I began to narrow my focus toward a single scenario: tourist photographs of Big Ben. As one of the most photographed tourist landmarks in the world, Big Ben is surrounded by a constant flow of image production and circulation online.
Taking the question ‘How to post Big Ben Tower‘ as my starting point, I undertook the following two-part research project.
I collected 100 tourist photographs of Big Ben from platforms such as Instagram and Xiaohongshu/Rednote. While organizing and comparing these photos, I noticed that although they were taken by different people at different times, many photos taken at the same location exhibited a highly similar visual structure. Many tourists have already encountered countless related photos on social media before even reaching Big Ben; by constantly viewing these photos, they subconsciously learn what poses, shooting angles, and compositions to use.
Leave a Reply