How to share without sharing too much?

[Wheatfield7]

Lately I've been thinking a lot about the locations I shoot photos and how much information I really want to be sharing about them.

I'm currently working on putting together my website, with the intent of publishing photoessays from my travels and outings (lots of hiking, rock climbing, etc). But my desire to share my photography with people conflicts with my value of preserving the places that humans haven't already completely overrun.

It's easy enough to strip GPS coordinates from photos (and I definitely will be), but what's tripping me up is how to tell stories about my experiences without naming where I went and what these photos are of. Something feels missing from these stories if there are no proper nouns. Certainly an approach is to use no words and let the images do all the talking. And while that may make my authoring work easier, the images are not always the whole story I want to tell.

Furthermore, and perhaps paradoxically, I actually do want to encourage people to explore my photos by broader location: to see what my home state of Oregon is like or how I view Paris. I just don't want to point them right to the shores of my favorite secluded lake or the door of the quiet restaurant I found.

Now I don't have any delusions of grandeur: my photography is ok at best and my "following" is likely to be mostly people I know already. I doubt my photos would spell doom for any given location. But you never know what kind of exposure something published on the internet will gain, and if I drive even one jerk to go somewhere and they carve their name in a rock or leave trash on the ground, I'd be furious.

I'm curious if others here have faced a similar dilemma and how you've chosen to handle it.

I always start my descriptions with "One day I was walking through a forest in Narnia" and go from there.

 

[Roger99]

...and reserve some proper nouns for conversations with traveling companions and those in the know. Of course some locations are best shared when you think in terms of helping local tourist based economies (although having grown up in one I'm in two minds there as well) but there are those situations that are best shared only through your images which should be seen as access enough. I say save those special places for those few that stumble upon them. There are few enough of them left. Here in the internut age are we really so desperate for rare and individual experiences as a species that we are willing to destroy every one we find so as to brag about them to every traveler out there? In terms of your images, are they so weak an incapable of standing on their own merits that they must be enhanced and validated with the details of where they were taken? Let a nice shot stand as a nice shot unless it is for the significant broader good that the story and deets behind it be offered up.

Lately I've been thinking a lot about the locations I shoot photos and how much information I really want to be sharing about them.

I'm currently working on putting together my website, with the intent of publishing photoessays from my travels and outings (lots of hiking, rock climbing, etc). But my desire to share my photography with people conflicts with my value of preserving the places that humans haven't already completely overrun.

It's easy enough to strip GPS coordinates from photos (and I definitely will be), but what's tripping me up is how to tell stories about my experiences without naming where I went and what these photos are of. Something feels missing from these stories if there are no proper nouns. Certainly an approach is to use no words and let the images do all the talking. And while that may make my authoring work easier, the images are not always the whole story I want to tell.

Furthermore, and perhaps paradoxically, I actually do want to encourage people to explore my photos by broader location: to see what my home state of Oregon is like or how I view Paris. I just don't want to point them right to the shores of my favorite secluded lake or the door of the quiet restaurant I found.

Now I don't have any delusions of grandeur: my photography is ok at best and my "following" is likely to be mostly people I know already. I doubt my photos would spell doom for any given location. But you never know what kind of exposure something published on the internet will gain, and if I drive even one jerk to go somewhere and they carve their name in a rock or leave trash on the ground, I'd be furious.

I'm curious if others here have faced a similar dilemma and how you've chosen to handle it.

 

[dpcane]

Lately I've been thinking a lot about the locations I shoot photos and how much information I really want to be sharing about them.

I'm currently working on putting together my website, with the intent of publishing photoessays from my travels and outings (lots of hiking, rock climbing, etc). But my desire to share my photography with people conflicts with my value of preserving the places that humans haven't already completely overrun.

It's easy enough to strip GPS coordinates from photos (and I definitely will be), but what's tripping me up is how to tell stories about my experiences without naming where I went and what these photos are of. Something feels missing from these stories if there are no proper nouns. Certainly an approach is to use no words and let the images do all the talking. And while that may make my authoring work easier, the images are not always the whole story I want to tell.

Furthermore, and perhaps paradoxically, I actually do want to encourage people to explore my photos by broader location: to see what my home state of Oregon is like or how I view Paris. I just don't want to point them right to the shores of my favorite secluded lake or the door of the quiet restaurant I found.

Now I don't have any delusions of grandeur: my photography is ok at best and my "following" is likely to be mostly people I know already. I doubt my photos would spell doom for any given location. But you never know what kind of exposure something published on the internet will gain, and if I drive even one jerk to go somewhere and they carve their name in a rock or leave trash on the ground, I'd be furious.

I'm curious if others here have faced a similar dilemma and how you've chosen to handle it.

I always start my descriptions with "One day I was walking through a forest in Narnia" and go from there.

It's a good thing nobody views your stuff.

 

[Mackiesback]

The assumption from your OP is that so many people will be reading your photo essays that enough people that are not environmentally conscious will visit and damage those places.

The ego part here is that you think your photo essays are going to bring throngs of savages to damage these places.

Really? Your interpretation of my words seems quite exaggerated:

Now I don't have any delusions of grandeur: my photography is ok at best and my "following" is likely to be mostly people I know already. I doubt my photos would spell doom for any given location. But you never know what kind of exposure something published on the internet will gain, and if I drive even one jerk to go somewhere and they carve their name in a rock or leave trash on the ground, I'd be furious.

I wrote the OP using my own situation as the foundation, but I feel it's a topic any photographer should reflect on for themselves. Responding with "it doesn't matter, you're a nobody" avoids the actual question here.

Search around and you'll find countless articles and opinion pieces on how the advance of digital photography and sharing of information has created issues everywhere from the wilderness to already well-known spots. Take me out of the equation here and think about how this applies to photographers all along the spectrum of "fame."

I can see how you are torn. You are in a way being selfish, wanting to keep these gems for yourself, and also selfless, not have them ruined by others.

It is true that people are trampling the cool stuff, especially since it is now just a Google away. There are 7 billion of us. Most of us have cameras in our phones that are pretty good. I think the reality is that if you have found some hidden gem, if you want it to remain hidden, shut yer yap. There is no rule that says you have to publish it, and certainly no rule that says you have to talk about it and reveal the location.

Personally, I would be OK with posting pics in my gallery of something, but if it is truly pristine, the secret is safe with me.

 

[Wheatfield7]

Lately I've been thinking a lot about the locations I shoot photos and how much information I really want to be sharing about them.

I'm currently working on putting together my website, with the intent of publishing photoessays from my travels and outings (lots of hiking, rock climbing, etc). But my desire to share my photography with people conflicts with my value of preserving the places that humans haven't already completely overrun.

It's easy enough to strip GPS coordinates from photos (and I definitely will be), but what's tripping me up is how to tell stories about my experiences without naming where I went and what these photos are of. Something feels missing from these stories if there are no proper nouns. Certainly an approach is to use no words and let the images do all the talking. And while that may make my authoring work easier, the images are not always the whole story I want to tell.

Furthermore, and perhaps paradoxically, I actually do want to encourage people to explore my photos by broader location: to see what my home state of Oregon is like or how I view Paris. I just don't want to point them right to the shores of my favorite secluded lake or the door of the quiet restaurant I found.

Now I don't have any delusions of grandeur: my photography is ok at best and my "following" is likely to be mostly people I know already. I doubt my photos would spell doom for any given location. But you never know what kind of exposure something published on the internet will gain, and if I drive even one jerk to go somewhere and they carve their name in a rock or leave trash on the ground, I'd be furious.

I'm curious if others here have faced a similar dilemma and how you've chosen to handle it.

I always start my descriptions with "One day I was walking through a forest in Narnia" and go from there.

It's a good thing nobody views your stuff.

Does your mommy know you are playing with her computer again?