Response Essay #3

The article by Steve Garlick was not what I expected it was going to be. After reading the Abstract I thought it would be very difficult to make it entirely though the article. I was actually proven wrong. Around about the second page I started to be able to look past the obscurities of the article. In the first few pages some of the assertions made are completely absurd. I did not understand how Garlick could come to the conclusion that “Touristic photography is problematic” through the examples that he provided. I did not see a problem with using touristic photography merely as a form of cataloguing a journey. I understand that he wants tourists to take more artistic pictures but I do not see how cataloguing a trip through photography is a problem. The only time that touristic photography seemed to present a problem was on the last page of the article when Garlick referred to Nepal saying that “tourists receive literature encouraging them to respect the privacy of local people, and to ask permission before photographing them.” The only problem that I see presented by touristic photography is the privacy issue presented. Another assertion that Garlick makes is that touristic photography can be art if ‘performed’ correctly. I would argue that all photography is art but that some photographers take better, more artistic, photos than others. In that same sense, I agree with Gadamer’s argument that “the camera does not necessarily have to be considered as an instrument of modern technology that enframes the world. Rather, it can instead add new dimensions to our experience, photography, as art, can serve to open new ‘worlds’.” I agree that the way a person takes a picture can change how they view a subject, but I do not agree with Garlick in saying that just because a person does not take an artistic photo the photo is therefore not art. Overall, I ended up somewhat enjoying the article. It had an interesting, although in my opinion somewhat false, take on the act of touristic photography.

In my own life, I usually take pictures to document a moment in time. I am completely guilty of one of being one of the ‘bad’ types of touristic photographers. Until I took this class, I did not really focus much of my attention on trying to photograph different angles of sights. I would usually just snap a picture to document it and remind me of my trip when I review the photos later. I also like to take pictures document moments in time, not just sights we saw. I love taking pictures of the people I’m with enjoying the trip. These photos are usually the ones that I look at the most and get the most joy out of after the trip.

When I am on vacation I tend to focus most of my pictures around sights. I am not usually one of the people that jump in front of a sight and has someone take a picture of me standing in front of said sight. To me those pictures merely say “Here’s a picture of me standing in front of a building, and here’s a picture of me standing in front of another building.” I would much rather simply photograph the sight as is. I’m not saying that I have never taken a picture in front of a sight; I’m merely saying that I tend to shy away from the practice.

I don’t think that the pictures I take at school or at home are extremely different from the ones I take on vacation. In my mind they serve the same purpose of documenting and reminding me of things that happened in the past. They only thing I would say that differs is that at school, and especially and home, I tend to take almost all of my pictures of people. You will rarely find pictures of buildings or sights in my albums taken while at home or school. I believe this is because school and home are my familiar surroundings. I see the sights everyday so I don’t need to be reminded of them. The people on the other hand, are constantly changing and doing different things so documenting them is documenting a moment in my life.

After I take pictures the first thing I do is save them on my computer. Honestly, I don’t do this so much as a storage technique as much as I enjoy seeing them on my slideshow screensaver. After they are on my computer I pick and choose the pictures that I want to post on Facebook. I don’t post them all because I assume that the people viewing an album, say of the redwood forest, don’t want to see the 50 pictures of really tall trees that I took but rather the pictures of my journey through the forest with my family. I post pictures on Facebook because I want people to be able to have a glimpse into my life and what I’m doing. I enjoy seeing the pictures that other people post so why wouldn’t they enjoy mine? It also helps because a good amount of my firends on Facebook I don’t get to see very often so posting the pictures helps keep us up to speed with each others life.

I believe that touristic photography, artistic or not, is a very vital part of our human culture. We not only use it as a memory aide but as a way to share our lives and experience other cultures. I use photography frequently in my everyday life and I find it very hard to imagine someone alive in today’s society that does not. To me, photography is art that gives a glimpse into our everyday lives.