www.scribd.com/doc/5194033/tourism - photography. Donald Horne uses a hepful metaphor to open The Great Museum .

He describes thenormal behaviour of the devotees of a particular cult. These devotees are in fact touristswho as he says are trying to imagine the past. 1 Photography is related to tourisminasmuch it makes the tourists experience real, according to Horne: ...;by photographing a monument, we make it real . It also offers us the joys of possession,... 2 . His theory is based on the idea that the tourists camera defines the tourists experience,establishes the definitions of reality according to this experience and gives the touristthe chance to own the space and time where and when the tourist is tourist, as no other mean has been able to do before. As Susan Sontag says To collect photographs is tocollect the world 3 and To photograph is to appropiate the thing photographed. 4 Thetourist becomes a tourist as much as he/she is able to possess the photographed, which becomes the landscape, historical site or cultural icon once is photographed.This experience the tourist seeks to possess through photography is directly affected bynostalgia. In addition to Hornes idea of past 5 , John Frow studies the relationship between tourism and nostalgia in his Tourism and the Semiotics of Nostalgia 6 . Tourismhas developed at the same time than mass culture has made the experience available toall through cameras: from the observing traveler to the possessive tourist, and from theworld as being to the world as simulacrum. 7 To find out how this change has comeabout it is necessary to consider the main developments within the photographic worldsince it became available for the tourists use. 1 Donald Horne, The Great Museum: The Re-presentation of History (London: Pluto Press Limited,1984), p. 1. 2 Donald Horne, The Great Museum: The Re-presentation of History (London: Pluto Press Limited,1984), p. 12. 3 Susan Sontag, On Photography (London: Penguin Books, 1979), p. 3. 4 Susan Sontag, On Photography (London: Penguin Books, 1979), p. 4.

5 Donald Horne, The Great Museum: The Re-presentation of History (London: Pluto Press Limited,1984), p. 26 . 6 John Frow, Tourism and the Semiotics of Nostalgia, Octobe r, 57 (1991), 123-151. 7 John Frow, Tourism and the Semiotics of Nostalgia, Octobe r, 57 (1991), 123-151 (p. 142).

John Taylor refers to the illusion of ownership that country guides offered the lower and middle classes in England from the 1920s to the 1940s 8 . As this particular periodof history enabled the creation of a lower to middle class in England who sought after the stability and security that the Great War had taken away, Taylor explains thattourism in the countryside grew dramatically, at the same time that Kodak cameras weremade available to the majority of the population. As the industrial era came about, massconsumption increased. The period in-between wars saw the phenomenon of tourismreach through class divisions, and camera in hand, English people learned a new idea of picturesque countryside which gave the nation a notion of identity. It was the un-spoiltnon-urban spaces that captivated the imagination of the masses appealing through onceagain nostalgia to recover the shaken English values after the First World War: Theguides focused upon history, topography, and antiquarian interest, demonstrated thevirtue of self-improvement, and advocated the beauty, heritage, or legacy of England. 9 As the urban centres were growing unstopably, the appeal of the rural, the yetundiscovered and unvisited, the roots of England, increased side by side. In a worldwhere changes were too quick to understand, the people sought refuge in the past, andtook along their Kodak cameras so that they could own that piece of the past and take ithome.Brochures and travel books depicting this ideal of countryside found their place in themarket of commodities, as one of the best examples is In Search of England by H.V.Morton: 8 John Taylor, Kodak and the English Market between the Wars, Journal of Design History , 7, No. 1(1994), 29-42 (p. 31). 9 John Taylor, Kodak and the English Market between the Wars, Journal of Design History , 7, No. 1(1994), 29-42 (p. 31).

In the following example of Kodak advertisement the ownership of time is beingreferred to again. The idea that the tourist moment can be revisited time and time againwithout the same expense of travel and money whenever we please is illustrated 11 .The photographs used on the advertisement to show the travellers experience depict everyaction they are expected to take on a given trip: they are seen loading the vehicle withlugagge, setting up their tents, canooing through a river... every photo shows an ideathat the social imagination produces, towards which everyone can aspire to. The viewersare shown what they should do once in the countryside, the photographs spell it out for them. The language of the image, the copy of the reality of a moment is more powerfulthan the text. The idea of nature and wilderness as opposed to the life in the city isdepicted through photographs of exotic animals. The iconic idea of leisure that is 11 http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/eaa/kodak/K03/K0364-72dpi.jpeg

printed in the common social mind is only real because it can be seen through photographs, it can be owned therefore it is.In the following photogaph taken by Bill Brandt in 1947 Stonehenge is depicted under snow 12 . As a photographer he contributed to several illustrated magazines during the period between the World Wars. The viewer can immediately relate to the photo, eventhough they might have never visited the site, it is understood it stands for Englishculture and past, heritage and identity. Once exposed to this representation of Englandunlimitedly it is safely assumed that these are not just stones put together hundreds of years ago, but the nation has inherited the space therefore when visiting it becomesnecessary to photograph it to prove its existance. It is really just like its depiction asthere is a photograph to prove it.

As the cultural space called Stonehenge becomes its photograph, its representation getsmass produced:Originally the silhoutte of stones could represent only the expression of an ancientculture. It then gets photographed to become an icon and develop a meaning without the

spatial factor. Then it makes its way onto the brochures and postcards to advertise itsnon existent self. The postcard is a vital

show of the experience as a tourist visitingStonehenge. Stongehenge as a circle of stones has long ago lost its original meaning, to become the time we have spent there. Steven Hoelscher approaches the history of the relationship between tourism and photography from the American point of view. In his article about photographer H.H.Bennett he says: Acquiring photographs gives shape to travel as it informs what theviewer should see, how it should be seen, and when it should be seen- all in a matter-of-fact and seemingly unmediated way. 13 He is referring to the role of photography asan essential aid to the widespread of tourism as a mass-culture activity. Using the sameexample already used, when visiting Stonehenge the viewer is told what it is to be seen,to be photographed, to be purchased and to revisit once back home.By exposure and acquired cultural education it is understood that the tourist needs to photograph the visited space as otherwise its existence in the tourist reality is jeopardized. The two images above show the Blue Mosque in Istanbul. The left image isa postcard from the beginning of the XX century 14 . The right image belongs to a personal experience as a visitor in Istanbul. Not only the photograph needs to be taken 13 Steven Hoelscher, The Photographic Construction of Tourist Space in Victorian America, Geographical Review, 88, No. 4, J.B. Jackson and Geography (1998), pp. 548-570 (p. 549). 14 http://www.old-istanbul.com/Page5/sahmet2.jpg

as the tourist has been taught that their memory is not enough to guarantee and preserveits existance. If the tourist can be framed in the photograph the experience is personalized. The tourist was there as the photograph can proof. The qualities of thecamera makes it very difficult to dispute the reality of the tourist. A painting used to bethe means to protrait a scene. Photography is trustworthy. There is no doubt that thesetourists were in Istanbul. They might not know much about the Blue Mosque. What theydo know is that to be able to experience the tourist visit it is required that they photograph it and if feasable, they appear in the frame to make Istanbul truly theirs.In a world where globalizing tendencies have shrunk distances between peoples,whereby means like the internet an individual is able to be in several places at thesame time (new concepts like working from home or business travellers havechanged the face of interpersonal communications) the phtographic image becomesinvaluable. Text and language belong to the multicultural society, they are varied andthey are not accessible to all. Images can be understood by all.

The tourist experiencethrough a lense has become a new type of discourse in contemporary times. A newlanguage that can be talked by all, shared by all and understood by all.Through photos tourists are shown the experience to be had: These three examples of tourist photography found on a website functioning as a travelguide 15 show what Benidorm should be for the visitors. For the English tourist market 15 http://www.benidorm.world-guides.com/benidorm_attractions.html

Benidorm is transformed to a cheap holiday with sea and Sun. Benidorm is no longer aSpanish coastal town. Benidorm is an experience available for all at affordable prices.British visitors are exposed to this image of the holiday: the Sun shines, the beaches are bursting with life, the swimming pools are safely crowded with kids. It has become aweek of cheap food and drinks, of Sun and sand. Even the idea of an urban centre behind Benidorm has been shed a while ago. As a mimic reaction, the tourist willimitate and copy this meaning time and time again. With cameras they will be able toreproduce the experience and make it everlasting, communicating through them themeaning they have given to Benidorm.But nowadays this kind of tourist experience is only one of many. As mass-culturereaches its peak, the offer for so-called alternative tourists diversifies and grows. We can be certain that even the most anti-tourist traveller will be catered for.As these photographs show

16 there is also another type of tourist. One more interested inan individual personalized experience, which hopefully enriches him/her and fills them 16 with knowledge. Still, the photographic language is a very familiar one. The photographshows the activity to be had, the monument to pose next to. The website photographshows the photograph that needs to be taken. They still educate the viewer in theexperience to be had thanks to the camera.Tourist photography also serves as a means of comunication for the anti-touristmessage. Tourism en masse is commonly asociated with exploitation of local resourcesand capitalism in general: In this first example of anti-tourism photograph it can be safely assumed that the photograph was actually taken by a tourist 17 .Does his or her tourist experience differ toothers as they are not trying to appropiate the local cultural heritage with their cameras? They are still making a memento of their experience to take with them, whether they arein agreement with such a statement or not. It still shows and proofs that they were there,not only that, they can assume that their experience was even more real as they dared toexpose the local antagonism against their own visit. 17 http://www.flickr.com/photos/weeche/216591856/ The tourist identity has been determined by the camera and the experience it providesthem with:Both these examples of photography 18 depict the iconic idea of the meaning of tourist.Tourists do not have eyes anymore. They have cameras and through them they are ableto see the world. Without them the world is not their reality. On group holidays takingthe photograph has become more important than admiring the sight. Tourists are toldthey will have time to take the necessary photograph so that their visit is worthwhile.Otherwise it becomes valueless.Photography enables the tourist to exist. Both as a subject of the photograph or as theviewer the tourist cant escape its power. The tourist is bound to feel a certain degree of 18 http://cache.viewimages.com/xc/3225881.jpg? v=1&c=ViewImages&k=2&d=27D044C0A019FA6C310FCDDE3EA621 52A55A1E4F32AD3138and http://www.flickr.com/photos/erin_nicole/2 142473499/

frustration precisely because of this. Frow cites Levi-Strauss when dealing with the Irresoluble Paradox : the less one culture communicates with another, the less likelythey are to be corrupted, one by the other; but, on the other hand, the less likely it is, insuch conditions, that the respective emissaries of these cultures will be able to seize therichness and significance of their diversity. The alternative is inescapable: either I am atraveler in ancient times, and faced with a prodigious spectacle which would be almostentirely unintelligible to me and might,indeed, provoke me to mockery or disgust; or Iam a traveler of our own day, hastening in search of a vanished reality. 19 Tourist go insearch of the symbols exposed by photography, symbols they are familiar with and areable to comprehend, hence the need to make the icon ours. Comfronted with symbolsand signs not able to understand, tourists lose their quality of tourist, become notinterested at its best, possibly apathetic and intolerant once challenged by a reality that itis not theirs, and it will never be theirs as they cannot relate to it nor own it. There is acertain degree of anxiety when visiting a well known cultural enclave and tourists arenot able to confirm and fulfill their expectations by visiting the

symbol of such place. Itis only when the tourists look back at the photographs of themselves on the EmpireState Building that they can safely say and assume they were indeed in New York City.They could have been anywhere else in the world, up until that moment when they areable to make the city theirs, as the city is the Empire State Building: 19 John Frow, Tourism and the Semiotics of Nostalgia, Octobe r, 57 (1991), 123-151 (p. 132). It is only once the Empire State Building is seen 20 the tourist can rest assured they are in New York.Using the common language of photography, nostalgia gives the tourist experience aninsolvable paradox: This is the paradox of the impossible appropiation of the Other repeated with an economic vengeance; and it is a paradox that rebounds, since any placeat all can become the cultural Other of tourism. 21 The search of a utopian reality throwsthe tourists into the world, makes them shoot the cultural reference they are familiar with, lets them think it becomes theirs and enables them to go back happily thinkingthey own a portion of the world and its past. It is only when the moment of realizationof this paradox becomes real that the tourist experience becomes frustrated. Still, themass-culture and capitalist mechanisms to protect their experience are many and powerful, photography being the most important of all. 21 John Frow, Tourism and the Semiotics of Nostalgia, Octobe r, 57 (1991), 123-151 (p. 151)..