Tourists



EL MORRO, San Juan, PR. A new island is discovered by a group of human-like aliens. Natives form clan to defend their homeland.



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I took this photograph in the summer of 2008 during one of my visits to my homeland, Puerto Rico. I visit twice a year and one of my traditions is to visit Old San Juan with my best friend each time I go. Laura, my best friend—who also shares my name, and I encountered a group of intoxicated Mexican tourists that were there for a few hours on one of their cruise ship’s stops. We ended up giving them a tour of the place, historical background included. “El Morro” is one of the most popular tourist sites in Puerto Rico so we took them there last. It is a big place and the inside of it is like a maze. Before entering “El Morro”, I decided to take a picture of the Mexican tourists, who were walking in front of us to remember the interesting experience, without knowing that such a beautiful photo was going to result from it. After a couple of hours of being tour guides, we decided to leave the tourists and do our own thing. If the tourists took a picture of us, they would probably have us stand next to a monument historical site and include themselves in the picture. If they captioned it, it would say something like: “Local girls we met on our trip to Puerto Rico.” Doing this exercise has changed my perspective on travel photography. I have always taken for granted the life story of whatever or whoever I captured with my camera, but there is more to an image than what is there, and its meaning should not be brushed over. I believe there is no other way of representing others in photographs, since we do not share their lives or the space they live in. Therefore, we have little or no knowledge of their background. As an attempt to change this, we could talk to a person before taking their picture, but some things are better left unsaid, since not everything we experience can be represented by words.