[jplahn]

This is tangentially related to something I've been struggling with for the last year. I began getting into photography about a year and as an attempt to surround myself with inspiration, I followed many of the top landscape photographers on Instagram. While their images are beautiful and they tend to position their photographs from the perspective of "environmentalism", I can't help but feel like they've done as much damage as anything else.

Two examples come to mind. Last year, the USFS extended the lottery permit season in the Enchantments by six weeks due to increasing popularity, no doubt fueled by the incredible pictures of it littered across Instagram. Iceland is a top destination for photographers (for good reason) and I traveled there two months ago, no doubt influenced by the pictures I've seen. But it felt like the country was beginning to get ruined by me and my fellow tourists.

It feels like we're beginning to lose the hidden gems as more and more photographers rush to be the first. But even the non-hidden gems are beginning to get exposed more and more often. But I see the same spots being visited by all photographers and I don't see how they'll handle the continued influx of people:

  * Banff NP
  * Dolomites
  * Iceland
  * Lofoten
  * Greenland

It's great that people are interested in seeing the world, but I'd say the set of people that love photographing amazing locations and preserving them is much smaller than the set of people that only care about the former. That said, I'm probably more of a contributor to this than I'd care to admit.

[ISL]

The key, as a photographer, is then to find the beauty elsewhere, preferably in the everyday.

I maintain an active mountain images account, but when I post from somewhere untouched, I'm deliberately vague as to the location.

I'm watching the same thing happen with a tarn on Mt. Rainier. People are figuring out its location, and soon it will be highly trafficked. Most of these places look untouched precisely because people have gone to some trouble not to touch them.

Some overuse is a worthy trade, if, when at the ballot box and the cash register, nature-aware humans make the deliberate choice to sacrifice in order to preserve that which remains.

[macNchz]

I've had this exact discussion with my friends a several times recently. We regularly go hiking and backpacking in the mountains of upstate NY and New England, and have independently noticed the trend of people 'peak bagging' instagram hotspots over the past couple of years.

It's tough because I'm a big fan of getting people outside, and this renewed interest in visiting national parks could in theory drive more funding and interest in wildlands preservation, but in the meantime has drawn hordes of people who don't always respect the place they're visiting.

There are microcosms of the instagram top spots phenomenon you've listed all over the place as well. This past summer I went to visit a backcountry waterfall in my hometown where locals used to cool off, and could not believe how many people there were there, some clearly from far away, taking pictures of themselves in front of it. The instagram location tag for it has thousands of posts, for a place that is pretty but not really spectacular.

Here's a story about a similar location that blew up on the internet and suffered for it: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/20/nyregion/blue-hole-swimmi...

[KGIII]

If you really like something, tell nobody. If you find beautiful waterfalls, don't tell anyone. A great fishing hole? Keep it to yourself. A great diner? Nary a soul should you tell.

I'm only slightly exaggerating.

In defiance of my above statement, I own this tree and it is my favorite tree. The forestry service cored it and it's at least 220 years old.

https://imgur.com/a/c2AVd

[fiblye]

Living somewhere that's increasingly being overrun with disrespectful tourists, I've been making a point of keeping my travels a secret as well. I've found loads of beautiful spots and I take plenty of pictures, but those pictures are all for my own memories. I don't show them to anyone since I know I'd come back to a trashed location later. I recently went back to a small town that had almost zero tourism not long ago, only to find hordes of tourists and "X ︎LOVES Y" messages carved into walls and trees everywhere.

[KGIII]

I can relate. I live in Vacationland. The nearest village largely exists because of tourism. I'm a bit more remote.

[throwanem]

There's a reason the photos on my site generally aren't geotagged. (Well, aside from the fact that my DSLR's GPS isn't any good.)

[KGIII]

Oh! That's brilliant. I usually carry a cheap camera instead of my expensive DSLR and it doesn't geotag as it has no GPS. It's disabled on my cell phone - usually. It re-enabled itself (that's my excuse and I'm sticking with it) at one point, so I manually edited the exif data.

I'm not a hugely private person (I've had countless internet friends visit me over the years) but I'm not giving up coordinates to my favorite fishing hole. As near as I can tell, only three people know about it.

I really am partially serious about telling nobody. That's how things get ruined - from your favorite diner to your favorite hidden beach. Pretty soon your favorite diner is always full and there's trash on your once secluded beach.

[throwanem]

I'm not entirely kidding around myself. A lot of the places where I enjoy taking photos, you'd need to be a Baltimore native or a long-time resident to find, and I have no desire to change that. But when it comes to photography, I'm more about making the most out of the everyday.

I mind me of a fellow who briefly set up, on the Fourth of July, directly alongside me on the north brow of Federal Hill - he unlimbered a pair of tripods, a sack full of lenses, and a setup based on a D7100 that cost more for just the body than I paid for my entire kit. Then, after five minutes, he tore everything down again and strode purposefully off, leaving behind only a vague complaint about how "the atmosphere was wrong". I'm not sure what he meant, and since those few words were the only ones he said to me throughout his time on the hill, I have no idea how his shots might compare to my own [1] [2]. No doubt they are much better, though.

Come to think about it, I haven't posted a new gallery since before the train wreck. I'll have to make some time this weekend and fix that!

[1] https://aaron-m.com/2017/07/05/inner-harbor-july-4

[2] https://aaron-m.com/2017/07/08/bonus-shots-july-4

[KGIII]

Those are fantastic. I don't want to derail the thread by going too far off-topic, so email is [e-mail] (if you're interested in showing more specific examples of your work or galleries).

[throwanem]

Thanks so much! I wasn't totally displeased with them. At risk of further derailing - everything I have that's worth showing, I put up there, albeit sometimes very belatedly. Contact info's there, or in my profile here.

[matt4077]

I believe there's a counteracting mechanism at work that compensates (and then some) for the possible damages from tourism.

Look at Yellowstone, or the country of Guatemala, where it's the interest by visitors that provides the necessary incentives to protect the natural beauty.

The same has (somewhat) worked to reduce the risk of extinction for many species of African mammals as well.

[throwanem]

I began getting into photography as well, around the first of the year, and the trick to me seems to be finding what's amazing in the places where you are every day. I mean, if I had the spare time to travel to places where the landscape is already amazing, I suspect I would, too. But I think it might feel like easy mode to me, if I did.

[hycaria]

People who fly on a whim definitely can't call themselves "evironmentalists" or pretend to be versed into preserving our planet.