You often hear people proclaim that they’re not interested in travel pictures unless there are people in them — and in the modern world that often means a selfie. Others minimise the human factor in favour of highlighting stunning scenery. Which side of the fence do you fall on?
A recent survey of Australian travellers by HotelClub suggested that scenery was a more popular choice than the selfie. I personally belong in the scenery club, although as the picture above demonstrates, the two categories aren’t mutually exclusive. What’s your preference? Tell us in the comments.
Comments
11 responses to “Do You Prefer Selfies Or Scenery In Holiday Photos?”
Most definitely scenery. I don’t need to prove I’ve been there. It’s the place itself I want to remember, as I saw it on the day.
In the age of digital cameras, with cheap spare batteries and huge SD cards….. all types. Scenery, selfies, posed straight faced, unposed, doing something stupid.
As long as you have a mind to keep your photos in some sort of order, or tagging system, who cares how many you take. My last trip between me and the missus and our different cameras/phones had like a thousand photos a day. A few hours work upon return and have sorted out the dozen or so a day of completely awesome ones, some scenery, some with one or both of us in them either serious or doing something stupid (i.e. HILARIOUS). The others aren’t deleted (as GB hard disk space is a plenty also), just the awesome ones sorted for the highlights reel.
Done and done!
Definitely scenery. I am alone in the world and therefore my photos matter most to me, of anyone. I want to remember what I saw and experienced, not what I looked like (or what random other non-distinguished people looked like) at the time.
Definitely both…ie Selfies with scenery
I like photos of me and the people I’m travelling with, together, enjoying ourselves. That can include scenery, but it rarely includes selfies. I’m not a great photographer, so there’s a lot of pictures of (for example) The Alps, that were taken by people a lot more talented than me.
I used to just love the scenery, but looking back on them it’s boring. Oh look a hill, and a tree, and a rock. Selfies all the way now, I’d much rather remember the people than the place.
Scenery.
Although I just spent 3 months travelling around africa. I took about 21,000 pictures. Still sorting it down to a manageable amount. I do wish I had more pictures of me with people though.
The real question is, how do you like pictures of yourself taken in these places? The picture at the top is ok, except he’s too close to the camera and looking away, and lighting.. but that kind of picture is good.
I hate when you get someone to take a picture of you and the focus on you, as if you’re the main attraction. Not the scenery and what’s behind you. The amount of pictures I have had taken of me, where you can’t even see what is behind me. It is so annoying.
You can’t overshadow where you are. Most people don’t get this. A few years ago in Vietnam I was getting pictures taken infront of planes, tanks ect. Where the people taking the pictures were just taking me, so I could have been in front of anything. HOW DO PEOPLE NOT GET THIS!
Perhaps you should provide direction on your ideal composition.
Oh I do. I even take pictures of them and have them go, ‘that’s really great.’ Say I want it like this. They still don’t get it.
The difference between a bad picture and a decent picture is only a matter of seconds of thought. A lot of people don’t get this. They don’t try and think. ‘How do I frame this.’ ‘How much do I zoom in,’ ‘do I stand closer or further away when taking the picture.’
Maybe next trip I should do the, ‘i’m so crazy and fun’ and have a picture of me jumping in front of things… I so hate those holiday shots..
In 1975 when my partner was 27 she and her then boyfriend travelled overland from Perth to Darwin, were in East Timor when Indonesia invaded, through Bali, Java and Sumatra, Malaysia, Thailand, Sri Lanka and India to Kathmandu. There they bought a van and drove through India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran and Turkey to Europe. They spent 2 years driving around Europe, spending winter in Morocco. Finally, after selling the van, they travelled on the back of a pink truck from London to Nairobi.
They took many slides. When they split up several years later he took all the slides (and diaries).
Two years ago we travelled to New Zealand where he now lives. I took a slide scanner and we spent a week scanning all of the slides (and taking photos of every page of the diaries).
When I looked through the photos, while it was interesting to see all of the places they visited, the ones that really caught my attention were the ones that had my partner in them.
God she was gorgeous. She looked like a movie star in some of the photos.
Unfortunately, there aren’t that many photos of her.
We spend 6 to 9 months overseas each year. We take 100s of photos each day to record the places we visit.
I used to be firmly in the “scenery only” camp. However, since seeing the photos of the “Big Trip” I have realised that having people in travel photos is very important. In 30 years time (not that I’m likely to get that far) they will be the ones that you will be really interested in. I strongly recommend that you include your travelling companions in your photos.
We now make sure that we include each other in as many of the photos as we can.
Eiffel Tower? Seen it.chuck a brown eye in front of it.memories forever.unseen vistas don’t need people.take two.too many old photos without people and their age to give a timeline of your life.i also know what Uluru looks like,nice to see a young me and friends at the time