Travel Authenticated?: Postcards, Tourist Brochures, and Travel Photography

Abstract

The use of postcards, tourist brochures, and photographic evidence of travel by tourists is a way of justifying their journey and travel experience through visual authentication. The postcard, brochure, or photograph depicts the genuine or authentic vision of the traveler as having physically been present in the often far flung location under perusal. Both postcards and photographs, as visual media, serve to provide the traveler and, in turn, the relative or friend at home, with the proof of travel to distant and exotic places, and visual authentic verification that the traveler was actually present in the location. Tourist brochures, however, provide inducement to visit these same tourist destinations, conjuring up images of the "Other," the exotic, and the authentic.

Tourism and online photography

“…Travel photography plays a multitude of roles in tourism. At a more prosaic level, it verifies that a person physically visited a place (Hillman, 2007) and provides evidence that the individual has experienced some form of authentic, exotic, 'other' life (Chalfen, 1979). But, photographs play a much deeper symbolic role in helping to construct travel memories (Baerenholdt, Framke, Haldrup, Larsen, & Urry, 2004) and form those memories into narratives or stories.…”

Socio-technological authentication

“…Tourists sort, catalogue, index, store and delete pictures (Robinson, 2014). Importantly, as Larsen (2008) illustrates, photographic (and any other mediating) technology is a performative actor shaping how experiences are captured (see also Hillman, 2007;Picken, 2014;Scarles & Lester, 2014). Similarly the computing and network capacity to access, reproduce and augment representations, using other media formats or narratives, shapes how experiential objects are created and transmitted (Tussyadiah & Zach, 2012).…”

Turizm Motivasyonu Olarak Fotoğraf Çekme: Fotoğraf Amaçlı Seyahat Eden Bireyler Üzerine Bir İnceleme (Photography as Tourism Motivation: An Investigation on Persons Traveling for Photography)

“…People partake in touristic activities and take pictures to feel free spiritually and physically and take pictures to immortalize their memories. Looking back at the pictures taken, it could be observed that the individuals have felt the same pleasure and motivation again (Chalfen, 1979;Hillman, 2007). According to taking pictures touches one's life in different angles and has many other roles.…”

“…According to taking pictures touches one's life in different angles and has many other roles. The photograph that has been taken documents an individual's physically visiting a location in a certain way (Hillman, 2007) and…”

“…Sosyal medya kullanımı özellikle fotoğraf çekme eyleminin önemini artırmaktadır. Fotoğraf paylaşım platformlarına, dünya genelinde günde yüz milyona yakın fotoğraf yüklenmektedirler (Kıvırcık, 2018 (Hillman, 2007) ve bireyin otantik, egzotik, başka bir yaşam biçimi yaşadığına dair kanıtlar sunmaktadır (Chalfen, 1979). Fotoğraflar, seyahat hatıralarının oluşturulmasına yardımcı olabilmek için, daha derin bir sembolik rol oynamaktadırlar (Baerenholdt vd., 2004…”