Evocative Photos of Tourist Destinations in the Off-Season

Living the photographer life means that Ontario-based Derek Shapton travels quite a bit. He often finds himself in tourist regions during the off-season which led to this recent series. In Off Season he explores the various ways that tourist sites work to mediate the views and experiences of visitors, a tendency that seems more evident, oddly enough, when there are no visitors present. Shapton shows us a viewing window at the Meteor Crater in Arizona, an artificial pool complex in Cancun, and the fake rock formations at the Metro Toronto Zoo, among others—he says, “I’m trying to document places that seem to be trying to tell us what to look at and how we should behave, often for commercial reasons. I find these kinds of locations a little funny but mostly kind of sad.”

Feature Shoot Contributing Editor Julia Sabot is the Associate Photo Editor at Dwell.

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