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Author Topic: Fun in the sun  (Read 3945 times)

Rob C

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Fun in the sun
« on: May 15, 2016, 04:04:57 am »

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/14/gridlock-tourists-terrorism-spain-balearics?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_WhatsApp

Like I've often said, tourism is cousin to prostitution. In fact, it's worse: it's like Attila coming to town.

Rob C

Paulo Bizarro

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Re: Fun in the sun
« Reply #1 on: May 17, 2016, 11:04:07 am »

I never understood the attraction of going to some of these places, just to get sunburned and drunk ASAP.´

I much prefer beaches like the one below.

Slobodan Blagojevic

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francois

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Re: Fun in the sun
« Reply #3 on: May 18, 2016, 09:14:19 am »

I'm with Paulo, I prefer calm, away from the crowd beaches (or mountains).
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Francois

Rob C

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Re: Fun in the sun
« Reply #4 on: May 18, 2016, 11:01:38 am »

Apart from the surface/cosmetic problems that tourism brings in its wake, there are very real and pretty permanent scars that it puts upon the people that earn a living from it: you tend to end up with a one-industry society. In other words, all the eggs get stuffed into one basket, and anybody with a business will understand the problems with that state of affairs!

Apart from its vulnerability, it deprives young people of a fair chance of doing something else: the something else just doesn't exist in their area. And the more popular an area becomes, the less opportunity to break away. Not everyone wants to be a taxi driver, a cleaner, a waiter or a chef.

Rob

Slobodan Blagojevic

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Re: Fun in the sun
« Reply #5 on: May 18, 2016, 11:36:33 am »

...Not everyone wants to be a taxi driver, a cleaner, a waiter or a chef.

Yes, who'd want that when they could be olive pickers instead ;)

Point being, Rob, in many areas of the world, without tourism, "something else just doesn't exist in their area."

This reminds me of celebrities complaining about invasion of privacy, while only yesterday they would give one kidney for a single paparazzi to follow them. The same with tourist areas: first they get better off with it, then they complain how they'd rather be anything else.

Rob C

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Re: Fun in the sun
« Reply #6 on: May 18, 2016, 02:01:46 pm »

Yes, there is that, without any doubt. But that doesn't cover everything. If you take so-called mass-tourism, such as the Balearics 'enjoy' each year: when I first came here on a work trip back in '66, the tourist trade was already very well established on Mallorca and Ibiza, but there were also lots of other little industries going on. There was a lot of work in leather goods; there was a lot of farming; several shoe factories shipped world-wide. Construction was huge. Now, I don't think there's a shoe producer left, partly, I suppose, because of Chinese competition; the construction industry pretty much destroyed itself by over-production of apartments still sitting empty (killing off resale values), lots of money was spent on gigantic nightclubs, some of which sit in fields like graffiti memorials to times past. Almonds were once harvested each year - they are still very expensive to buy, but often go uncollected due to the cost of labour - if you can get it to do the work. There were several boat builders on the island - as far as I know, not anymore. As with the construction industry, unskilled work (as you indicated re olive oil) that the locals eventually didn't want to do, was taken on by migrants from former north African colonies... there are now towns such as Sa Pobla, where you think that you're in Africa. Why? Because it's the centre of what remains of the farming area, and were old Mallorcan ladies dressed in blue once used to spend their lives bent double picking potatoes... but, with little building going on, these migrants have nothing to do all day but brood. Need I expand on that situation?

The years of fast tourist bucks have been very corrupting. Youth expects everything right away; often it has to go right away, just to get a job. Unemployment is very high - in winter, I think it tops 60% here due to closed hotels. That can't be healthy for any economy or group of people. As I said, the concentration is amost 100% on tourism, to the expense of everything else. That nothing else may now exist is true, but for as long as there's no incentive even to try to spread into other industries, that's how it's going to stay. How to break the vicious circle?

Rob

Telecaster

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Re: Fun in the sun
« Reply #7 on: May 18, 2016, 04:44:48 pm »

My favorite beach on the Big Island (Hawai'i), and among the most beautiful, is a PITA to get to and thus a quiet place of refuge. Win win!

-Dave-
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muntanela

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Re: Fun in the sun
« Reply #8 on: May 25, 2016, 09:16:46 am »

Perhaps some comandanti Schettino on those cruise ships could help...
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Rob C

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Re: Fun in the sun
« Reply #9 on: May 25, 2016, 10:54:04 am »

Perhaps some comandanti Schettino on those cruise ships could help...

Perhaps, but pity the insurance companies!

Actually, a big ferry already ran onto the rocks some years ago just outside Palma de Mallorca. It was news for a couple of days. I think it was blamed on engine failure, though, not ego. I think some cars got drowned.

;-)

Ciao -

Rob C

Slobodan Blagojevic

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Re: Fun in the sun
« Reply #10 on: May 25, 2016, 02:26:38 pm »

Seriously, people, what's the point? It seems like vacationing in a skyscraper...just horizontally :(

http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/19/travel/harmony-of-the-seas-worlds-biggest-cruise-ship/index.html

Rob C

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Re: Fun in the sun
« Reply #11 on: May 25, 2016, 04:05:01 pm »

Seriously, people, what's the point? It seems like vacationing in a skyscraper...just horizontally :(

http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/19/travel/harmony-of-the-seas-worlds-biggest-cruise-ship/index.html


Just imagine the evacuation problems. No, not those: I mean if the ship hits another 'berg. Of the others, I'm sure the seas and oceans won't notice the difference: they are already full of it right now. How much more fuller than full can it get? Solid? Maybe, one day soon, and first in the Mediterranean. Then, a deep, deep boom across the straits at Gib will fix it for the rest of the world - for a few years at least. The crossing of the Red Sea will seem a non-event, Suez rendered irrelevant: it'll be done daily, just like sex and Bailey was reputed to be.

When my mother was living in Rome, a friend told her that, soon, she'd be able to walk from Naples to Capri. Not quite yet, but watch this space. I believe that Venice has already stopped sinking.

Rob C
« Last Edit: May 25, 2016, 04:08:34 pm by Rob C »
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Rob C

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Re: Fun in the sun
« Reply #12 on: May 25, 2016, 05:35:39 pm »

Slobodan,

More to the point though: the cruising experience is no accidental one. It has long been the favourite stomping ground of the older, wealthier widow or widower. One of the former, a person I knew well, once informed us that the great thing about cruises (on cruise ships, not yachts) is that people become trapped: they literally, and I quote: "can't escaped you" once in a cocktail bar or, better yet, assigned to a dining room table, unless they go through the procedure of actually requesting to be moved. This particular lady went on so many cruises that the line used to send a chauffeur to pick her up and drive her all the way to the port, many miles away.

A rich old guy I used to have lunch with sometimes, about two or three years ago, went on one (cruise) to the Carib. and met a woman a little younger than he is. They have teamed up, and he has now sold his yacht because she doesn't like 'small boats'... You can't really play that game unless you are fairly comfortable. He has his pad here and a house in England, she a place in Edinburgh. And so it goes.

For myself - I can't think of a punishment worse than being trapped with people I don't know. It's always nice to be able to get away from something when it suits one. Frankly, I'd far rather be alone than stuck with somebody I'd grow to dislike more every day. But then, I'm a photographer; what can you expect?

Rob

Paulo Bizarro

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Re: Fun in the sun
« Reply #13 on: May 30, 2016, 10:09:40 am »


The years of fast tourist bucks have been very corrupting. Youth expects everything right away; often it has to go right away, just to get a job. Unemployment is very high - in winter, I think it tops 60% here due to closed hotels. That can't be healthy for any economy or group of people. As I said, the concentration is amost 100% on tourism, to the expense of everything else. That nothing else may now exist is true, but for as long as there's no incentive even to try to spread into other industries, that's how it's going to stay. How to break the vicious circle?

Rob

Rob, your description entirely fits also the Algarve province, in southern Portugal. The region in the 1960's adopted the growth model of the tourism for the masses, with countless touristic developments based around concrete constructions, ugly, on top of the cliffs. Together with the luxury hotel and golf resorts that ruin the fresh water from the aquifers, there are only a few km remaining of the old Algarve, where one can look inland without seeing a barrage of ugly and tall hotels...

Rob C

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Re: Fun in the sun
« Reply #14 on: May 30, 2016, 10:45:09 am »

Indeed, my very last Vogue shoot took place partly in Lisbon, and then down in Albufeira. In Lisbon we stayed in the Dom Carlos; in the Algarve, at the Da Balaia which, at the time, was a very nice hotel with some 'cottages' or similar being built in the vast grounds. Never been back to Portugal; Sintra in the rain is something else! I wonder if the guy in armour out on the rocks has rusted away...

I will never forget the look of scorn on the sommelier's face in Lisbon when I mentioned something about Mateus Rosé: factory wine, he almost screamed. Can't remember what we acually drank.

There were some very chic golf complexes around down south, though, but I don't dig golf.

Last shoot for the firm. Yeah, it had to end in tears: the lady from the magazine, in charge of the trip, was in her sixties at least, and I was in my thirties. The model was playing at diplomatic headaches and retired straight after dinner, leaving me to walk the client along the streets surrounding the hotel (the Lisbon part of the job). I got whistled at, all the gigolo taunts, and I was just the bloody photographer! An atmosphere straight from hell. Had that bitch of a model played fair, the walks would have been perfect for building up relationships, for both of us; instead, sudden death. Actually, the poor client wasn't under any illusions or confusions: she just wanted to digest her dinner before going to bed.

Maybe I should simply have smiled and rolled with the thing. Today, a bit more wise, I probably would have done just that, even enjoyed the interlude and chalked it up to life. But youth...

Rob

Mjean

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Re: Fun in the sun
« Reply #15 on: June 01, 2016, 09:41:07 am »

 Ah youth, so many thoughtless acts regretted later in life and just maybe that bitchof a model would rather have been alone than spend the evening with the jerk photographer?  Fortunately, you are wiser today...
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Rob C

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Re: Fun in the sun
« Reply #16 on: June 01, 2016, 10:08:37 am »

Ah youth, so many thoughtless acts regretted later in life and just maybe that bitchof a model would rather have been alone than spend the evening with the jerk photographer?  Fortunately, you are wiser today...

Very possilbly - and for the last bit - hopefully!

Nonetheless, she screwed us both. Neither of us got to work for them again. I know that, because I knew the girl well from way back when she first came to do tests. No, I didn't book her; it was all done by the client.

Such is life.
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