When Experience Becomes Something We Follow

Environmental portrait photography and the tension between discovery and direction

We’ll travel a thousand miles to see something the internet told us to see, and miss what was right in front of us along the way. It doesn’t feel like a mistake when you’re doing it. It feels like direction. Like you’re making the most of your time. Like you’re going where you’re supposed to go.

I’ve found myself doing the same thing—following a kind of map that isn’t really a map, just a collection of places other people have already decided are worth seeing. By the time I arrive, the place isn’t unfamiliar. I already know where to stand, where to look, and what the photograph is supposed to feel like. There’s a strange sense of recognition without ever having been there before.

We say we want something real, but we show up informed. Not just about the location, but about the experience itself. The viewpoint, the composition, the moment—it’s all been shaped ahead of time. And I don’t think that was ever intentional. It feels more like something that slowly took hold as access improved and sharing became easier.

There’s a benefit to that. More people can find these places now. Barriers are lower. Information moves quickly, and that opens things up in ways that weren’t possible before. But it also changes how we move through a place once we get there. When you already know what matters, there’s less reason to wander. Less space to hesitate or to follow something that isn’t marked.

Over time, that starts to shift the experience. It becomes less about discovery and more about recognition. Less about noticing what’s there, and more about confirming what you expected to find. The place itself hasn’t changed, but your relationship to it has. You move through it with a kind of quiet certainty that can leave very little room for surprise.

I think about that when I’m out working on environmental portraits, especially in places that people return to regularly rather than travel long distances to see. There’s often a different kind of presence in those spaces. Less expectation, less pressure to feel something specific, and more room for the experience to unfold without a clear outcome. People move through those environments differently, and that difference becomes visible if you spend enough time paying attention.

I don’t know if one way is better than the other. Traveling for something can still be meaningful, and shared places don’t lose their value just because they’re known. But I do find myself wondering what happens when most of our experiences begin before we ever arrive, and how that shapes what we’re able to notice once we’re there.