Is Photography Ruining the Outdoors?

[Thlayle]

I have to say, visiting the popular spots, national parks and so forth, has always been daunting, at least if done in-season. But with the "selfie-age" of social media, even remote places, once rarely visited, are now just swarmed with people. And it's not just the numbers of people; it's how many of them just have to pose front and center for their selfies, or worse yet, perched dangerously out on the precipices. See:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNrg...ig&app=desktop

I don't even know what to think of it, but this short video sponsored by REI asks a fair question: is the outdoors being ruined by photography?

[Manfred M]

I'd have to say no, but it may seem that way at times when we see self-centred individuals out there trying to get that "special shot" featuring themselves or their friends that they post on social media.

I hesitate to call them photographers.

[Tronhard]

This is actually something I just today submitted to the Canon Community on that very subject

I think there has been a collision between technology, in the form of immediate phone communication to the web and social media, plus the new 'Kodak Brownie' of the 21st century, the cell phone (neatly wrapped in one easy-to-carry package); and our innate desire to communicate, gain recognition and status. Don't get me wrong, the invention is a neutral thing and has given many benefits - exposure of corruption, saving lives in emergencies etc. But it has a dark side...

In it's extreme forms it produces a very narcissistic behaviour and attitude where the person dominates photos they take - 'this is me obscuring the Eiffel Tower', 'this is me blocking your view of the Taj Mahal or the pyramids', and becomes addictive - they can't put the phone down and they can't stop taking photos of the minutia of their lives. The Brownie had a similar effect, but by no means as massive because of the economics and means of taking, processing and sending the photos to friends and family, didn't exist.

Then there are the influencers, people I both admire and despise because they have made, in many cases, a decent living traveling (the envy part) and posing provocatively in beautiful locations. They get thousands of followers (who assumedly get some vicarious pleasure from their adventures and posturing), and that gives them financial clout through advertising, showing places and products. I am reading time and time again where someone has gone to a service or product provider and asked for whatever free because they are an influencer - basically coercion, because refusal could lead to bad reviews.

That is one thing, but from a photographer and preserver of nature it has another dark side. Such people stand in front of whatever you are trying to photograph, taking turns with their poses and not following the protocol of conventional photographers of getting out of the way to let others have a shot. Conventional photographers face their subject from some distance, selfie takers stand right in front of it obscuring it from everyone else. In NZ some of these shots of beautiful places have resulted in them being essentially ruined because all the other social media users want to go to what was a pristine site and get their shot of them in front of it or on it. The result has been literally queues of people trampling the landscape.


People Queue to get the perfect selfie


In Wanaka there is a tree that grows out of the lake. It is beautiful in its scenic space. Now the council is looking to put a big fence around it because selfie takers are climbing on it, breaking branches etc. so they can get their perfect image of themselves, in doing so they damage and destroy what they think is beautiful.

People damage iconic tree to get selfies

That is not an isolated case. Remote walking tracks have been turned into quagmires by hoards of people who want that shot. I traveled the world taking landscape images, but I always respected the places I visited and never disturbed the landscape or wildlife.

In Canada people are feeding bears to get shots of them close-up with their cell phones. Apart from the fact that this is a very dangerous activity for them, they either don't realize or don't care that by doing so they acclimatize the bears to people, putting them both in danger of their lives. Conservation officers are having to kill more and more bears that have been taught that people = food, and it's not their fault. It's ours, or more specifically those ignorant, selfish and narcissistic selfie takers.

[Shadowman]

I agree with most of the comments posted here, but on the other side; most of the selfie takers flock to the monuments at the wrong time of day (usually noon) so as a photographer you shouldn't be there at that moment.

[Tronhard]

Possibly, but the damage they do is long-lasting. Also there are many places where the time of day is not necessarily relevant: in forests, buildings etc.

The limitations of the technology - wide angle lenses and small sensors, for example, encourage users to get up and personal with the things they are trying to capture (or obscure). I recently saw a photo of a guy with a cell phone approaching a full-grown grizzly that was napping behind a bush and the image, taken by someone else with sense and a telephoto lens, showed this idiot only a few metres from the animal. Apparently they did not know, or did not consider that grizzlies can run down and kill a moose so he would have made a nice snack...

[Manfred M]

Another particular odious outcome of this selfie view of the world is how the distorted (wide angle) and "in your face" way of taking pictures has made its way into mainstream photography, especially street photography.

I've notice the approach in a number of places that I have visited, but none more so than in India. I suspect it is happening elsewhere too.







Trev is quite right; I was taught to respect the subject and get in and get out when shooting and let others get a shot as well. As the selfie shooters move on from their cell phones to stand alone cameras, their shooting habits that developed with the phone cameras are continued with their mirrorless and DSLR gear.

[rpcrowe]

Two different thoughts...

1. In response to Manfred's comment above I totally agree! I am not a fan of wide angle lenses shooting people close up. I don't like the distortion and also prefer to capture my subjects in natural poses (unawares of the camera). This generally means shooting with a normal to longer focal length...

This was shot with a longish "normal" focal length 60.9 mm equivalent


While this was captured at a 280mm equivalent focal length


The super-wide angle lenses of most cell phones encourage photographers to "get up close" to their subjects. I visited a butterfly enclosure at the San Diego Wild Animal Park (AKA Safari Park) and the cell phone folks were crowding the butterflies to a point where it was difficult to capture the insects using a camera without including a cell phone user...

2. IMO "Man The Developer" and "Man The Industrialist" do far more damage to the environment than "Man The Photographer". Especially lately in the USA...

That doesn't excuse some photographers blatantly disregarding their duty to keep our environment and themselves safe. When I was visiting Yosemite, I saw several people actually chasing a black bar and her cubs across this meadow and near the pond.



Traffic was so that I couldn't stop and document the damn fools...

If they had somehow gotten between Mama Bear and her cubs, she could easily have mauled them. Then the bear would have been somehow removed from the park...

[russellsnr]

This is a video put up some time ago on Youtube. For those who may have visited Loch Etive in years gone past you will see the damage done by mostly walking over the ground to get that epic image. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFYzm0mhK4w
Russ.

[Thlayle]

It just seems like the "loving them to death" fits the best. I love taking pictures and I will take snapshots while traveling, and even an occasional selfie.

Technology is making more things possible but ruining many things in the process. When I read Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey where he described his feelings about Arches NP and the changes that have come to it since the early 70s, mainly due high levels of visitation, I thought he sounded like a curmudgeon. Now I think of him as more of a prophet.

Cell phones, GIS tagging, and social media compulsions have just intensified the degradation of these popular places. Even the lesser known get "discovered" and go the same way.

So no, photography itself isn't the culprit, but it seems the outdoors is being ruined...

[Tronhard]

I agree with Randy - Photography as a pastime is not itself the culprit, but the way in which it is now often practiced and how people have engaged with travel. Cell phones have exacerbated this by their ubiquitousness and convenience as a means to capture images for posting on the web (even those using cameras want them to be internet connected).

In a way the layer on top is the worst. The advent of the web has revolutionized our sense of access to information. Not since the invention of the printing press that took access to the written word from a select few to the masses and allowed the proliferation of knowledge around the globe has there been such a revolution in how we communicate. Before the web people who wanted to publish had to go through a system of editors who decided (for better or worse) what was worthy. Now the ability to self-publish has produced some amazingly valuable work that would never have seen the light of day - and a huge amount of rubbish. The ability to instantly publish onto social media sites that give people a sense of fame and significance based on the number of followers and likes they get has perverted our innate desire to be liked and appreciated - especially when role models like the Kardashians and their ilk make a fortune out of manufactured fame and not much else. The urge to go more places, take more images and publish is putting people on the fast-track tourist path, but often they know very little about the places they visit, what is culturally appropriate or perhaps they don't have enough connection to even care.

The other thing is a huge enhancement of our ability to travel - budget air travel has revolutionized tourism, along with web-based technologies like Airbnb, Expedia etc. that make going somewhere as hard as a few clicks of a mouse or swipes of the finger. Many of these people have no sense of value or connection for the communities and environments they travel to: they come, they take and they go. We see that in NZ with freedom campers who come to spend money for thrills but won't spend a few dollars to stay in a camp ground with facilities, and prefer to camp and defecate on the side of the road or in our reserves - ruining the environment they came to see. I have found that not many people seem to really research where they go apart from the places that sites like Youtube and Instagram recommend...

Two experiences drove that home to me:

1. When I was in Victoria BC, I was on a path that led from the cruises ship birthing terminal to the gorgeous inner harbour. I encountered a bunch of perplexed people clearly from the ship, gazing at a huge map of the area. When I asked if I could help they asked me "where is the harbour" - well, it was directly in front of them and clearly to their right, about 120m way. They then said "where are we again?" I pointed to the map which has a "You are here' arrow but they actually wanted the name of the city. Finally, they asked "what can we do in this place?" My response was it depends on what they liked and there was a wealth of material available at the information office directly ahead of them, and didn't they have that info on the ship? There response was "We're from California" as if that explained everything... sadly, maybe it did.

2. On a track at the Island of Rakiura, we were at a tramping hut and met a couple of young folk looking distressed. When asked what the matter was they said they couldn't get a cell signal - apparently that is an actual psychological condition - "Nomophobia". Considering the place was quite remote I said that wasn't surprising. They digested that for a while and then said "We can't download maps of the track or see any information now. We want to meet up with some others at a point along the track but can't communicate. What did you people do in the old days". As a living fossil I explained that we would read books and pamphlets about the places we were going, and make prior arrangements to meet at a specific place and time." Their expressions clearly showed they had never considered that possibility.

We were in the hut for the best part of a day while it threw down torrential rain. In that time I told them about the history of the island, the people and the natural history of the place they were in. They had no notion, and I could see a light of comprehension and appreciation dawn in their eyes, and when I told them the appropriate way to behave in the bush it was clear they now understood why. For a tiny moment I felt I had achieved something and encourage them that they would get far more from their travels by engaging with the people and environments than just passing through.

The final thing is something that was drummed into me as a child in a military family, and again when I did my own service : BE AWARE OF YOUR SURROUNDINGS. This, I have found, is a lost art amongst many. They are so focused on looking at their phones and having their music playing in their ears that they bump into people and things (the term phone zombie is very appropriate), and they certainly aren't attuned to the places they visit either to get the best of the experience, or to behave in an appropriate way. On one of the islands in Auckland's Hauraki Gulf I watched a series of selfie takers walk past several signs that clearly asked them not to stand on culturally sensitive markers, but they did that doing twirls to show what a lovely place it was - which was a Maori burial ground. Several stones had already been toppled and, in talking to the conservation officers later, they said that was a regular occurrence. They just don't have the money to make every place secure from idiots.

Lastly, in the paper this morning the government is spending tens of millions of dollars building tunnels, bridges and fences to remove any rail crossing for pedestrians as too many people were getting killed or having near misses that traumatized the train drivers powerless to stop their trains in time. The most recent victims ran onto the tracks while joggiing - witnesses said he was wearing headphones and looking at his phone and didn't apparently see the flashing lights or hear the bells. There was a long video showing a sampling near misses on the tack network over a month - I would guess at least a dozen, mostly distracted people, a couple of times even pushing prams across in front of trains.

[LePetomane]

That doesn't excuse some photographers blatantly disregarding their duty to keep our environment and themselves safe. When I was visiting Yosemite, I saw several people actually chasing a black bar and her cubs across this meadow and near the pond.

This is what I see living in proximity to two national parks. Last week I was fishing on a river north of Yellowstone National Park when I spotted two yearling grizzly bears. I felt it was a good idea to get my butt out of there as mama isn't far behind. As I was leaving two people with photographic gear approached me. I told them about the prximity of the bear. They headed right for the two. I left.

[rpcrowe]

This is what I see living in proximity to two national parks. Last week I was fishing on a river north of Yellowstone National Park when I spotted two yearling grizzly bears. I felt it was a good idea to get my butt out of there as mama isn't far behind. As I was leaving two people with photographic gear approached me. I told them about the prximity of the bear. They headed right for the two. I left.

Just have to mention this in regards to your comment.

I was wading the Kenai River in Alaska fishing for salmon. My guide and I were along a steep bank that was about ten feet straight up. Suddenly a very large clump of earth was dislodged from atop the bank landing right next to us... There weren't any of my fellow fisherman on the bank. From the concerned look on the guide's face, I realized it must have been a black bear (there aren't any brown bears left on the Kenai peninsula (that I know of )

[rachel]

If you read tourist information guides, sites, books, whatever, you'll see many places now described not as beautiful, fasinating, interesting etc, but as 'instagrammable'.

It seems to be all that matters now.

Thing is, it's difficult to be overly critical - just as you can't really criticise the massification of tourism for ruining places you'd really have liked to visit but with fewer people around, so it's difficult to turn up somewhere with a camera and feel narked that so many other people also want to take pictures.

[Tronhard]

If you read tourist information guides, sites, books, whatever, you'll see many places now described not as beautiful, fasinating, interesting etc, but as 'instagrammable'.

It seems to be all that matters now.

Thing is, it's difficult to be overly critical - just as you can't really criticise the massification of tourism for ruining places you'd really have liked to visit but with fewer people around, so it's difficult to turn up somewhere with a camera and feel narked that so many other people also want to take pictures.

I understand your point, and I have some sympathy with it, but for me it's the behaviour of people who turn up to places. They often show no respect for the landscape or the local cultures. They came for an Instagram shot. When I went around the world photographing, I did so as a traveller - I engaged with the locals, got to know them and respected their environment. Tourists, by my definition, do not. They live in their own cultural world and take image, ticking off places they have visited and collecting the odd souvenir to say "been there, done that".

And frankly, considering what is going on in the world today, I think there are too many of us... As someone once said "we are a plague on our own planet".

[LePetomane]

The last time I visited relatives in Saint Petersburg they would refer to commonly photographed sites as Kodak Moments.

[Manfred M]

I understand your point, and I have some sympathy with it, but for me it's the behaviour of people who turn up to places. They often show no respect for the landscape or the local cultures. They came for an Instagram shot. When I went around the world photographing, I did so as a traveller - I engaged with the locals, got to know them and respected their environment. Tourists, by my definition, do not. They live in their own cultural world and take image, ticking off places they have visited and collecting the odd souvenir to say "been there, done that".

And frankly, considering what is going on in the world today, I think there are too many of us... As someone once said "we are a plague on our own planet".

Unfortunately, that has been my experience as well, Trev.

Instagram and Facebook have helped grow this sector of tourism that I like to refer to as "lowest common denominator tourism". With the cost of travel coming down in many places in the world folks with a sense of entitlement and attitude are invading previously fairly pristine locations. Trying to visit Algonquin Park (one of the nicest fall leaf viewing areas in this part of Canada) on weekends during the early to middle parts of October and it's just impossible to do because tour buses with overseas visitors fill up the parking lots. Buying a park admission ticket can take hours.

The locals all complain that these visitors generally arrive, spend no money locally and trample everywhere (including on private property), leaving trash and a damaged environment where they go. It is very rare to see them more than 25m - 50m down a walking path or hiking trail. They complain about not seeing any wildlife and haven't twigged that they are the cause because of all the noise they make.

Fortunately, being retired, I can avoid the weekends and get there during the week where there are far fewer visitors, although the thoughtless destruction is visible.

At one point I had hoped that tourism would lead to a better understanding between cultures, but unfortunately this is not what is happening. When people head out on a trip with a hedonist, jingoistic superior attitude about their culture and / or country, they simply confirm what they already know. Thoughtful travelers do not travel in large packs of like-minded people and respect and enjoy the cultural differences that they can experience. Unfortunately, mass tourism and thoughtful travelers are a bit like oil and water; they simply don't mix...

I have visited some of these countries that seem to be a source of our disgust. Unfortunately, this is not something they just do when they are away from home, they act exactly the same why where they live.

[selig1656]

Amen on your comment

[Tronhard]

I agree with Manfred about the cultural ignorance of at least some tourists. First I have gone on camping tours around Australia - on a big multi-wheel drive coach with tents to sleep in etc. For me, at that time it was the only way to see some of the places I wanted to visit (in the 1980s) - that and I had done a deal with the coach company to get my trip for free in return for photos! Still, I saw both intelligent, interested individuals and those who got out of the coach bought a T-shirt and looked forward to the next meal.

With my wife I had occasion to spend about six weeks in Malaga, Spain while I waited for a visa for Canada. While we were there I was aware of some reservation from the locals until they discovered we were from NZ and Canada respectively, then they seemed to visibly relax. I spoke to an English expat who ran a book swap there and he said that the Spanish were very wary and weary of people from the UK on package tours coming over and behaving badly. A day or so later I had my own experience of a bunch of guys from the UK, drunk and walking down the beach with their longs rolled up to their knees, paper bags on their heads, singing loudly and calling the locals "bl**dy diegos". They were decrying the local food and wanted to find a "decent fish n'chip shop".

Shortly after, back in the UK, we were staying with relatives in a small village in darkest Lincolnshire when a shiny coach turned up. It was full of American tourists of mostly middle age and older. They were gathered in the local hotel that evening and talked audibly about how "quaint, old world and primitive" England was and how much better off they were at home. Not one to win hearts and minds...

In NZ, we were driving along the road to Milford Sound and stopped at a reflective lake with the mountains behind. It was early and we had the place to ourselves and it was lovely. When we got back to the parking lot we were boxed in by tour buses. When we extricated ourselves - we had to wait for the occupants to return - further along the road another pull-off gave amazing views of the deep glacial valley and sure enough the coaches followed us there. This time the Chinese tourists who occupied one of the coaches had come out with disposable cups which they dropped on the ground around the parking area. My partner, who speaks both Mandarin and Cantonese went over and instructed them to pick up their rubbish and put it in the coach - which they obediently did (they just didn't know better). She then went over to the coach driver (a Kiwi who did know better) and gave him a dressing down for allowing them to ruin the environment.

The common thread, as Manfred has allude to, is the fact that these people travel in packs, isolated from the local culture and that dehumanizes them - they have, as it were, no 'skin in the game' and no sense of community responsibility. As cheap travel has made individual touring easier the coach has been replaced by backpackers, air b&b etc. but the speed with which they travel, and in fact the reason for their travel, still undermines the experience for both them and those locals they come into contact with.

[SSSdave]

I watched the full youtube video and it is worthwhile , however the title is broader than the subject addressed.

The linked video might more properly be titled, "Is Photography Ruining the Outdoor experience for Millenials with smartphones that flock to locations they see on social media? There are still vast numbers of worthwhile outdoor locations that social media throngs are not aware of. Especially beyond road side areas in our many wilderness areas. That noted, there is a minor list of destinations in wilderness that have become social media hot spots, especially along popular thru trails, but as a backpacker visiting such backcountry over decades, there are vast areas that have not. I will add that many of those that visit such places crawling with other people, probably actually enjoy being in the resulting gregarious circus. In other words it is a crowd thing.

And I can say the same about many front country areas where as soon as one wanders off 100 yards from roads, trails, and use routes, one will see few footprints. That noted, it is true if our social media behaviors and attitudes continue like this for decades into the future that a time will come when even many of the great number of unknown locations I know about down to their exact GPS coordinates will eventually become public knowledge. And that will be a sad day for the human spirit.

[royent]

I do fair bit of walking, usually alone. ( At 85 I'm told that I shouldn't. ) But, I find that I can go for a walk or I can go out to take photographs but not both at the same time
Roy