Let alone including yourself in the picture. I know how you look like.
Let alone including your loved ones in the picture.
Even when their disappointment of having to face away from the monument is clearly visible in the photo.
And then you make them do stuff like ‘hold the sun in your hands’ or whatever.
That seems typical of the selfish nature of the world today (not your fault). But in ten years time you’ll have forgotten some of the details. In twenty years time some of the people in the photo won’t be here anymore and you’ll enjoy looking at them. In 40 years time your memory will be hazy. In 80 years time you’ll be a memory, someone’s old relation they only remember from photos.
I have found pictures from decades ago that I didn’t remember until seeing the pic. When you get old, your memory gets really hazy. Looking at old photos really helps to bring back those memories.
You’ll appreciate it years down the road. I was the same mindset in the past tho ngl 🙈 treat it as a memory/journal and not a photo of the spot itself
Two kids down, I’ve found I still heavily dislike looking at those weird photos everyone seems to love to take, where everyone is just posed there side by side like in a school picture with a forced smile. All they end up reminding me is how mildly annoying taking said picture was.
However, I love looking back at those “in action” pictures. The ones where people are laughing, talking with each other, looking at stuff, playing games, going places, etc. The ones where people are acting naturally, sometimes even unaware they’re being posed. Those definitely bring back the memories. You see the emotion, the fun people are having. You get to see personalities, looks, mannerisms.
Absolutely this! We all need to take more “dumb” unscripted photos 🤓 they’re more fun anyway 🤭
I agree.
However, I love looking back at those “in action” pictures. The ones where people are laughing, talking with each other, looking at stuff, playing games, going places, etc.
We have one (and just one) such picture, and my parents have framed it on the wall. And it wasn’t even shot at any special location, just a random roadside.
That’s a pretty good point. A lot of people don’t realise that even casual photography can serve a lot of roles, and a lot of “boring” photos can still be very useful. You might not even realise how useful the photos can be later. I’ve found some old photos of mine that don’t really look like much at first glance, but there might be some detail in them that gives context for the rest of the image set.
For example, a lot of people take photos of their food. Some might say “well, that’s a clearly pointless habit”, but think about it this way - today, it can serve a journaling purpose (so what did we eat last week? stick these things in a food journal so you can get a better idea of your calorie intake?) and maybe later it can serve as historical evidence (okay, so what did we all eat 10 years ago? Remember when McD did this goofy campaign? etc etc)
Maybe you’re right, I might appreciate it 30/40years down the road but definitely not 10 years. I have photos from 10 years back but I never look at them. They only stay because storage is cheap.
You will change, and places change. It’s amazing looking at things years later. I have a picture at the top of the Twin Towers in Manhattan in 2000 (and I was the kind of person who didn’t like to take pictures of myself while traveling).
Things you do now may be relevant in the future. And you probably underestimate the power of nostalgia. XDDD
Edit: btw, voted because this is a truly unpopular opinion. :)
Bro I see things on my Google photos frame from even 10 weeks ago and am like holy crap I totally forgot we did that. Life is so busy and so often shitty, it really is nice to get reminders that at least every now and then I made a memory that wasn’t so bad. That’s what the photos, even the lamest posed ones, do for me.
Heck, I just got back from a 10 day trip on the east coast. We did so much in so little time, but took plenty of photos. Now when I’m telling family about our vacation, I can bring them along through the pictures and they help me tell the story of what was happening in the moment.
Once you start losing contact with people and people start dying looking back at old photos can be a really nice way to spend an evening.
The photo itself might not be that interesting but it might remind you of something funny or interesting that happened that day so long ago you haven’t thought of it for decades.
You might even appreciate some of them maybe a few months or a year down the road!
As a point of data, I’ve had a no-photo policy for 20 years, and haven’t started missing it yet.
So what if you know what I look like, I’m taking the picture for me, not for you.
Not sure how old you are, but you sound young. Unless you’ve got a photographic memory, your recollection of things will start to fade, and those pictures will bring back memories you’ve forgotten. I’ve been traveling consistently for around 20 years now, and the photos are so precious. It’s not about capturing a monument you can look at from other photos, it’s about capturing you in that time as you were.
Its about who is in the picture, and the memory of this day. Sure you can google a better pic of this statue, but in this one, WE WERE THERE
Yes and sometimes the picture would be seen by multiple generations of your family. It’s preserving the moment for future generations. It’s not just about yourself and your remembrance. It’s about sharing that memory in a tangible and visible way not just in a story of words.
Edit : My only complaint is that as the family photographer, I have the least amount of photographs with me in it. 😂
You should always include a public clock in the picture so you can strengthen your alibi.
You, sir, are a genius.
Also that days crumpled newspaper in the shot so it can’t be easily photoshopped.
They won’t be able to pin that murder you paid for on you will they?
“It could be yesterday’s newspaper”, it’s not reliable. Better get a TV showing news in the background instead.
Dunno, to me it makes perfect sense. I know what the Eiffel tower looks like. And I’m sure I could find the exact angle I took on the internet. But when I stumbled upon the picture, I also remembered the awesome pastries I had on the bench where the pic was taken, among other things. I don’t really get that from seeing it in random pictures on the internet.
Also, I used to have long hair. People always ask to see pictures whenever they find that out. It’s good to have pictures of yourself at different times too.
As a (as of yet) nonprofessional photographer I take a “yes, and” approach.
99.98% of people will just take a picture of the thing and move on.
0.001% of people will say, “What’s the point? I can just look up the picture on Wikipedia.”
What do I like to do? I like to take a picture of the thing, but tell a story surrounding it. Is there a mom with a cell phone grinning seeing her kids run around the statue? Take a picture of the moment. Is there a couple with their arms wrapped around each other? Such a precious photo.
This can also help show scale. When I visited a volcano in my area that’s a tourist trap, most people stand at the viewpoint, and take a picture of the gray and brown bump on the horizon with steam coming out. But I purposefully tried to get people in the shot. The result showed how impressive the volcano truly was.
This dude arts!
I, too, used to feel this way. However, now that I am old enough to put 20+ years between now and the time the pictures were taken, I do like being able to look back through those pictures. It is amazing how your memory distorts and loses details of the past, even of strong memories where you still know the important beats correctly. I wish I had more. I now try to get more when I am doing things. Though I will never be one of those people just going place to place to get a bad picture of it with me in frame.
Then don’t. Duh. Don’t do things you don’t want to do. And don’t tell other people not to do things they want to do.
There is where I stand, but other people continue telling me to do these things…
Hey bud. Just live a good life.
You do you and we do we.
Ignore the ones telling you to do things. Don’t join them.
So people are telling you what to do and in turn you’re telling people what to do?
When traveling with friends, I take photos of my friends. And if it makes them happy to do it in front of scenic things okay.
I agree with your unpopular opinion, if there’s a million better photos of it online, I don’t need to add yet another one. But if it makes my friends happy, that’s why I’m doing something social, so I’ll do it to make them happy.
But if I’m alone, just traveling, no no photos of anything that has over a thousand photos on Instagram already.
I treat pictures like a journal or memory album of sorts, a way to take me back to that point in time especially if it was a long time ago.
Also helps that I have a heinously large 512gb sd card lol
Also helps that I have a heinously large 512gb sd card lol
Do you back it up?
Yepp, although it’s a manual process where I remove it and mirror the contents to my server from a computer
It just never really occurs to me. Even if I already have the camera in my hand, the things that strikes me as needing to be shot are shadows, textures, bits of old concrete and machinery. It’s not that I actively choose not to, just that people are almost always less interesting than moss on a bit of old concrete
I agree. I do have a handful of pictures that I look at, like when I pointed a camera just above some buildings and cranked the shutter time to the max to capture the skyglow. But for every such picture there are a hundred more that are just sitting there.
I’ve started using a cheap printing service to get physical copies of the ones I like, and trying to use them around my house a bit
Do not go to Pisa. A whole road of people taking an original “it looks like I am holding/pushing the tower. How funny!” picture
How many people anything their crotch so it looks like they have a historical boner, though?
Well, don’t do that then
