Tourism, Landscape and Myth

The Myths of Tourism

The imagery of tourism is seen to create realities of places through how it can occur to look positive and somewhere that appeals to the eye. The actual place that is being advertised is often not shown in what the actual reality of the place is but is shown to how stereotypes of tourist area's are supposed to look like, that are featured in travel brochures and postcards. We as people are attracted to are's that we have never been before because of the images that are used on tourism consumption, as we expect to see these countries and area's to look exactly how they appear and forget about any negativity that could come with it. Stereotypes of tourism is what we see has places of interest and landmarks in countries and cities that we want visit from seeing our friend's photographs and also reviews that we can read about these places, such as the Eiffel Tower, Berlin Wall and the Colosseum. Photographer Martin Parr has produced a number of pieces or work that show tourism in different ways. He breaks down tourist attractions by concentrating on what surrounds them rather than the actual object that tourists are interested in. Advertisement places a huge role in tourism as they only show us what they want us to, to make us want to visit. Travel brochures are a key example to this as they only show the reader selected images that highlight the best parts. Photography's role in tourism is how photographs can create a safeness as the photographer can choose what is in the image and in this case of tourism, is assigned to capture the right things that will make the audience feel safe. Although it all seems very positive, sometimes tourism can objectify the exotic other that is presented through photographs because it will often include images of the people who live in the tourist area, working and making their living. It is offensive as the tourist obviously has time on their hands and has money to be able to visit places because they appear to be looking down on them.

Martin Parr - Small World (Book)

The landscape has also been seen as a myth over time. Artists often included landscapes in paintings of people because they wanted it to view themselves as having land which meant they were wealthy. However in the 18th Century painters would also produce images of people who were peasants in their homes, that would appear more positive that what their lives actually were such as 'Cottage Door' By Gainsborough, the image included warm colours and the husband providing firewood making it seem normal. The landscape appeared to be a place where people could live and work safe and be happy. Photography also show's how landscape can be a myth, John Kippin's work is shown to be ironic in ways because of its link with the past. His piece 'Shakespeare Country' shows this because of how different the landscape is in a lot of places compared to what images of the more positive part of an area is. We often forgot that everywhere has a bad part to it, rather than what we are just shown.

Above all Tourism and Landscape is seen as a Myth in many different way. The art of painting and photography presents a view, that can fool its audience to believing, what the image appears like in front of us. This can often cause problems with our expectations and what we think the place in the image is actually going to be like, because of what is chosen to be in its framing. They often miss out the negativity, but photographers such as Martin Parr and John Kippin have produced work that contrasts the views we are expected to have in the stereotypes that are given to us.