curve before they got phones, pre-secondary school, and exposure to social media.

It was clear that social media could, and does in some cases, but could become too important to them during teenage. So instead of telling them "this bad" it felt like a good idea to show them how easy it was to "create" something that was - just standing in front of a wall.

I am not saying it was a roaring success as a lesson, but they are now mid-later teens, never had social media, don't tie in their feelings of worth with anything content created. Just another thing that you have to think about as a parent in this day and age.