'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?

So it's alright for you to take photos, OP, because you are taking them in the correct manner? What arrant hypocrisy 😆

There's a sunflower field near here called "Pick and Pose". It's a thing now. And if it helps the sunflower farmer make money, I'm all for it.

I beg of you, don’t ever go to Bali. You will go absolutely postal. Never seen anything like it, though as @BeyondMyWitssays, props to the tea plantations that still only charge 35p to visit, but then £2 or £3 to access the ‘influencer shot’ location, which means the rest of us get to wander around doing normal things while they queue to rent a ridiculous skirt and sit on a massive swing. Truly fucking odd behaviour.

Not being an utter dick I’ve always given people grace when they are trying to get a photograph by waiting a little or walking around. However it used to be that, a quick snap and you’d get a brief acknowledgment from the person with the camera for pausing instead of walking across their shot, however these selfie fiends are something else as you say! I can’t believe their entitlement in expecting everyone to defer to their desire to have a private photo shoot without coughing up to pay the cost associated with booking a location for a private shoot.

The worst I’ve ever seen was in the Majorelle gardens in Marrakesh. Groups taking it in turn to have multiple individual shots with different poses, sometimes checking the photos on the camera before returning to the viewpoint, and people were queuing to do the same like this is a thing. It wasn’t a photo point, just a section of balustrade in front of a stunning view. It was repeated at other prized views.

I now give them the same grace I gave to people before this trend and then continue with what I was there for. I get dirty looks but have only been challenged a couple of times. One was using a staircase that joined two high traffic floors when two women were posing endlessly on it. At the point I descended one was sat on a stair with her long skirt spread across the full width. When I asked her to move her skirt I was told they were taking photos, which was obvious, and she looked so shocked and quite upset when I said I knew that but they can’t expect people not to use the stairs, that’s what they are for.

I think everyone should just start ignoring them so they have to take their chances like people used to. Their partners are a lot more patient than I or my partner would be.

Respectfully, do you think there’s some kind of moral difference between you photographing a field of sunflowers and someone photographing themselves in front of a field of sunflowers? I mean, lots of farms that do this provide photo props because that’s what people are going there for. This one specifically advertises its new photo opportunities for this season — a sunflower arch, a ‘beautifully decorated bicycle’ etc.

https://thepopupfarm.co.uk/sunflowers-day-tickets/

That’s why they are charging a tenner.

YABU

Did you not do the exact same thing, turning up with your DSLR to take pictures?

im off to Italy in a few weeks and im looking forward to getting some pictures

Generally the photos I value are the ones with people in them. I’ve been sorting through years of photos recently and the ones with my family, friends and me have much more meaning to me than landscapes or landmarks. In ten years time I’d look at the photo of a sunflower and just think ‘yep that’s a sunflower’, but I’d find one of someone I know (or me) still interesting years on. None of these are on social media and aren’t to show off where I’ve been, but so in years to come I can look back on days out which might have been forgotten.

These things are generally set up for photo ops, and people generally want to look nice in photos. Maybe the people doing photoshoots are appreciating the scenes and maybe not, but that’s up to them. There’s no right way to enjoy these flower fields, as long as you’re sticking to the rules the venue have in place.

Exactly this. We realised we almost always ignored the photos of places on their own and only looked at the ones with us in. We also sometimes found ourselves googling for a better photo if we were trying to show someone else later.

So now we almost always have someone in the photo. But it’s the “quick, everyone smile” snapshot variety, not the full setup and poses (although digital rather than analog photography means we do sometimes to retakes).

I live in Edinburgh. My hobby is ruining people's ridiculous photos as I go about my business in the city centre.

Maybe, but I think you can guarantee that most are are the 'look at me!" type folks who spend most their lives on social media...

I think there's a difference between taking landscape photos for a hobby to turning up and exclusively taking dozens (maybe even hundreds!) of very similar photos of yourself. What is the point of it? Can people not appreciate beautiful places without being in every photo? Can people no longer go somewhere without plastering it all over social media?

I thought that was pretty much the whole point of places like that, it's just a field of sunflowers after all?

At the end of the day you went to take photos and express your creativity. So have they. Your creativity is just different from theirs.

You want to take photos. They want to take photos. Can't see the difference myself.

Does the world need more photos of sunflowers? There are millions of photos of sunflowers. It was pointless for you to take more.

i think I’m going to be one of those “look at me” types you’re

I use my social media as my own diary. I have less than 100 followers and i post relatively often - each time I go away, for sure. I am into photography and would like to get into street photography, but i will also take selfies of myself and myself with my friends/family. Because I enjoy having those memories.

I'm not sharing them with anyone though. They are purely for my own portfolio of photography, rather than having any aspiration of becoming a famous photographer on social media. I know I don't have the skill for that.

How does your interest trump their interest, OP? Is your self-interested hobby somehow morally superior to theirs?

To be fair to them social media can be big business. The majority of people are followers who buy into this and I bet the sunflower owners love it as for every tagged picture in rolls however many customers it entices. People by nature are always trying to ‘keep up with the Joneses’

Their interest of what, exactly? Themselves?

I'm not claiming anything. I just find it very bizarre behaviour and a pretty sad display of modern society that so many people seem so self-obsessed with their own appearance on social media.

I think it’s quite sad that young women want pictures of themselves and they’re being judged so harshly for being “self obsessed”

Yet you’re doing exactly the same thing, with the sole difference that you aren’t in the photos and no one else sees them. It’s not clear why you think this is better.

Indeed. By someone posting their opinion of them on - social media.

Oh, so is the moral failing in the sharing of their photos? Or in the taking of the photos? Or is it both?

Just trying to get some clarity on why you're judging them so hard or why you think your photography is much more worthy than theirs. At least they've got the confidence to share theirs.

Maybe that's what this is really about. You wish you had the guts to share your photography too and you're looking at them thinking "who on earth do they think they are?"

Not sure who told you that you have to be a professional photographer to share your photos, but you don't.

The point is the same as the point of adding another photo of a sunflower to the world. There are already millions and I other than your enjoyment there's no objective benefit. Other people have amateur portrait photography or modelling as hobbies. They're no more or less worthy. I could say to you if you can't appreciate a beautiful place without taking a photo, and you are taking you photos to say 'look at meeee' as the photographer, and have further posted this thread to again say 'look at meee' as the worthier enjoyer of a photo op. I'm sure they could go without social media but they don't want to. Their choice

I haven't seen a selfie stick for years! Clearly I'm not hanging out at the right places!

The sunflower gardens around us promote the location for photo opportunities. Same as pumpkin farms, pick your own Xmas tree. It’s part of the experience. I don’t go to these places but I’m sure if I did I’d take my camera, as you do.

Quite ironic if you ask me!