The objectification of my affection

You finally make it to that exotic destination you've been dreaming 0f since 1995. You're about to embark on the trip of a lifetime. You’ve saved like you've never saved before, so you can live it up. You go all out and purchase that $700 camera that you think will give your photos that professional national geographic touch. So when your feet finally hit the tarmac, cause we all know these kinds of destinations don't have covered walkways from Plane to terminal, you whip out your camera , worth half a year’s salary for the people in your host country, and start snapping. You take a picture of the sign at the airport the reads "Welcome to (insert third world nation here)"! You snap a photo of the pretty flight attendants wearing some sort of traditional garb, or repeatedly bowing at you, providing you with an authentic welcome to their country. You clear customs and make your way via taxi into the city, where the real photo treasure trove lies: the locals.

We're all guilty of this. For some reason or another it seems ok to objectify people when traveling. Imagine Foreign tourist snapping photos of native New Yorkers (ok forget about the red tourist buses in Harlem). How odd would that be? Or just shopping in your local super market taking pictures of Peggy perusing the different varieties of SPAM. Awkward right? There’s a fine line between being a responsible, and conscious traveler. A responsible traveler, doesn’t litter, tips the appropriate amount, and doesn’t feed the animals, err I mean give money to the beggars. The conscious traveler doesn’t turn the lives of ordinary locals into a national geographic photo shoot. The conscious traveler doesn’t try to get some photos of (insert ethnic name here) breast feeding her child, with breasteses all out. The conscious traveler doesn’t border on creepy pedophile and snap random photos of anonymous local chil’run (that’s children in Lil Wayne). I know sometimes their too cute, and I've done this myself, but I wouldn’t want some stranger taking pictures of my kids. Basically the Conscious traveler doesn’t turn people into objects. Save all that picture taking for the pyramids and temples, and if there just happen to be people in the photo, who are not the main objects of the picture, bonus!