PHOTOGRAPHY'S ROLE IN TOURISM

Some Unexplored Relationships

Richard M. Chalten
Department of Anthropology
Temple University
Philadelphia, USA

ABSTRACT
Chalfen, Richard M., " P h o t o g r a p h y ' s Role in Tourism: Some
Unexplored Relationships," Annals of Tourism Research, October/December 1979, VI(4):435-447. While photography is one of the most
common attributes of tourist behavior, its role in tourism has never been
studied. Tourist photography is understood as both photographs made by
tourists and photographs made available to tourists by members of the
host community. This paper draws attention to three unexamined topics:
the relationship between certain tourist types and patterns of
photographic behavior a n d / o r content of photographs; the culturally
variable standards of appropriate subject matter and camera use in
different parts of the world; and the variety of responses exhibited by host
communities to being photographed. Examples are given of host
sensitivities and camera related disturbances. A trend is noticed in which
host communities specify which images are appropriate and inappropriate
for tourist photography. Keywords: photography, travel, tourist behavior,

interaction, image sensitivity, authenticity, culture.

Richard Chelfan is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Temple University. Professor Chalfen received his
Ph.D. from the Annenberg School at the University of Pennsylvania. His primary research interests include the
study of culture and communication, visual anthropology, and the sociology of non-professional photography
and filmmaking.

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RESUME
Chalfen, Richard M., "Le Rble de la photographie dans le tourisme:
Quelques Rapports inexptor~s," Annals o f Tourism Research, octobre/
decembre 1979, VI(4):435-447. Quoique la photographie est un des
attributs les plus communs du comportement touristique, on n ' a jamais
&udie son rble dans le tourisme. La photographie touristique se d6fine
sous un double aspect: les photographies que font les touristes et celles
que les membres de la communaut6 r6cepteur met-tent ~t la disposition des
touristes. Le pr6sent article attire l'attention sur trois sujets inexamin6s
jusqu'au pr6sent: le rapport entre certains genres de touristes et des types
de comportement photographique ou de contenu des photographies; les
normes, variables selon la culture, pour d6terminer l'admissibilit6 de
certains sujets et de certaines modes d'emploi de l'appareil duns
diff6rentes parties du monde, et la vari6t6 de r6actions de la communaut6
r6cepteur au fait d'etre prise en photo. On donne des exemples des
sensibilit6s locales et des perturbations dhes ~t la photographie. On fait
remarquer la tendance des communaut6s r6cepteurs h indiquer queUes
images sont admises et lesquelles sont real h propos pour la photographie
touristique, Mots Clef: photographie, voyages, comportement touristique,
interaction, sensitivit6 d'image, authenticit6, culture.
INTRODUCTION
A camera is a tourist's primary "identity b a d g e . " Susan Sontag has noted:
"photography develops in tandem with one of the most characteristic of modern
activities: tourism...It seems positively unnatural to travel for pleasure without taking
a camera along...Travel becomes a strategy for accumulating photographs...Most
tourists feel compelled to put a camera between themselves and whatever is
remarkable they encounter" (1977:9-10). One Kodak advertisement summarizes this
phenomenon quite well: " R a r e is the traveller who doesn't take a camera along. The
need seems basic."
The purpose of this essay is to explore photograhpy's role in tourism. When
tourism and photography are understood as kinds of social interaction, several
unexamined hypotheses pertaining to the tourist-host relationship are suggested.
Almost nothing has been said of what tourists do with cameras beyond the anecdotal
"travel note." Oblique reference to tourist photography is found on the dust covers of
two recently published books on tourism. In the case of Valene Smith's book, Hosts
and Guests (1977), a picture appears of what is presumed to be a tourist using a motion
picture camera. On the cover of Turner and Ash's The Golden Hordes (1976) an image
of sunbathers, framed in the familiar color-slide cardboard mounting, is displayed.
However neither work examines the tourist as photographer beyond a few brief
references.
This paper outlines three kinds of relationships thought to be crucial to an
appreciation and understanding of the role of photography in tourism: (1) the
relationship between certain tourist types and (a) types of photographic behavior
and/or (b) content of photographs; (2) the variable definition of normative behavior
surrounding taking photographs in tourist sites; and (3) the variety of reactions
exhibited by host community residents to being photographed.

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THE STUDY OF TOURIST PHOTOGRAPHY

For purposes of this investigation, a "tourist" is characterized as one who
ventures away from home, alone or in a group, to see or do something that is unusual
relative to the daily round of life. Following Davydd Greenwood, tourism is understood
as "basically a form of recreation expressed either through travel or through
temporary change of residence" (1972:80). "Away-from-home" is meant to be taken
literally. One can fulfill the role of tourist in one's own country, state, city, or even
neighborhood. "To see or do something" includes witnessing a particular event,
place, person or group of people as well as "experiencing" a particular environment or
activity. Accordingly, people can not be tourists while "at home." This restriction
excludes vicarious tourism: reading travelogues, novels, National Geographic or
viewing slides, films or television shows about other parts of the world.
Additionally, the perspective of social interaction is used for the study of types of
tourist-host relationships. Here Sutton's work is useful because he emphasizes
" e n c o u n t e r s " and "interactions" in which
one or more visitors, or outsiders interact with one or more hosts, or
insiders, in a network of supplementary goals and sets of expectations.
Touring means the juxtaposition, at each of a series of different locations,
of visitors who are on the move to enjoy themselves and "see the world,"
and hosts who are relatively stationary and who have the function of
catering to those visitors' needs and wishes (1967:220).
This perspective assumes additional significance when attention is given to special
qualities of interaction in which cameras are involved.
It is also necessary to mention briefly the kinds of photography under
consideration. Tourist photography includes two broad categories of photograhic
images: (1) photographs taken by tourists and (2) photographs produced for tourists by
members of a host community.
Given these orientations, study of tourist photography begs consideration of
several related phenomena: (a) types of tourists as related to types of photographs, (b)
the content and composition of photographs per se, and (c) responses by members of
the host community.
Relationship of Tourists and Photograph Collections
Sociological treatments of tourism have suggested a segmentation of the
"tourist" collective into sub-categories. For instance, separation of tourists and
travellers is suggested by John Forster. "It is one thing as traveller, to tour a country
on a bicycle, or a Greyhound bus, camping or staying at hotels. It is another as a tourist
to travel in at least minimum luxury and enjoy the facilities and opportunities of a
resort" (1964:221).
Readers are reminded that it is just as likely that tourists and travellers both carry
cameras with them. In another instance, four types of tourists are suggested by Erik
Cohen: "organized mass tourist," "individual mass tourist," "explorer," and
"drifter" (1972). Cohen asserts it is highly likely that each role establishes different
kinds of social relationships with host communities. The most elaborate classification
system has been developed by anthropologist Valene Smith. She offers a scheme of
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seven tourist types: (1) explorer, (2) elite, (3) off-beat, (4) unusual, (5) incipient mass,
(6) mass, and (7) charter. Again, each type of tourist is characterized by a particular
social relationship to the host community, varying in degree of adaptation to local
norms. For instance, at one extreme, the " e x p l o r e r " is said to fully accept local norms
whereas the " m a s s tourist" expects Western amenities and the "charter tourist"
demands Western amenities (1977:9).
Hypothetically, each tourist type may be characterized by taking different kinds of
photographs which, in turn, "illustrate" alternative host-tourist relationships. One
example of a potential correlation between tourist type and photographs is hinted at
when Nelson Graburn discusses " t h e tourism of the timid"--tourists who travel
surrounded by the comforts of their own culture and lifestyle. "Though undoubtedly
enchanted by the view of God's handiwork through the pane of the airconditioned bus
or the porthole, they worship "plumbing that works" and " s a f e " water and food.
The connection with the unfamiliar is likely to be purely visual and, filtered through
sunglasses and a camera viewfinder" (1977:31).
In this context, much depends on what type of tourist expects from his/her
experience. The notion of expectation is suggested when Smith describes the nature of
tourism in Kotzebue, Alaska, and interest in seeing the Midnight Sun. "After the
dance performance finished at 9:00 P.M., the increased number of tourists strolled the
beachline, at the very hour when hunters returned and butchering commenced.
Tourist expectations were suddenly met - these were the things they came to see, and
the pictures they wanted, of Eskimo doing 'Eskimo t h i n g s " ' (1977:59).
Regarding the motivations of tourist photographers, it is uncertain how much they
rely on their cameras to document o r " prove" that they have experienced some degree
of authentic native life. MacCannell concludes that "Touristic consciousness is
motivated by its desire for authentic experiences" (1973:597) and that "Sightseers are
motivated by a desire to see life as it is really lived, even to get in with the natives..."
(1973:592). Significantly many of the "back region" examples MacCannell offers of
the " s t a g e d authenticity" are ones that allow and even prescribe photographic
recording.
However, it is equally uncertain how specific examples of " s t a g e d native
realities" satisfy tourists' needs. Boorstin feels that the unending production of
"pseudo-events" is well appreciated:
And the tourist demands more and more pseudo-events. The most popular
of these must be easily photographed (plenty of daylight) and
inoffensive--suitable for family viewing. By the mirror-effect law of
pseudo-events, they tend to become bland and unsurprising reproductions
of what the image-flooded tourist knew was there all the time. The
tourist's appetite for strangeness thus seems best satisfied when the
pictures in his own mind are verified in some far country (1961:108-109).
Edmund Carpenter appears to agree with Boorstin's position with regard to the
tourist's search for pre-determined images:
Older people still experience the need to translate images into observed
reality. When they travel, they want to see the Eiffel Tower on Grand
Canyon exactly as they saw them first on posters. An American
tourist..does more than see the Eiffel Tower. He photographs it exactly as

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he knows it from posters. Better still, he has someone photograph him in

front of it. Back home, that photograph reaffirms his identity within that
scene (1972:6).
Though not referring to photography, MacCannell is critical of the Boorstin-Carpenter
position. He states that "None of the accounts in my collection support Boorstin's
contention that tourists want superficial contrived experiences. Rather, tourists
demand authenticity, just as Boorstin does" (1973:600).
Given a lack of systematic research to date, generalizations regarding motivations
of all kinds of tourists, travelers and sightseers are for the most part unfounded. It may
be that different kinds of tourists, suggested by Forster, Cohen and Smith, have
different sets of motivations, expectations and thresholds of satisfaction and
fulfillment. Furthermore, it is likely that they tend to photography and document their
" a u t h e n t i c " experiences in different ways. Thus both MacCannell's and Boorstin's
observations may be correct when referring to different types of tourists.
The Tourist Photographer's Freedom to " S h o o t "
Acknowledging that tourists are fond of doing photography raises many related
questions. For instance, one is led to examine the kinds of freedom and restrictions
that regulate what can and can not be photographed versus what is or is not
photographed. Regarding the hypothetical freedom of camera use, enthusiasm for
taking pictures approximates, at times, a policy of "shoot-now-and-answer-questionslater." One observer writes:
Like many other writer-photographers, I used to live by three rules when I
was traveling with my camera: (1) Always carry a fully loaded camera. (2)
Take pictures of everything possible. (3) Never let anyone or anything
stand in the way of getting a " g o o d " shot because it is every
photographer's God-given right to photograph everything when and
where he or she wishes (Gersten 1977).
This account suggests a strategy for studying the patterned qualities of tourist
photographic behavior. For instance, one might begin by examining kinds of
restrictions put on tourists using their cameras. Who imposed these restrictions? Why
do they exist? How is such information about specific restricted subject matter or
" v i e w s " made available to tourists? What formal a n d / o r informal punishments exist
for violating restrictions? How seriously are they enforced and by whom?
Preliminary findings indicate that when formal restrictions exist, written
information regarding them is hard to find. Literature from travel agents or embassies,
or information from tour guide books is rare. Kodak publishes a series of pamphlets on
picture-taking in 17 popular tourist sites, but they are primarily prescriptive--citing
only appropriate views. Popular magazines devoted to the amateur photography
market regularly offer information for tourists. Advice columns such as "Traveler's
C a m e r a " (Popular Photography), " T h e Well-Traveled C a m e r a " (Modern Photography) and "Shutter Tripper" (Travel and Camera) discuss technical problems such as
choice of lens, avoiding x-ray damage to films at airports, organizing a slide show and
the like. However, social problems related to restricted subject matter in tourist sites is
seldom mentioned.
One noticeable exception appears in the Travel Photography edition of the
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Time-Life Series on photography (1972:84-87). Entitled "Rules and Regulations in

Foreign Lands," this article lists either "forbidden" or "permit required" or "'no
limit" on certain categories of subject matter such as (1) military and border areas. 12)
airports, seaports, railroad stations, (3) views from commercial planes. (4) views from
private planes, and (5) other restricted subjects:
The most common restrictions involve subject matter. As might be
expected, almost every country (including the United States) prohibits
indiscriminate photographing of its military sites, and many limit taking
pictures from private planes. But some countries have taboos that are not
so predictable. The Dominican Republic, which is sensitive about poverty,
prohibits photographing slums and beggars; Haiti, at the other end of the
same island, says nothing about the poor but frowns on taking pictures of
the National Palace. Switzerland bans all photographs of the interiors of
its celebrated banks. Iceland forbids taking pictures of four endangered
species of birds (so they will not be frightened away from their mating and
nesting areas). In Argentina and France the taboo involves cemeteries
(evidently a matter of respecting the privacy of the dead); in China,
entrances to the Peking subway (because the subway platforms also serve
as bomb shelters) (1972:84).
It appears that most tourist photography is done with little or no information on
local restrictions or knowledge of locally defined norms of appropriate camera use.
However when only unwritten local sentiment defines accepted camera use, social
confliets may develop after a tourist has unwittingly photographed some form of
restricted subject matter. The naive tourist-photographer may easily get into difficulty
when in quest of a personal " a u t h e n t i c " view. Consider the example of a high school
teacher, touring Kiev, Russia, who almost landed in jail after taking a photograph of
people lined up in front of a store:
Officially, we were not to take pictures of bridges or anything that might
be of military or security importance. We were not to take pictures from an
airplane, for example...We did get a bulletin from the American Embassy
advising us not to take pictures of depressed areas. One member of our
party, unaware of this injunction, snapped some people queued up to
make some purchases. An irate woman hauled him off to the police station
(Ryder n.d.).
Alan Linn, while a free-lance photographer touring Yugoslavia in 1971, wrote an
article entitled, "Taking a Picture of a Gypsy Camp Got Me Locked Up." He reported
that "I photographed a small group of Serbian gypsies bartering over a clump of
sheep. The click of the shutter was very satisfying. Then I felt a firm hand on my
shoulder." Shortly thereafter he was arrested by the police as an American spy. kinn
commented further:
1 knew Moslems (there are many in Southern Yugoslavia) had a thing
about photographs, but hadn't they heard about tourism and foreign
exchange? Evidently, they hadn't, because my first sight through the
viewfinder was of an old shepherd in baggy pantaloons making a very
obscene gesture at the camera. The second view was of a veiled woman
looking very annoyed. Just as I was getting the focus, her groundglass
image broke her beads and flung them, rattling against my lens (1971).

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It is undoubtedly the case that instances of similar violations have occurred with
varying degrees of negative sanctions and explicit punishments for tourist
photographers.
Native Sensitivities and Host Community Reactions
Image Sensitivity
...the many Eskimo passengers aboard airplanes that included tour
parties overheard the departing visitors brag about the "pictures I got"
and interpreting the remarks as ridicule, which cuts deep into native
ethos. In response. Eskimo women began to refuse would-be tourist
photographers, then erected barricades to shield their work from tourist
eyes...(Smith 1977:59).
It is clear that not all people in the world feel the same way about either being
photographed or seeing themselves in photographs. Tourists may assume that every
person they see or every place and thing they encounter are "open game." People who
avoid outsiders' cameras may do so for different reasons. In one report from
Guatemala:
In remote areas, people will often flee if a tourist's camera is aimed at
them. Mothers will hide their children behind billowing skirts or cover
their heads with shawls and chivy them out of sight like hens herding
chickens from a hawk. Often men will make the sign of the cross and shout
imprecations as they scurry out of sight" (Neal, 1975).
Another instance of a camera related disturbance in Turkey:
...I found that a camera can be a blasphemous assault against the
sensibilities of a culture. In Turkey, for example, signs clearly spell out the
ban on photographing women (a Moslem proscription against graven
images). But how can one pass these exotic phantoms, bodies fully clothed
and heads covered, without sneaking at least one shot? .... I waited at what
I thought was a respectful distance to snap a brilliantly clad women in a
purdah, but it turned out the distance was still not great enough. The
lady-in-focus heard the click and began to shriek. Soon people from all
directions converged on the scene, clamoring in Turkish. The indignant
woman pointed at me. As I rapidly retreated through a narrow
passageway I felt like a rustler being pursued by a posse. Luckily I finally
lost the thumping feet behind me. It was a truly great shot, but I paid for
it in panic and a near heart attack. In the future, I decided I'd be more
deferential (Gersten 1977).
From Peru:
Every culture varies in the degree to which it is camera shy. In Peru, the
Indian women run away when you aim the camera at them...No one knows
what the tourist with the camera will do with one's image. Maybe when he
gets back home, he will laugh at it, use it for darts, or as a stimulus for
bizarre sexual experiments" (Milgram 1977:54).
And from Indochina:
Once while i was taking pictures of a Chinese shopkeeper and his wife in
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PHOTOGRAPHY'S ROLE IN TOURISM

Djakarta, their daughter suddenly stepped in to be photographed between

them. Instantly the mother flew out of the picture. "No!No!" she
protested. "If you photograph three people together, one of them will
die!" (Mydans 1972:15-16).
Insight into these examples is gained by incorporating the perspectives of social
interaction and visual communication. Central to any kind of interaction is a notion of
exchange. Considering the relationship of tourist photographers and native subjects,
social psychologist Stanley Milgram suggests the following:
The photographing act is best seen as an exchange when we photograph
other people...A photographer takes a picture...A tourist travels to a
foreign country, sees a peasant in the field, and takes his picture. I find it
hard to understand wherein the photographer derives the right to keep for
his own purposes the image of the peasant's face. "Give it back," the
peasant might cry, " i t ' s my face not yours" (1977:52).
An account of attempting to create more of an exchange is furnished by a tourist
who created an "experiment" to "make friends and bring about personal
encounters."
On previous trips abroad, armed with our movie and slide cameras, we
often found that people turned away--or worse, ran away--from us. That
didn't happen during our recent journey to Peru, when we added a
Polaroid camera to our equipment and gave prints to our subjects on the
spot...So willing were some would-be subjects that they offered to pay us
to take picture of them .... no longer simply "tourista" customers, we had
become the producers of a very marketable product (Bastian 1974).
In some cases, money-for-photographs becomes important. For instance in a
report from Marrakesh, Morroco:
We move along. A man sits with pale doves wandering among little vases
of pale plastic flowers. "They are holy birds," he says. I give him a coin
and shoot. A little boy comes along with a trained monkey not much
smaller than he is. He makes it do a back flip. I shoot and give him a coin.
Ten men in white are beating drums and jumping up and down while
twirling the tassels of their skull caps. I shoot and hand out coins.
I photograph a man kissing his cobra and letting it crawl over his eyes.
Then I find a medicine man sitting among little boxes of herbs and take
more pictures just as the urchins descend on me again. One holds his hand
over the lens and says I can't shoot until l pay him (Kornfield 1977).
However, the assumption that all people want to either see or have pictures of
themselves should be questioned. The relationship of people appearing in pictures and
people looking at pictures must be treated as problematic.
We cannot assume that all people want to see themselves in pictures. We
have to learn what they like to see. In some culture pictures of people who
have died turn the audience away. In a north India village wives are in
purdah to protect themselves from outsiders. A husband would become
very angry if you showed pictures of his wife to men outside the family.
Even though village girls are permitted to dance outside the home on

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festival occasions, village elders would not like pictures of their daughters
dancing shown in the public. Nice girls do not dance in public (Collier
1967:15).
Image Accommodation
It would seem fruitful to examine arrangements developed by host communities to
accommodate increased demands for photographic images. Exploration is needed of
alternative patterns of " i m a g e accommodation" or " i m a g e adaptation" that have
seemingly satisfied both hosts and camera-using guests. The first two potential types
of restriction represent the unlikely extremes of either complete restriction or complete
camera freedom. A host community can " s a y , " in either formal or informal manner,
"Absolutely No Photography Allowed" or "Photograph Anything". It appears that
neither extreme occurs in significant frequency. However, a rare instance of extreme
restriction comes from Staphurst, the Netherlands. Jules Farber reported that " a
tourist clicking in this village is asking for trouble. In Staphurst, picture-taking is
against the law, and a sign in front of the City Hall makes this clear in four
languages--Dutch, German, English and French" (1966). In other instances, a country
may require purchase of camera permits, licenses or other forms of permission. In
1960, it was reported that Ethiopia was following this pattern, luring tourists to use
" t h e wonderland route to Africa. Yet once there, the tourists make dinner-table
conversation of the way police officers discourage taking pictures of the
wonderland...There is no law against picture-taking. It is just that the Ethiopians feel
that foreigners take pictures of us so they can give friends a laugh back h o m e " (Walz
1960:6).
It appears that most toul;ist communities or sites at least implicitly encourage
some form of photography. In most instances, for the tourist without a camera, or with
a broken camera, local entrepreneurs will provide and sell a variety of professionally
produced pictures. Common examples are postcards and travel brochures. They
provide outsiders with preferred views of the host setting. In one interesting example
involving brochures:
Egypt, for instance, has produced a crop of stories about tourists arrested
for photographing Cairo bridges which are on all the tourist postcards.
Again, they are sensitive about possible attacks on the Aswan Dam...
Tourists would be asked to leave their cameras behind them in their hotels
when visiting this attraction, despite the fact that the lobbies were filled
with brochures bursting with pictures of the dam (Turner and Ash,
1976:241).
Other examples of native approved imagery may include sets of 35mm slides,
view-master slides, sets of white-boarded color photographs, 8ram or Super-Store
films, and even photographs printed on plates, cups, dinner placemats, T-shirts and
the like. Moreover, host communities may help the tourist capture " p r e f e r r e d views"
with original photography. For instance, in France road signs indicate locations of " l a
belle vue" or "un vue unique" which specify a place to stop your car, and instructions
in three langauges to ensure proper exposure. Similar examples are also found at
explicitly picturesque canyons in the Southwestern United States.
Carl Mydans mentions another way of assisting tourist photographers. Writing an
advice article for the Time-Life series on photography, he relates an example of literal
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image substitution in which preferred views replaced inappropriate ones:

...one foreigner who was recently allowed to travel to North Korea tells
the following story: Accompanied by a guide, he took some pictures of a
slum in Pyong-yang and left the exposed film cartridge in his room. After
he returned home and had the film developed, he found that his exposed
roll had been replaced with another. This one showed nothing but
monuments (1972:16).
Other strategies of accommodation involve capitalizing on tourists' desire for
photographs of native life or environment. Indigenous cameramen may be available to
photograph tourists as they visit particular sites. These " i m a g e vendors" have
determined preferred views and proceed to make a living by satisfying tourists' desire
for photographic souvenirs. One example is the photographer at Lands End in
Cornwall, England, who will take your picture standing next to a sign that points west
to your home town, and reads "Chicago 4723 miles" (personal experience).
In other instances, members of the host community may seek financial rewards
for being in the picture. For instance, Ximena Bunster writes in Children Who Work:
Life in the Sierra is hard and the economic options for women very few.
The tourist trade offers poor women and children the possibility of cashing
in on a native image. Attired in Indian dress they pose for tourists against
the background of ancient temples, ruins and beautiful landscapes.
In one interview, a girl named Rosila says:
I earn about 10 " s o l e s " each day helping tourists. I show them the ruins of
Puca Pucara and I sit or stand still with my Llama who's called Martina so
they can take photos of the two of us. Sometimes they pay me, sometimes
they don't (Bunster n.d.).
Another pattern of response appears to achieve the best of both circumstances-that is, to encourage use of tourists' cameras but on terms explicitly dictated by the
host community. The host community attempts to regain a sense of private life out of
camera range while it simultaneously provides visitors with appropriate, expected and
"authentic scenes" of local environment, of local indigenous architecture or of local
native behavior. An example of such fabrication comes from Africa:
The thoughtless curiosity of some tourists in Africa, where travelers often
insist on photographing the most primitive appearing people--not necessarily the most representative subjects--has forced at least one government there to consider desperate measures. An advisor to the tourist
industry has proposed artifical villages complete with colorful but
acceptably sophisticated " v i l l a g e r s " to pose for pictures. "It may be
fake," he says, " b u t it's a lot less aggravation on both sides" (Editors of
Time-Life 1972:179).
Valene Smith discusses "model cultures" as one strategy of adaptation to the
disruptive effects of increased tourism. "Models appear to meet the ethnic expectations of tourists, as a reconstruction of the lifestyle they hoped to see, that also accords
to them the freedom to wander and to photograph at will" (1977:70). For instance,
when Max Stanton describes the Polynesian Cultural Center, he remarks "The visitor
can briefly participate in a simple dance in the Samoan village, look over the shoulder
of a person making Tapa in the Tonga area, and is encouraged to take pictures of

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Polynesians in Polynesian settings" (1977:196).

Examples in the United States include a mocked-up display chocolate factory built
for tourists in Hershey, Pennsylvania and "authentic" restorations of Amish Farms,
Amish Villages and old Covered bridges in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania (MacCannell 1976:167). In these cases, photographers are kept away from the "real thing"
and offered artifacts of "fabricated authenticity" for photographic consumption.
Other examples are derived from tourists' need to find, witness and photograph
"local color." Davydd Greenwood describes local color as "nothing less than a
commoditized version of local culture..."(1974:2). Fabricated behavior organized for
the camera such as staged voodoo ceremonies, re-enactments of great battles, and
"typical dances" performed by Native Americans and gypsies are cited. Daniel
Boorstin notes that "sightseeing items "can not be "the real ritual or the real festival;
that was never originally planned for the tourists. Like the hula dances now staged for
photographer-tourists in Hawaii (courtesy of the Eastman Kodak Company), the widely
appearing tourist attractions are apt to be those specially made for tourist consumption" (1961:108).
Host communities seem to be taking a more active role in determining the content
of the tourist's photographs. In these examples of fabricated scenery and image
substitution, natives seek stronger regulation of the host-tourist relationship by not
eliminating the tourist's interest and revenues (by restricting camera use) while
simultaneously establishing a sense of relative privacy.
CONCLUSIONS
The foregoing observations have been presented to illustrate three relationships
of tourism and photography. However, readers might be led to two premature and
unfounded conclusions. It is not implied that all tourists use cameras without any
sense of social or personal regard for their subject matter. The point is that tourists
and/or hosts may be exercising conflicting ethnocentric judgements when determining
appropriate camera use.
Secondly, it is incorrect to claim that increased numbers of camera-using tourists
will function as the primary change agent in an accelerated process of culture
modification, adaptation, acculturation and the like. The observation that many
societies are undergoing increased touristic visitation is primarily significant. The fact
that most visitors carry and use cameras is important with respect to how natives/
hosts feel about "being looked at" with or without still and motion picture cameras. In
this sense, the use of cameras must be considered as a contributing agent to
behavioral modification and social change.
Several trends appear to indicate stronger indigenous control over what gets
looked at and/or subsequently photographed. Tourists may find an increased freedom
to photograph--but on the native's terms. MacCannell has drawn attention to the
creation of "a series of special spaces designed to accommodate tourists and to
support their beliefs in the authenticity of their experiences" (1973:589). This can be
interpreted in two ways: (1) as the creation of staged back regions that keep tourists
away from the " r e a l " back regions that must remain private and inaccessible to all
outsiders; or (2) as the production of "phoney folk culture" as suggested by John
Forster (1964:226-227). In either or both instances, fabricated presentations of native
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culture are developed for tourist consumption. Just as some art historians have studied
the deliberate transformation of indigenous art into hybrid forms that satisfy values,
motives, perceptions and aesthetics of Western art markets, one may now be seeing
manipulation and re-creation of native life for the sake of tourists' photographic
recreation. [] []

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Submitted November 16, 1978
Revision submitted February 28, 1979
Accepted April 11, 1979
Refereed anonymously

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