Vision Slightly Blurred
Vision Slightly Blurred
Are Photographers Ruining Everything?
The fixation of some photographers to document their lives at any cost has led to unsavory behavior around the world – from the poppy fields in CA to the Grand Prismatic Springs in Yosemite to the railroad tracks at Auschwitz. To make matters worse, businesses have started designing their spaces to encourage and maximize Instagrammable moments.
Could leaving your camera at home be liberating? Could it allow you to enjoy the moment even more? Sarah and Allen discuss the possibilities in this episode of Vision Slightly Blurred.
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Hey, listeners, if you've enjoyed vision slightly blurred so far, please leave us a rating at Apple podcasts. We greatly appreciate it.
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Voter shelter presents vision slightly blared. I'm Sarah Jacobs
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and I'm Alan Verbiage. Sarah questions are photographers ruining like everything. Um, thanks, Mito. You're already agreed?
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No. Sorry. Give you some context.
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Well, I saw this article a couple weeks ago and it was all about in California. How? They've had a lot of rain. And so the poppy fields on the mountains, huh? Have been really blooming vibrant orange on DSO. People have been going out into the mountains like never before t take there instead of the mountains and in areas where there's clear signs saying Do not pass this area People are just going in trampling.
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They're trampling all the poppy. There's just
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trampling over everything with sort of They're, like, so into getting the insta that they don't care about the rules. They don't care about what damage they might be doing to the environment. It reminds me a couple of years ago there were these knuckleheads from from Canada who came into the U. S. Went to Yosemite to the Grand Prismatic Springs and where there's a clear thing saying Don't
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come to the
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springs You know, one of the reasons is because it could be extremely dangerous. They just went out there and they took their YouTube video and fortunately they were actually arrested. And they I think they did some jail time.
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Oh, my God. But
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I just feel like because photography is so accessible now and so easy to create and everyone wants that, like on their insta that were going on. And we're doing these crazy things for photos that
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like, What does it feel like? If there's a 1,000,000
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photos from the poppy fields and you have 500 followers on your instant, do you
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really need to go
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and go past the line and, like, trample on the poppies?
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No, Don't trample the bobbies. Yeah, and actually, I was. I was reading about the poppies as well, and an estimate of 50,000 visitors were instagramming this year's Super Blooms. I mean, it's
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an unprecedented number of people, and, you know, it's partially fueled by social media, right? You hear that the super Super Blooms air happening and you see a photo
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and I think some some
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people are just nature lovers. And they do want to go see the poppies
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life. Yeah. Then
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why do you have? Why can't you just stand away like everyone else and take a photo?
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I know you gotta follow the rules, guys. You got to read this. There's just so many
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examples of people wanting the photo so badly. I've been in museums where they say they're no photographer, no photography allowed within the museum. And my first feeling is like, That's left up like I paid my entrance fee. Why can I take a photo until you realize if people were trying to take photos of the exhibits in the museum for which there's already a book? Every museum has a book of every exhibit.
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People would
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be jok ng for, like the angle on the exhibit or the sculpture. What not jamming up the workflow and the flow of people through it just changes the dynamic of everything when people are trying to get a photo.
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No, that's totally true. I just went to the Frida Kahlo exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum and was so bummed to see no photos, you know, throughout the thing. And I'm like But But wait, I really wanted to instagram this show.
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And why did you want instagram it, then what was it? Sort of like the social proof aspect. Like I know I went to go see the Frida show.
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Yeah, Huh? Never said, that's it. That is absolutely. But you know what? It was weird. I still enjoyed the show even though I couldn't instagram it.
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Well, there's this whole line of research that says, you know, the people that are just trying to go in document that they were there have impaired memories of those doesn't count. Wow, which is that friend that So the newest Richer's research that I saw said that's different than a photographer who has an intention for taking the photo versus everyone who's trying instagram story, everything that's happening in their life. Yeah, like they just don't They don't even remember why they were there. Oh, my God. It's kind of like it's depressing. Watching a TV show while you're surfing the Web and, like, you're not big attention, either,
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right? Yeah, that is I mean, that is such the opposite different approach than you know, a thoughtful photographer coming into the situation or scenario to document it. Specifically,
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I went to Auschwitz like two summers ago. It was the first time t visit a concentration camp on. I decided to leave my camera at home and I did take with my iPhone, like one photo outside with the barbed wire fence just to kind of memorialized the visit and also put it on instagram. But, you know, I didn't take it in, take photos while I was inside of the exhibits. And then just a few weeks ago in the news, I saw that Auschwitz had started putting up signs. Please don't take selfies on these railroad tracks. Wow. Um, And for those of you who don't know, they would literally bring railroad cars filled with people filled with Jews and other maligns social groups into the camps before they killed them. And so these rail tracks go straight into the camp. When people got off the camp, there would be a Nazi. That was like, You go there and you go there, And the people that went to the right is literally, like swiping right to death like no joke. And so people are so screwed up like they need to have the photo. The Selfie, like
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smiling on the tracks and these are just
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instances were like, Oh, God, I wish the camera phone had never been the great moments where you're taking photos of your friends and your family. There's something about, like photos or didn't happen. Like that attitude that drives me nuts.
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Yeah, that was such a such a thing, right photos or it didn't happen. And now it just that's just become life. Another place that has sort of gotten ruined is the base camp of Mount Everest. Yeah, they had to close it this year. Um, it'll be It was what was closed all of February, and they had had 40,000 visitors in 2015 that had left eight tons of waste in the base camp. So people are just littering like
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when they go on, like all kinds of.
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Yes, that's right. There's also feces. Yeah, so the government was going to clean it up.
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I'll bring it up because it was funny at the time. It's the comedian Louis C. K. He's not.
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Ellen is not a good graces,
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but he had a yet it's
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up to, you know, he was an observation a list, okay?
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And you want under, like the Tonight show or something. And he said, These parents are going to their kid's recitals and they're holding up there like Ipads in front of their faces, while their kid is like doing a dance recital when the most HD version of life is like right in front of them putting this metal thing in front of their
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face. I know I'm just totally blocking it,
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totally blocking it, getting really crappy, shaky video. There's this school probably has, like an official video, but there's something about taking your own photo. It's like every concert you go to, you see 1000 phones out taking the same crappy photos, same, you know, just to put on your instead of for a few blinks on. And that's why I think photography is ruining everything.
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Yes, can we got? You know what else? So not only is it running nature there are. Have you read about these like or just gone to any of these sort of like Instagram museums?
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I hate them.
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Yeah, yes.
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Business is designed specifically to be like, instant friendly. Exactly right. So there's the ice cream.
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Yep, museum There's the rose, a mansion,
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the rose, a mansion. I even went to a sushi restaurant that will remain nameless. Where I walked in with my girlfriend, there was nobody else there. We sit down and the guy tells us that the owner came up with a concept for the lighting to make the sushi Is instagram A bull is possible,
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I think to myself. Food,
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Of course. Of course. There's great food photography. And of course, food can compel people to go to a place. But shouldn't the food also be good?
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Uh, yeah,
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And shouldn't that be the like, the number one thing that they're talking about, like our chef is from this place. And this is where we source are our ingredients and the food is really great. Yeah, And by the way, you can take photos if you want.
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Right? And then the lighting is just good.
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Like you shouldn't be told. So the lighting is really
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good. Yeah, I think them pointing that out is, like, particularly annoying. So, no, but you know, it wasn't good. What? It wasn't good wasn't good. Oh, no. See? See, They needed that lighting. They had to tell you to take the photo before you ate it and post. Hopefully, you posted it before you eat it. No. The New York Times did a great write up about all of these. Sort of, like Instagram museums. The's like fake places. And this is an example where, like when photography comes into play actual photographers coming to play that shot for The New York Times, which happened to be Amy Lombard and Jason Henry for this story, they got just amazing shots of these people, you know, in these, like instagram a ble picture us colorful places. Just taking.
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Is your friend Amy Lombard
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full disclosure? My close friend Amy Lockhart. Yes. That's how I knew about the article. Um, yeah, but anyways, I mean, that's I've never been to one.
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It's not. It's a sad sign of the times that we're so visually driven and social media driven that business is air built around instagram ability. Yep. Of their products. Yep. Totally. He said,
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Well, you know, the rent. And so how ain't cheap, Alan? Well, yes. All right. All right. I understand
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the argument that marketing is marketing, and you've got to get people in, you know, and And what's the difference between hiring a PR agency for $20,000 a month and or building a business around its credibility? But, you know, at the end of the day, if you hire a PR agency for your restaurant and the food isn't
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good, they're not gonna come right.
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If the crux of your business is built around P r and you're not worried about your product, that seems like the worst of every possible world. True, and I feel like they are living in some of that and photography and social media APS have kind of facilitated this world that we're living in. And it's really sucky
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it is.
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Um, in the meantime, I can't stop Instagramming.
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So I'm the hypocrite. Oh, by the way, I instagrammed was the last meal that you rinsed again.
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Uh, you know, I I went to this Chinatown soft serve place and took a really quite a nice photo of Vietnamese coffee. Soft serve
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that it was really
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got a lot of likes
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Nice. And was it good? Was it actually good? It was
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Okay, So here's the thing.
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Deep diving. It
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was pretty good. I got you know, I don't have a ton of followers and scram. But I got, you know, like 150 likes and good about it. But, you know, had I not taken that photo would anything else I've changed
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in the world? Of course not. Now they would still have customers. They have good
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PR. They're written about on the food blogger because you know that people love their There's officer.
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Yeah, it's true. Soft serve was just like that was pretty instagram. No prions, Graham delicious. Hashtag pre instagram. Delicious. So I guess
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what I'm trying to say is, enjoy the poppies all you want.
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Yeah. Go to Mount Everest Base camp.
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Yeah. Take some photos, share with your friends. But you
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don't have to destroy the
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environment. In the meantime.
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Totally. You don't need to strive environment. You don't need to, like, leave human feces. You know, at the base of Mount Everest,
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take your feces with you. Take photos and your feces with you and that's it. Words to live by. Photo Shelters the online leader for photography websites and workflow tools Archive. Distribute and sell your photos in a mobile friendly, responsive website. Try one free for 14 days. A photo shelter dot com slash podcast, Then download one of our free educational guides. That photo shelter dot com slash resource is.