Changing Cultures of Photography: Visualising Visual Access/Excess in Tourist Places

Abstract

This photo essay seeks to visually capture how the cultural preoccupation with photos and being photographed is manifesting itself in the context of changing technologies. As a result of increasingly easy access to cameras and techniques of photography, particularly subsequent to the advent of the camera-fitted smartphones, the act of taking photographs has become a non-specialised everyday activity. This increased and easy access to the camera allows almost everyone to capture anything and everything at all times and places, indoor and outdoor, in public and in private. This is bound to have implications for our social and cultural life in innumerable respects.

While the greatly magnified capacity to undertake such activities means that people are now able to take pictures in places and contexts which were not always readily available to such visual access/excess and this has also given rise to new visual forms such as the much discussed ‘selfie’; it is also the case that the contexts and places which have a longer history of being sought out for photographic purposes are now saturated with this preoccupation more than ever. Apart from the major life cycle events, sites of tourist activities are one such context. The pictures in the essay capture the many dimensions of this cultural preoccupation with photographs and photography as it manifests itself in a variety of ways in some North Indian tourist places.

The set of pictures presented here were taken during visits to various tourist places in the period 2012–14 and illustrate the diversification, which is occurring in these practices in the recent times. Not only has photography been a part of tourist activities, a number of local people survive upon providing photographic services to tourists and the presence of such photographers and their services has been as much a part of the tourist experience as the destination and its other attractions. Many photographers set up shops in all kinds of settings to entice tourists to be photographed in various local contexts and ethnic dresses (Pictures 1–4). The impact of new technologies on the lives of such locals is a subject of urgent sociological investigation. Apart from the significant impact that the changing technologies will have upon livelihood strategies in tourist places, there are other relevant aspects of such changes which are indicative of more subtle changes in modes of self-representation and subjective experiences. Thus, the tourists themselves are often seen striking poses, perhaps at the behest of the photographer, that appear to be purely for the benefit of photograph itself (Pictures 5–7). How are these modes of (re)presenting ourselves and experiences engendered by them going to change in the future?

The entry of the camera wielding tourists (Picture 8) as well as the omnipresence of the smartphones (Picture 9) is set to bring about a situation in which the tourist places, if not our everyday life, are overwhelmed with the intrusion of the camera phone (Pictures 10–11). What are the implications of such immensely increased capacity for human life to have a visual afterlife? Is it the case that people are now more preoccupied with capturing their experiences visually than with the experience itself? What does the desire for visual ‘evidence’ of one’s experiences and activities reveal? Does this have something to do with the cultural preoccupation with celebrity lifestyles, which are also communicated largely through the visual media? Are we all partaking in a mediatised cultural creation via this new visual access/excess as well as the new social media such as Facebook, which allows easy display of such images to a large, heterogeneous and ‘virtual’ community? How do these representations and their displays relay back into our concepts of ourself? Is there something culturally specific to such representations, preoccupations and experiences or do they reflect a set of human universals? Are certain social and cultural tendencies getting heightened lease of life through these new technologies and the ancillary media? Clearly, we have many questions to answer.

It would seem that this preoccupation with photography also invites some regulatory practices. We have one example here that demonstrates how such access/excess impinges upon the businesses of locals catering to the tourists (Picture 12). One can imagine numerous other sites which would invite such regulation. On the other hand, a number of previous conventions have ceased to be enforceable given the difficulties of limiting the use of a camera phone. Will new norms be able to emerge to take place of old ones or will the newer technologies render such a possibility obsolete? What are the conflicts which an absence of prior consensus on such matters can give rise to? By whom and how will the tensions that emerge be resolved?

These are some questions that this photo essay seeks to open up to further inquiry.