You wonder if they're practicing for a re-enactment of the storming
of the Bastille, as they push,shove, and elbow each other to
capture on disposable-camera film a picture inferior to the ones on
the gift shop coffee mugs. The Most Famous Face In Art History:
Click. OK. Been there, shot that. What's the next famous painting?
At least
the Louvre prohibits the use of flash, which is something.
Otherwise, you'd be seeing blue dots in front of your eyes for
days.
Somebody has to do something about this plague of picture-taking.
And so I present to you my modest proposal for Photography-Free
Zones.
You go to the
Grand Canyon or
Mount Rushmore or the aforementioned
Louvre, and certain areas would be off-limits to shutterbugs. These
little spots would be protected like wilderness areas, set aside
for that endangered species of traveler who simply wants to enjoy
the view or take in the moment or, OK, even pretend to.
My idea is that anyone taking a picture in a Photography-Free Zone
would be punished by a minimum penalty of a smashed camera and a
maximum of enforced travel with a charter bus of tourists from a
different country on vacation to a place they've never been.
You can see I'm pretty serious about this Photography-Free Zone
idea.
Cameras, to me, are like rocks. If they just stay where they are,
untouched, admired from afar, they're fine. It's okay, even, to
pick them up. Hold them in your hand, consider using them as a wall
for a campfire. No problem.
But when someone gets the bright idea to do something with them,
there's a good chance something bad is going to happen.
In the case of rocks, that something could be that they get thrown,
in which case someone could get bonked on the head and fall down,
bleeding. That's bad. No doubt about it. But infinitely worse is
what can happen with cameras. With cameras, a person can be
captured on film with tongue sticking out or adjusting a bathing
suit or picking something from between toes. And the photographic
captivity lasts forever. The image will be passed down from
generation to generation, to be laughed at by family members
throughout eternity.