Olhar devagar: articulações entre sociologia e fotografia no estudo das práticas turísticas fotográficas no Porto

Abstract

This paper analyzes long exposure photography as adata colletionmethod in sociology and tourism studies.Relating tourism ordering (macro), touristic imaginaries(meso) andtourists'gazes(micro)according to logics of power, structuring and aggregation, the touristic phenomenon is here analyzed on the interactional scale. We know that tourism integrates models of symbolic (re)valuing of places that use photography in its promotion as touristic destinations, and that despite all the multisensory external influences the subjects are agents in theconstruction of their touristic experience and of theirown touristic imaginary. Therefore, a qualitative methodology was adopted which uses long exposure photography as part ofethnography to observe the dynamics of occupation and use ofplaces in a touristic context. From the case study analyzed, the notion that the touristic imaginary is mostly formed during the experience of the tourist in the placeemerges, within which photographic practice plays an important role. Its study highlights that between the ordering of the tourist's experience and the gaze he/she forms during it builds his/her touristic imaginary, which is composed by symbolic dimensions and subjective impressions that surface on his/her discourses and on his/her touristic performance on the place, accessible through photography and through words