Pictures of People Taking Pictures – Italy Edition

Piazza del Mercato in Siena, Italy

“Seventy-five years ago, tourism was about experience seeking. Now it’s about using photography and social media to build a personal brand. In a sense, for a lot of people, the photos you take on a trip become more important than the experience.” – New York Times

Pienza, Italy

The article mentioned above is worth a read for a number of reasons, but primarily the references to “over tourism” prevalent in many parts of the world.  I mentioned in a previous post that I had never seen so many selfie sticks – and tourists photographing themselves instead of the scenery – and this article expands on that in much more detail.

Pienza, Italy
Pienza, Italy

One of my favorite activities when traveling to interesting locations is to photograph people taking photographs.  It’s almost become too easy – like “shooting fish in a barrel” as they say.  But I try to keep it interesting and include some of the surroundings as context.  It is a bit aggravating, but since I can’t easily get the people out of the pictures I figure I might as well go with the flow.

Wedding photo session in St. Mark’s Square in Venice, Italy
Wedding photo session in St. Mark’s Square in Venice, Italy

These are just a few of the photos I took of “POPTP” from our recent visit to Italy.

St. Mark’s Square in Venice, Italy
Touring the Doge’s Palace in Venice, Italy
St. Mark’s Square in Venice, Italy
Cruise ship arriving on the Grand Canal in Venice, Italy
Photo from somewhere in Venice, Italy
City government offices and the Tower of Mangia in Siena, Italy

4 thoughts on “Pictures of People Taking Pictures – Italy Edition”

  1. Funny! There is a guy on pBase who has a whole gallery of nothing but people with cameras. It’s great. I like this series as you have captured it very well.
    Yes, it used to be that travel was about the experience rather than the photo album or the gallery we put up on our website. I must plead guilty as I can get caught up in the photography and miss the experience.

    No name or mail stored this time. 🙂

    1. I think I have enough of these photos now to put a gallery on my website. I intend to work on a long-overdue update soon and will likely add that. In the mean time I am still working on photos from Italy!

      Strange about the email and website thing, but I don’t think it is anything I have done. I have noticed though that a number of websites I follow no longer have those fields pre-filled. My browser usually fills the blanks when I click in the field, so maybe it’s a browser thing.

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