The Relationship Between Photography And Traveling

Early Landscape photography used the same principles as painters in order to create pieces of art. Before the 18th Century, artists used landscapes as backdrops and as a frame for the principal subject. Towards the later part of the century, however, artists such as Nicolas Poussin started to romanticize the environment, instead using it as a principle subject in paintings.

Photography, meaning “drawing with lights” in Greek, is an art as well as a science of capturing light and storing it on a medium with unprecedented accuracy. Yet, up until the late 18th century, history was mainly recorded through the techniques of painting and the press. These mediums unarguably contained a certain degree of a truth, though, it was not uncommon for events, such as war to be composed with glorified details, or an unfavorable bias from the artist at hand. Beginning in the 1830’s, cameras provided a revolutionary solution by combining the advancements in optics and chemistry. Consequently, the new medium of photography was established and forever changed how history would be visually captured. Unlike other methods, photography

In “The Ugly Tourist” by Jamaica Kincaid, tourism is thought as a disgusting and an extremely harmful industry. In her perspective, it allows first world citizens to escape and marvel at the simplest and most ordinary things. Although there is some truth in what Jamaica Kincaid describes to the reader, I believe there is a prejudiced view towards the tourist themselves. Kincaid’s essay about the ugliness and affects of being a tourist contrasts everything I’ve experienced being a tourist in Italy and Greece.

In “Ways of Seeing”, John Berger, an English art critic, argues that images are important for the present-day by saying, “No other kind of relic or text from the past can offer such direct testimony about the world which surrounded other people at other times. In this respect images are more precise and richer literature” (10). John Berger allowed others to see the true meaning behind certain art pieces in “Ways of Seeing”. Images and art show what people experienced in the past allowing others to see for themselves rather than be told how an event occurred. There are two images that represent the above claim, Arnold Eagle and David Robbins’ photo of a little boy in New York City, and Dorothea Lange’s image of a migratory family from Texas; both were taken during the Great Depression.

Photography gives you a small sample of reality, but these realities have been changed to what the photographer wants to present. However as Sontag stated, “Of course, photographs fill in the blanks in our mental pictures of the present and the past.” Pictures show proof that all of the history that we learn is true, but although it confirms that, pictures does not show us the entire picture of how people felt about the situation. For example, one might have a picture from WWII and show us the setting, but does that picture really show the feeling of the people? That is why we say that photography only goes as far as to how the photographer wants to show the

Another significant reason that has played a vital role in photojournalism of recent times is the emergence of imaging technologies. Imaging technologies has undoubtedly played a major part in the works of a photojournalist today. Based on earlier accounts on how photography itself is an inherent manipulation, the question is no longer directed on ‘how has imaging technologies manipulate photojournalism' but ‘how much more has imaging

For this essay the works of Robert Draper, author of “Why Photos Matter,” and Fred Ritchen, author of “Photography Changes the Way News is Reported,” will be analyzed. Though both deal with the topic of photography, their take on the matter is very different. While Ritchen is a photographer who writes on “what professional photographers will be doing in the future,” Draper is a writer for the National Geographic writing on how the photographers of the magazine share “a hunger for the unknown.” Both writers, however, write on the topic of photographers having a deeper understanding of their subjects, Ritchen due to research and practice, and Draper because the photographers “sit [with] their subjects, just listening to them.” In both essays the need for a deeper understanding of the

While emotions were extremely high in the sense of angst for a better life, photography provided a new sense of reality to Americans and for others around the World. Photography all around the World is unlike anything else of its kind. People are able to tell stories and elicit emotions that bring the audience to that desired response. Throughout the 1930’s, photography from governmental institutions or advancements alone brought a new beginning to the end of a terrible time that Americans all around the nation

There are the tourists—those who seek temporary relaxation, or famous sights. There are the travelers—those who wander, without aim, for the love of moving. There are the explorers—those seeking adventure, the thrill of unearthing things rarely seen.

Before starting this project, I knew very little about photography, photographers, or exactly how much impact photographical images have had on our society. I have never taken a photography class, or researched too in depth about specific pictures or photographers. This project has allowed me to delve deeper into the world of photography in order to understand just how much influence pictures can have over society’s beliefs, emotions, and understandings’. I have have chosen two highly influential photographers, Diane Arbus and Dorothea Lange, who I have found to both resonate with me and perfectly capture human emotions in way that moves others.

The second picture I chose called Laxman Singh, Rajasthan, 2002 I felt that this man is a prisoner in his own world because he has no legs to walk but prosthetics. I believe that the photographic approach of contemporary photojournalists have changed with both the idea and the technique since Gardner’s era. There is more history going on every day and there are so many stories that can be told that each photojournalist can use different techniques and ideas to tell that story to a viewer.

After revisiting this popular tourist attraction with a different, fresh mindset, I am able to support the argument made by Dean MacCannell that tourism is a search for authenticity. While tourists come up to Griffith Park to check off a popular Los Angeles landmark and “must see attraction” from their long list, they are also coming to witness a taste of the “real” Los Angeles. However, this “real” and authentic LA that they seek will not necessarily be found here up in the mountains themselves, but instead in the land beyond and in the people they encounter.

As this century fades into the past it is worth remembering that its course--in contrast to earlier times--has been chronicled by a visual narrative that relies on the attraction of photographs as means of storing

Photography is important in this type of tourism and plays a vital role because based on the

Susan Sontag said photographs sends across the harmlessness and helplessness of the human life steering into their own ruin. Furthermore the bond connecting photography with departure from life tortures the human race. (Sontag 1977:64)