Why We All Take the Same Travel Photos

為什么我們要去拍同樣的旅行照片

作者: LAURA MALLONEE

2018年12月10日 Wired美國連線雜志

With 7.4 million people crammed into its 426 square miles, Hong Kong can be overwhelming to tourists. But now an app tells you exactly what to see—or, more precisely, what to photograph.

占地426平方英里的香港擁有740萬人口，對游客來說，香港可能過于擁擠。 但是現(xiàn)在有一個應用程序可以準確地告訴你應該看什么ー或者更準確地說，應該拍什么。

[copy]Scroll through Explorest to find a surfeit of futuristic high-rises, minimalist staircases, and rooftop views perfect for selfies. Clicking on the pic tells you how to capture it—not only the GPS coordinates for where to plant your feet, but also the exact settings to punch into your camera (in the unlikely event it’s not a smartphone).

在 應用Explorest 里劃動可以找到大量未來風高樓大廈、極簡抽象派樓梯和屋頂景觀，非常適合自拍，點擊圖片就會告訴你如何捕捉它ー不僅指導你按 GPS 坐標站位，還告訴你相機的精確設置(如果不是智能手機的話)。

“Two of the most common questions asked on social media are ‘Where was this picture taken?’ and ‘How do I get there?'” says CEO Justin Meyers. “We want to make traveling a more seamless, cultural experience using an extensive database of local knowledge.”

"在社交媒體上，人們最常問的兩個問題是'這張照片在哪兒拍的?' '我怎么去那里?"' 首席執(zhí)行官賈斯汀邁耶斯說， "我們希望利用豐富的本地知識數(shù)據(jù)庫，讓旅行成為一種更加無縫的文化體驗。"

But Explorest is just an app-shaped version of something tourists already do: flit from attraction to attraction to take the same photos they’ve already seen of Buckingham Palace, the Golden Gate Bridge or even Brussels’ Peeing Boy. That script, staged again and again by countless visitors, reflects how photography has always shaped the travel experience—for good or bad.

但 Explorest 只是把游客們已經(jīng)做過的事情反映到應用程序里: 從一個景點到另一個景點，拍攝他們已經(jīng)看過的白金漢宮公園、金門大橋甚至布魯塞爾的撒尿男孩的照片， 這個由無數(shù)游客一次又一次上演的劇本，反映了攝影對旅游體驗的影響——無論好壞。[/copy]

“It can be an opening up to the world,” says Peter D. Osborne, the author of Photography and the Contemporary Cultural Condition, “or it can be forcing the world into your frame—as it were, almost literally.”

《攝影與當代文化狀況》一書的作者彼得? D ?奧斯本表示，"它可以說是打開了世界，也可以說是將世界塞到你的取景框中ー就是字面上的意思。"

The standardization of travel all started in the 18th century, as guidebooks began directing visitors to “picturesque” views that looked like paintings. They recorded them with the gadgets of the day: Claude glasses reflected tinted, fisheye scenes that were easy to sketch, while Camera Lucidas actually transposed them onto the page. Nifty as those tools were, they couldn’t hold their own against the daguerreotype, a heavy wooden box camera introduced in 1839 that gentleman travelers soon began lugging to Greece and Egypt. But the early technology was still too cumbersome and time-consuming for most people, who just bought postcards.

旅游的標準化始于18世紀，因為旅游指南開始引導游客去“描摹”那些如畫的美景， 他們用當時的小工具將這些景色記錄下來: 克洛德玻璃用來反射出有色的魚眼鏡頭場景，易于繪制，而投影描繪器實際上將這些場景轉投到畫紙上。 雖然這些工具很漂亮，但是他們無法抵擋銀版照相術-1839年發(fā)明的一種重型木箱式照相機，紳士們很快就開始拖著它來到希臘和埃及， 但對于大多數(shù)剛剛購買了明信片的人（指游客）來說，這種早期的技術仍然太過繁瑣和耗時。

Until Kodak. The introduction of George Eastman’s lightweight, foolproof camera in 1888 meant hordes of tourists could quickly press a button to capture their individual experiences … which turned out to be more or less identical.

直到柯達出現(xiàn)，1888年喬治伊斯曼推出的這款輕巧、簡單的相機意味著大批游客可以迅速按下按鈕，捕捉他們各自的體驗... 雖然事實證明，這些體驗或多或少是相同的。

[copy]That’s because photographs actually created the attractions in the first place. As sociologist Dean MacCannell observed in his 1976 book The Tourist: A New Theory of the Leisure Class, images lift unknown landscapes from obscurity, marking them as significant and “setting the tourist in motion on his journey to find the true object.”

這是因為起初照片確實創(chuàng)造了吸引人去的景點， 正如社會學家迪安馬卡內(nèi)爾在他1976年的著作《旅行者: 休閑階層的新理論》一書中所說，照片將未知的風景從默默無聞中提升出來，使之變得有名，并"促使游客行動起來在旅途中尋找真正的美景。”

When you found it, you snapped a pic to prove it—a circular ritual John Urry describes in his 2002 book The Tourist Gaze. “What is sought for in a holiday is a set of photography images, which have already been seen in tour company brochures or on TV programmes,” he wrote. “[It] ends up with travellers demonstrating that they really have been there by showing their version of the images that they had seen before they set off.”

當你找到它的時候，你會拍一張照片來證明ーー約翰厄里在他2002年的著作《游客的凝視》中描述了一種循環(huán)。" 度假時人們想要的是一組照片，雖然這些照片已經(jīng)出現(xiàn)在旅游公司的宣傳冊或電視節(jié)目中，"他寫道， "(它)最終以旅行者通過展示他們在出發(fā)前看到的圖像來證明他們確實到過那里。"

It’s less about seeing the place than taking the same photo as everyone else. At the Grand Canyon in the 1970s, Osborne saw a group of tourists lining up to snap pictures at a spot specially marked for doing so. “People were queuing up, quite politely, waiting their turns,” Osborne says. “I thought, Why don’t they just spread out three or four meters on either side?”

與其說是為了看到這個地方，不如說是為了和其他人拍同一張照片。 上世紀70年代，奧斯本在大峽谷看到一群游客在專門劃定的位置排隊拍照，"人們很有禮貌地排起了長隊，等待著輪到他們。"奧斯本說，"我想,他們?yōu)槭裁床环稚⒃趦蛇吶拿椎牡胤剑ㄅ恼眨┠?"[/copy]

That lemming-like practice didn’t change much with the democratization of tourism in the late 20th century, or even with the explosion of digital photography and social media in the 21st. Now there are more tourists than ever, more trips than ever, and more lookalike photographs than ever. They still depict the same definitive sites set out long ago in travel books, but as these attractions have become ordinary, the ordinary has also become the attraction. Your smartphone lets you snap an unlimited stream of Airbnbs, infinity pools and urban art—all of which you probably first saw on Instagram.

隨著20世紀末旅游業(yè)的民主化，甚至隨著21世紀數(shù)碼照相和社交媒體的爆發(fā)，這種旅鼠式的做法也沒有多大改變。 現(xiàn)在游客比以往任何時候都多，旅行也比以往任何時候都多，拍的照片也比以往任何時候都多， 他們?nèi)匀幻枥L著很久以前旅游書中描繪的那些知名景點，但是隨著這些景點變得普通，原先普通的景點又變成了吸引人去的地方。 你的智能手機可以讓你一次又一次地去拍民宿、無邊界泳池和城市藝術—所有這些可能都是你在Instagram看過的。

It’s tough to break out of that cycle. I knew it was silly to join the crowd of tourists clicking away at the Mona Lisa when I visited the Louvre a couple years ago—geotagging has made it all too clear how unoriginal those photos are. But I did it anyway, elbowing through a sea of smartphones and selfie sticks for a tourist-free shot at the front. The visit just didn’t feel complete without it. But why?

很難打破這個循環(huán)， 幾年前，當我參觀盧浮宮時，我知道加入一群在蒙娜麗莎邊上拍照的游客有點傻—位置標簽使得這些照片顯得如此沒有創(chuàng)意，但我還是這么做了，我用手機和自拍桿在一片人海中擠來擠去，只為了在前面拍一張沒有游客的照片。 沒有它，這次訪問就感覺不完整。 但是為什么呢？

Because photographing something is a way of possessing it—at least, that’s what the critic Susan Sontag argued in her 1977 classic, On Photography. “To collect photographs is to collect the world,” she wrote. It confirms your connection to places and objects once distant and remote, making the world slightly smaller and less alienating.

因為拍攝某種東西是擁有它的一種方式—至少，這是評論家蘇珊桑塔格在她1977年的經(jīng)典作品《論攝影》中的觀點，“收集照片就是收集世界，”她寫道。它確認了你與那些曾經(jīng)遙遠遙遠的地方和物體的聯(lián)系，讓這個世界變得更小，也減少了疏遠。

Ironically, though, “collecting the world” might mean also losing it. “A way of certifying experience, taking photographs is also a way of refusing it—by limiting experience to a search for the photogenic, by converting experience into an image, a souvenir,” Sontag wrote.

然而諷刺的是,"收集世界"可能也意味著失去它， 桑塔格寫道，"拍照是證明體驗的一種方式，也是錯過體驗的一種方式ー通過將體驗局限于尋找照片，通過將體驗轉化為圖像、紀念品。"

[copy]Some recent studies support that idea. One suggested that taking a photo of something makes it harder to remember it. Another found museum-goers were less likely to remember objects if they took photos. And yet, photography is an impartial technology like any other.

最近的一些研究支持了這一觀點，有人認為，給物品拍照會使它更難記住，還有人發(fā)現(xiàn)，去博物館的人在拍照時不太可能記住展品。當然，和其他任何技術一樣，攝影作為一項技術是公正的。

Maybe the problem is less with the tool than with how it’s used. Most tourists will never be explorers in the traditional sense of the word, but you can still engage with what’s in front of you in a serious way—and the camera, and maybe even apps like Explorest, can help you do that. Jonas Larsen, professor of mobility at Roskilde University, has studied tourist behavior at attractions in Denmark. While some were hurriedly snapping away, others were taking their time, carefully studying their environment between snaps. “Rather than being reduced to something superficial, it can actually open you up to a more sustained kind of experience,” he says.

也許問題不在于工具本身，而在于如何使用它。 大多數(shù)游客永遠不會成為傳統(tǒng)意義上的探險者，但你仍然可以認真對待眼前的事物ー相機，甚至像 Exploest 這樣的應用程序都可以幫助你做到這一點， 羅斯基勒大學流動學教授 Jonas Larsen 研究了丹麥景點的游客行為， 有些人拍完照就會匆匆忙忙地離去，另一些人則會在拍照間隙慢悠悠地體驗周邊的美景， 他說，"這樣拍照就不僅不會讓你變得膚淺，反而會給你一種更持久的體驗。"。

That feels true. During a high school trip to Italy, I lagged behind the group, stopping every few steps to take a photo with my Nikon film camera. It offered a way to look more deeply and express my delight at the details: walls overgrown with ivy, windows crowded with flower pots, a whitewashed monastery shining in the afternoon sun.

真是這樣， 在一次去意大利的高中旅行中，我落在大家的后面，每走幾步就停下來用我的尼康相機拍一張照片。 它能讓我更深入地觀察美景，更好地表達旅途中我偏愛的細節(jié): 爬滿常春藤的墻壁，擠滿花盆的窗戶，刷著白墻的修道院在午后的陽光下閃閃發(fā)光。[/copy]

I wasn’t merely collecting shots of the world I’d already seen. I was soaking them in.

我不僅僅是在拍攝那些看過的美景， 我也在享受那些美景。