In Martin Parr's book Small World, Geoff Dyer states that:
"Parr looks at tourism worldwide, exposing the increasingly homogenous ‘global culture’ where in the search for different cultures those same cultures are destroyed."
I was interested in the idea that people have the opportunity to travel freely, to whichever destination they choose, and yet a large majority go to the same tourist "attractions" and come back with photographs of themselves in front of these landmarks, without actually exploring the cultures of the country itself. These tourists could have taken a postcard from the internet, and used computer software to place themselves in the image, and saved themselves the money! This relates to the idea of Photography being used to prove we exist, to show our friends and families that we have done something interesting, to show that we are alive (and up-to-date with digital technology!)
THIS IS GLOBALISATION.
I wanted to mock this kind of travel, but in a more gentle way.
I originally wanted the landscape around the tourist to be instantly recognisable, to shoot around famous landmarks; trafalgar square, picaddilly circus, big ben..
But I actually prefer the images where the landscape is a bit more generic.
The architecture is images 1 and 6 are very European in their feel, and I think this works well as it says more about the Tourist perspective globally, not just locally.
Black and white photography enables me to take a step back from the usual, vivid colours of tourist photography.
I'm quite happy with these set of images, I think there are a nice range of compostitions, which stops this kind of series getting too monotonous!
Image number 6 is the Print I am submitting to our forthcoming exhibition in January, although I am continuing with this project until then.
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