Roger Minick addressed all of these questions by focusing specifically on overlooks in National Parks. A few notes on each:

Notice how the woman is wearing a scarf that has a print of the view she is looking at. How does a view reach cult icon status? Through propagation like postcards, t-shirts, and shot glasses.



Once you get past their gaudy and matching outfits, notice which way the woman’s camera is pointed. I’m curious what the view looks like opposite of famous overlooks. Would I see a big parking lot? More mountains? Lots of tourists? Are any of these possibilities less representative or valuable than the official scenery?



Photographs tend to flatten distances (since it is a 2-D object after all), and especially in this image, it looks like the twins are standing in front of a backdrop in a studio. How do we really know that we’re not in the Truman Show where the views are just huge digitally projected images on a screen?



And of course this one gets a lot of chuckles. But also realize that the creation of roads and overlooks have allowed us to defy nature; as someone who has hiked and climbed in the mountains, I know that it can get quite cold and you would never wear a swim suit and flip-flops. But since our outdoor exposure time has been reduced through car travel, we can wear whatever we so choose (despite our better fashion sense).