Why We All Take the Same Travel Photos

為什么我們要去拍同樣的旅行照片

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(yīng)用程序可以準(zhǔn)確地告訴你應(yīng)該看什么ー或者更準(zhǔn)確地說,，應(yīng)該拍什么,。



“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(dāng)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(biāo)準(zhǔn)化始于18世紀(jì)，因為旅游指南開始引導(dǎo)游客去“描摹”那些如畫的美景,， 他們用當(dāng)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(zhuǎn)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(shù)-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(shù)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(dá)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,。



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(jì)末旅游業(yè)的民主化,，甚至隨著21世紀(jì)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(shù)—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(dāng)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(biāo)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(rèn)了你與那些曾經(jīng)遙遠(yuǎn)遙遠(yuǎn)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(yuǎn),。

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(zhuǎn)化為圖像,、紀(jì)念品,。'



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,。