This image works as a small essay on tourism, attention, and the making of cultural value. Its humour lies in repetition: three men adopt near identical gestures, each raising a phone towards the same point. The act of looking has become ritualised. They do not only see the place; they perform the act of seeing it.
From a humanities point of view, the image asks what now counts as experience. Susan Sontag argues that photography can become a way of certifying experience, as though the event has not quite happened until it has been photographed (Sontag, 1977). That idea fits this scene. The men’s bodies lean towards the object, yet their attention passes through devices. The place becomes both site and image, both encounter and proof.
There is also a clear link with John Urry’s idea of the “tourist gaze”. Tourism does not just involve travel; it trains people to look for signs of difference, beauty, history, and authenticity (Urry, 1990). Here, the gaze becomes comic because it is multiplied. Three near-matching acts of attention suggest that the scene has told them how to behave. They appear less like free observers than participants in a shared script.
The photograph also has an art-historical aspect. The repeated figures create a frieze-like rhythm, while the raised hands echo devotional or votive gestures. This lends the scene a faintly sacred quality, but the sacred object has shifted from shrine to screen. The image therefore need not mock the tourists. It can be read with more care as a study of modern pilgrimage: people seeking contact with place, but doing so through the cultural form now most available to them.
The main limit is that the joke is easy to grasp. People photographing the same thing is now a familiar subject. Yet the image gains force through spacing, posture, and repetition. It is not just about phones. It is about how culture shapes the body, tells us where to stand, and teaches us what is worth seeing.
References
Sontag, S. (1977). On photography. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Urry, J. (1990). The tourist gaze: Leisure and travel in contemporary societies. Sage.
The shorter version…
A photo essay on tourism, attention, and the making of cultural value.The image asks “what now counts as experience?” Susan Sontag argued that photography ‘certifies’ experience, as though an event hasn’t happened until it has been photographed.
The men’s bodies are directed towards the object, yet their attention passes through their devices – encounter and proof.
John Urry’s “tourist gaze” is based on the idea that travel trains people to look for difference and authenticity.
Here, three near-matching acts of attention suggest that the scene has told them how to behave. The repeated figures form a frieze, with raised hands in devotional gestures but the sacred object has shifted from shrine to screen – a form of modern pilgrimage.