Take nothing but pictures, leave nothing but baguette bags

(This is my attempt to talk about and understand how people approach photography, not a critique of anybody or the photos they take.)

As much as we like to deny it, as students in this class, we are at least partly tourists. We may be discussing the brick bonds and column orders, but at the end of the day we also take gawk at the view on top of the Eiffel Tower and awkwardly order pastries using all four words in our French vocabulary. (That last part might just be me.)

And in all of this, we take pictures, and watch others do the same. Photography is ultimately a form of self-expression, and I think an understanding of tourism lies beneath our photos. I’m going to be looking at two distinct categories of tourist photography: personal and impersonal. Personal refers to photos that depict yourself or people you know, whereas impersonal refers to photos that focus on the scenery.

It’s easy to categorize all of personal photography to contain an element of ego. However, as annoying as it is to watch a woman line up a photo of her biting into a baguette in front of the Versailles gardens, I think condemning the entire practice is painting too broad a brush. After all, everybody here paid money to be standing where they are, and I’m sure our families will appreciate them. I just think it’s interesting that there is an instinct to demonstrate our presence within an area we explicitly are foreign to. Not only are we here to see things, we are here to do things and to be a part of things.

The majority of my photography has been impersonal. I remember impatiently waiting for complete strangers to exit the frame, not always because it ruined the shot. I just had this feeling of wanting to keep these areas pristine. Ironically my own presence inevitably meant that the area was not free of all outsiders. Not to mention, I took many photos knowing that I was no artist or visionary, that that same angle and lighting and position had been captured countless time before me, and will be continued to be captured countless times after. If I was to show these pictures to a stranger, they would have no way of knowing if I had downloaded it or taken it myself.

Overall, I have no particular justification for one form over the other, only vague guesses at the motivations and outcomes. What’s truly important is that we endlessly annoy our loved ones by showing our photos to them, and all the stories that they come with.