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I was born in the middle of the last century and began to travel with my camera in the 1980\u2019s, visiting so many wonderful places, spurred on by books like Paul Theroux\u2019s \u201cThe Great Railway Bazaar\u201d. Even then, tourist hotspots were always busy, but I tried to focus on quite places where wild nature was the dominant force or historically and architecturally interesting places were a well-kept secret. This was relatively easy through to the early 2000\u2019s when there was a very noticeable uptick in global tourism. Airports became unpleasant cattle markets that processed the masses in a way that supressed the urge to travel, while scenic and culturally special places became unsympathetically \u201cmanaged\u201d and subsumed by hordes of visitors. For me this was a bit of a turning point in terms of my enthusiasm for travel. Of course I\u2019m not na\u00efve, nor selfish, I recognise everyone has the right to travel and visit interesting locations. It\u2019s just that for me, these locations lose all their magic when you have hundreds of coaches, thousands of tourists and capitalistic opportunists trying to make a quick buck selling pointless rubbish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Let me give some examples:
I visited Cambodia three times (2007, 2010 and 2015). The first time the country had just opened up and my visit was absolutely fantastic. The temples and sites were hidden away in rampant jungle and while the risk of stepping on a landmine was very real, you typically had the place to yourself, a real treat for landscape and travel photographers. Everything about the place was interesting, exciting and a true adventure. It was so good that we returned, and again had a great time. However, by our 2015 visit, the place had changed so much. Angkor Wat was overrun with visitors, queues of tuk tuks were common and the sites were being unsympathetically managed \u2013 locations had lost the \u201cIndiana Jones\u201d quality. The Hordes of 2015 convinced us that this would be our last visit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The only place I can liken to Cambodia is Burma, which we visited in 2012. Photogenic places like Burma\u2019s Bagan and Inle are very special and easily as interesting as my first visit to rural Cambodia was. However, sadly the political shift in Burma shortly after our visit put an end to the country\u2019s nascent tourism industry. I can\u2019t help thinking that Burma would by now have also suffered the problems of over tourism like so many places, and tend to think of the country as a geographic \u201cJames Dean\u201d \u2013 coming to an end in the prime of its life. If tourism ever returns to Burma I hope it doesn\u2019t spoil what the country and its wonderful people have to offer. As a photographer some of my best, favourite and most satisfying photography has been done in Cambodia and Burma, but the enthusiasm, and hence quality of my photographic output would have been severely curtailed if I had to contend with today\u2019s overtourism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n More recently, 2024 has been a year of significant push back by several countries in Europe and around the world in respect to overtourism. The World Tourism Organisation defines overtourism as \u201cthe impact of tourism on a destination, or parts thereof, that excessively influences perceived quality of life of citizens and\/or quality of visitor experiences in a negative way\u201d. The term was only used very infrequently before 2017, but now embodies the widely felt negative aspects of tourism – from Barcelona, the Balearics to Bali and beyond.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I could see this firsthand in Japan in 2024. Like all visitors, especially photographers, I had a hit list of places I wanted to photograph. However, so did everyone else. I guess I\u2019m as big a part of the problem as anyone. Still, I feel that many travellers enjoy the chaos and crowds while many do not, me included. Also, many younger travellers just want to get an instagramable pic of themselves in a classic location on their phone. There are so many of these, that you can forget getting a tripod set up with a serious camera as you won\u2019t have the room or time to make a quality picture. A 10 stop ND filter might help remove the hordes, but these phone photographers won\u2019t thank you for holding them up while you make that quality image \u2013 in fact, at Arashiyama in Kyoto, I was shocked by the rude and brutal attitude of European tourists, and even more shocked by the sheer number of them \u2013 it was absolute hell. It\u2019s even busy here after first light. Japan is very much in the overtourism basket and there have been quite a few news articles on the problem in 2024. In Yamanashi Prefecture a mesh barrier was set up to block the view of Mount Fuji that can be seen over a Lawson convenience store. This view of the mountain with a prosaic shop in frame had become a popular photo site in Fujikawaguchiko, and was seen as a real problem locally, but one that embodies the issue of overtourism in Japan as a whole. Honestly, I\u2019m at a loss to know why anyone would want to take such a pointless image (shop and mountain) or need to feed a silly \u201csocials\u201d bucket list. In fact, as a sidebar, the ABC ran a story today on how social media has become more important in music than the art itself. I think that you can say the same for photography.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Overall, the causes of this problem are complex \u2013 satisfying social media goals, increased numbers of tourists, increased photographic hobbyists, cheaper travel, flexible working practises, and in the case of Japan, a weaker Japanese yen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The ubiquity of social media information makes it easier to source interesting new locations for photo tourists. While Arashiyama bamboo grove may be too busy, nearby Adashino Nenbutso-Ji bamboo grove is much quieter, but it is still too busy for enjoyable quality photography.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I guess one has to just accept excess tourism as a fact of life, but while it might be a predictable aspect of travel in a densely populated and busy country like Japan, it can also affect very isolated, difficult to get to locations. It took me a while to track down a location I wanted to photograph on the wild and woolly western side of South Island New Zealand. I wanted to shoot the rock stacks and starfish at Motukiekie Beach. When I finally found the location and set myself up to shoot some beautiful scenery, incongruously a dozen other photographers arrived as part of a guided photo tour. It certainly made it difficult to get set up in the best spots, as most were taken, and you don\u2019t want your fellow photographers in any of your views. I know, everyone has the same right to be there as me, but I just prefer it if I\u2019m alone \u2013 I find it easier to be creative. I would have expected heavy tourist numbers on the Great Ocean Road, but not in such a quiet spot off the beaten track.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Of course, everyone has their own take on tourism and hence this becomes the reason for their travel choices. Photography may be a direct or indirect driver for travel, but a recent 2025 news article reporting on the travel trends people are drawn to, suggest we are all pulled to particular trends due to the sense of structure and understanding they offer within what is an increasingly complex and hyperkinetic world. To put it another way, travel reflects our inner longings, it provides an exciting window into our lives, putting the humdrum of everyday life on hold for a brief week or two. A sun, sand and sea break on the \u201cCosta\u2019s\u201d has to a certain degree given way to a more exotic and engaging experience from, for example; astronomy (aurora\u2019s etc) to history, and wildlife to culinary holidays. This sounds great, and it can be, but some of the most beautiful and once tranquil places in the world now act as focused tourist sinks that definitely negatively impact the experience for many. Norway\u2019s Lofoten Islands are now taking the overspill from Iceland. These are two examples of places suffering from overtourism, including from landscape photographers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Visiting the magnificent National Parks of North America in the 1990\u2019s, landscape photography was fine \u2013 the numbers of fellow photographers were constrained and always seemed sustainable. This is changing with numbers of people gathering at scenic spots at sunset being increasingly challenging. I could roll out the COVID bounce back as an excuse, but excuses don\u2019t help, longer term solutions are required with joined up thinking and hard decisions needed. Indeed, just today I read that Joe Biden has signed into law legislation making it easier to photograph and film in US National Parks. Is this a good thing? Small groups of photographers and videographers can now film without obtaining permits. I\u2019m not sure \u2013 true, built into the legislation is the fact that filming cannot adversely affect fellow park visitors or the overall ecosystem or park resources. However, as an obsessive nature and landscape photographer, I still find the buzz and sight of drones in National Parks incredibly annoying and distracting. I\u2019m lucky in that drones are not permitted in parks and conservation areas in my state in Australia, but people still do it! Bidens law protects small scale filmmakers from fines and even jail, but even with the caveats above protecting others and park life from adverse consequences, I can see that issues could arise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One of my concerns is that given all the bad press for overtourism in 2024, the industry seems to see off-the-beaten track holidays as an alternative \u2013 where tourists swap popular places for duplicate, but currently less popular spots. I\u2019m not sure this is a solution, more a spreading of the problem. The problem seems clear enough, the solution \u2013 well I suspect this is not ever going to be solved by the Tourism Industry itself. It\u2019s time to start looking at the problem from an analytical viewpoint and setting up 100% independent bodies to oversee and mandate change (i.e limiting numbers and transport options etc, charging higher fees and dare I say it, in some cases charging for photography). These should all be on the table for discussion. One of the big issues is that as with addressing climate change, politics and geographic self-interest often prevent the best intervention. Given the global perspective on overtourism and it\u2019s subordinate problems, it will need careful oversight to avoid the significant inertia seen within the politics of global warming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So, the world is changing; more people are travelling, nature and landscape photography is no longer a viable career pathway, the days of profitable stock and print sales are history and have been supplanted by YouTube and running photo-tours\/schools. The days of photo magazines and books are tailing off, and so we are left with a very different landscape to that which I entered in the 1980\u2019s. I think that the only people making a truly sustainable profit from nature\/travel\/landscape photography are talented photographers who run galleries in select tourist hotspots, photo-tour\/school operators, and above all, photo equipment manufacturers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the 1980\u2019s, by and large, successful photographers were filtered out by the editorial photo press, and it was a fair way to get talent to the top, the rubbish tended to be selected out. Today, everyone and anyone can set up a blog\/website\/YouTube channel, so there is a ridiculous amount of rubbish and misinformation out there, but I\u2019ll be the first to admit that there is also an awful lot of new talent, dare I say photographic iconoclasts who are pushing boundaries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In truth I miss the way things once worked but recognise that in today\u2019s world there are more possibilities open to us, but probably less opportunities for sustainable careers in photography.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My final thoughts must be: does the \u201cprofessional\u201d nature\/landscape\/travel photographer still exist? Is travel photography at risk of being destroyed by its own success. Does travel photography degrade the travel experience of others (both tourists and locals). Food for thought!<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/web33.secure-secure.co.uk\/marklucock.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/MDLJAPAN000121.jpg?resize=600%2C407&ssl=1\")
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