The Allure of Adventure Photography
Why we are so attracted to those nature-themed social media pictures
We have all seen the Instagram pictures. Individuals walking in a snowy field, yellow jacketed men standing near a waterfall in Iceland, or a scantly clad women frolicking on a private beach. There certainly is a market and trend of putting landscaped pictures punctuated by single humans on social media. They generate likes as well as innate feelings of desire and jealousy.
But why have these images curated a sense of wanderlust amongst the millennial generation, and how do these images shape the perception of life for many?
The nature topography infused into the social media platforms seems to highlight three areas of longing in the world today. The first is that these pictures exemplify a deeper longing for adventure.
In this post-postmodern era, identity is shaped by multiple voices and multiple streams of information. No longer are individuals defined by a set job or by a set name. No longer are groups defined by age, race, or gender. The masses are a rootless people whose identities are fluid in nature. Yet there is a cornerstone that keeps us from a completely nihilistic existence:
Relationships — The one thing that holds individuals in one place, or in one sense of individual understanding.
Relationships have long been the cornerstone of human purpose and existence. With the expansion of technology, individuals are now able to expand the relationship bases. Subgroups in Africa can connect with those in Iceland. Random fixations found in Thailand can connect to those in San Francisco. The relationship boundaries are non-existent, and therefore the ability to find ‘our people’ is open beyond understanding.
The desire for adventure is fuelled by the desire to find connections with the truest center of relational acceptance. The adventurous spirit is rooted in the fluidity and temporality of the individual; in the adventure one finds oneself in a deeper form.
Thus, the individual must partake in wild adventures, or at least plan wild adventures using social media, in order to find the core self.
This desire for an expansion of relation base correlates with the second longing that has created these wanderlust images. It seems that many long for instability of place.
It is a bit backwards from the previous generations concept of stability and home, in which one place became the center of existence. With the rejection of modernized concepts of identity and the necessity for a single center of identity, postmodern people look for multiple homes. In a world that is still so focused on the normality of suburban existence that manifested post war, this new mindset looks like a juxtaposed existence in which individuals live within their subcultures. Like the punks and hippies, rock climbers and surfers, the existence in subcultures allows one to mark a unique identity that is void from the structure of normalcy. It’s an attractive life, living on the fringe.
The Instagram pictures of travel and place in general create a sense of the fluidity of home that resonates deeply within the fluidity of self. While there may be a place where one spends more time, the increasing need for travel displays the restlessness that is so greatly ingrained in individuals. No longer is there one home, but many homes in many cities. While the instagramers and the like may not be wanderers in the complete sense, the rejection of a single base spurs many to travel and take all those wonderful pictures.
One searches for multiple relationships in between the numerous home bases.
Yet many of the pictures are also filled with empty spaces, of barren landscapes, ones that are devoid of friends and cities. It is interesting that while the media-crazed certainly long for those two things, many also long for simplicity. It seems that the mixture of the reality of the economic landscape, paired with the insane inundation of images and information, have led many to seek out simple, barren worlds.
It is this necessity of separation that drives many out of the cities and into national parks. Devoid of the information stream, individuals are able to still their minds and bodies so that they reach a certain sort of nirvana. It is an experience that juxtaposes the cheap and plastic existence of life. In the authentic stream of the untouched, many are transported back to a basic form of existence which is incredibly appealing.
The outdoor experience is one of popular demand on media platforms, and yet these pictures display a greater reality for many of us. By highlighting ones desires and longings, these pictures allow people to better understand how we unknowingly live within the cyclical nature of consumerism pressures.
So, what to do? Take a breath, look at a pretty picture and think about the next adventure.
