#followmeto one paradise after another

March 7, 2013 8:31 AM

To document the beautiful and often exotic locals that he and his girlfriend travel to, photographer Murad-Osmann started posting pictures of her leading him by the hand around the world with the tag #followmeto. The Daily Mail has collected the remarkable series so far. [via]
posted by quin (73 comments total)

Daily Mail are the worst content thieves on the interwebs
posted by badstone at 8:35 AM on March 7, 2013 [16 favorites]

Possibly NSFW due to semi-naked women (and also possibly Not Safe For Anyone due to Daily Mail).

Here's the original Instagram account, via the "via".
posted by EndsOfInvention at 8:37 AM on March 7, 2013 [4 favorites]

Looks like fun--but ugh, the tonemapping.
posted by Admiral Haddock at 8:40 AM on March 7, 2013 [4 favorites]

Wouldn't it be awful if he had taken these same pictures but he and especially his girlfriend were just average-looking? Or his girlfriend didn't like to wear really short shorts? Or worse, if they were old? Or still worse, fat? That would totally mar the experience and the concept.
posted by Frowner at 8:43 AM on March 7, 2013 [31 favorites]

Sorry, those photos are phuggly.
posted by humboldt32 at 8:43 AM on March 7, 2013 [2 favorites]

I know we're not supposed to say bad things about posts, but jesus, the processing on these. Fucking awful. I see the ideas the photographer is working towards, but they're totally overwhelmed by the heavy impression of Photoshop.
posted by barnacles at 8:44 AM on March 7, 2013 [5 favorites]

Wouldn't it be awful if he had taken these same pictures but he and especially his girlfriend were just average-looking? Or his girlfriend didn't like to wear really short shorts? Or worse, if they were old? Or still worse, fat? That would totally mar the experience and the concept.

I dunno, I would have found this so much more charming if it had been an overweight old couple from Duluth playing out the same poses in a post-retirement round the world bonanza. But I'm on metafilter, not Reddit, where "I'd follow that magnificent ass anywhere and run the photographs through the obligatory HDR hell filters" is like totally awesome.
posted by availablelight at 8:46 AM on March 7, 2013 [8 favorites]

Wouldn't it be awful if he had taken these same pictures but he and especially his girlfriend were just average-looking? Or his girlfriend didn't like to wear really short shorts? Or worse, if they were old? Or still worse, fat?

There's nothing preventing you from doing that.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:46 AM on March 7, 2013 [5 favorites]

Wouldn't it be awful if he had taken these same pictures but he and especially his girlfriend were just average-looking? Or his girlfriend didn't like to wear really short shorts? Or worse, if they were old? Or still worse, fat? That would totally mar the experience and the concept.

Yeah, I sort of like the concept, but the execution seems to be basically "I have a hot girlfriend, here are some pictures of her butt you might enjoy."
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 8:46 AM on March 7, 2013 [29 favorites]

I believe the distortion is caused by the Instagrams. Must be a sort of chemical the kids are using these days.
posted by blue_beetle at 8:46 AM on March 7, 2013 [2 favorites]

I guess I must not be romantic enough. I keep picturing her dragging him through these locales, when all he wants to do is get some room service and get over his hellish jet lag.
posted by shortfuse at 8:50 AM on March 7, 2013

Wouldn't it be awful if he had taken these same pictures but he and especially his girlfriend were just average-looking? Or his girlfriend didn't like to wear really short shorts? Or worse, if they were old? Or still worse, fat? That would totally mar the experience and the concept.

Attractive women should not have fun, or if they do they should be very quiet about it so as to not upset other people. They can’t just pretend like they’re real people. Who does she think she is, flaunting it all over the globe?
posted by bongo_x at 8:51 AM on March 7, 2013 [10 favorites]

There's nothing preventing you from doing that.

Well, nothing but money and leisure time.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 8:52 AM on March 7, 2013 [4 favorites]

Someone lead this guy to a Photoshop class. Or maybe lead him away from the 'unsharp mask' tool.
posted by fight or flight at 8:52 AM on March 7, 2013 [8 favorites]

It's like I'm wearing a SQUID from Strange Days - places I'll never get to see otherwise, a hotter than hot girlfriend and an impelling motive to keep moving through the recording all with a strangely heightened color palette...
posted by Molesome at 8:53 AM on March 7, 2013 [4 favorites]

I don’t really care for the pictures, they look like an ad for something. Explaining the whole Instagram and why everyone made their pictures look like they were from another space and time and not their own is going to be hard for people in the future.
posted by bongo_x at 8:54 AM on March 7, 2013 [1 favorite]

I saw this a few days ago.

It made me want to be that person for the love of my life.

Running toward something awesome. Edgy, racy. Lovingly pulling her along on new adventures. Full of excitement. Falling in shopping carts. Fresh out of bed, fresh out of clothes. Always moving. Enjoying things because things are fucking enjoyable with her.

I loved this. It put a hot spotlight on my love.
posted by fake at 8:54 AM on March 7, 2013 [9 favorites]

Tonemapping. Just say no.
Otherwise these are a lot of fun.
posted by cccorlew at 8:56 AM on March 7, 2013

When this popped up on Reddit about earlier this week, it immediately spawned a bunch of parodies where kids were leading parents around, etc.
posted by Old'n'Busted at 8:57 AM on March 7, 2013 [1 favorite]

The Daily Mail article is worth it, if only for the cringe inducing fact that they needed to come up with a pun caption for almost every single picture.

"Guide Me O Thou Sexy Diva" is the best/worst.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 9:00 AM on March 7, 2013 [1 favorite]

I'm not a fan of the processing or the theme, but mostly the processing.
posted by diogenes at 9:02 AM on March 7, 2013

bongo_x: Wouldn't it be awful if he had taken these same pictures but he and especially his girlfriend were just average-looking? Or his girlfriend didn't like to wear really short shorts? Or worse, if they were old? Or still worse, fat? That would totally mar the experience and the concept.

Attractive women should not have fun, or if they do they should be very quiet about it so as to not upset other people. They can’t just pretend like they’re real people. Who does she think she is, flaunting it all over the globe?

Now, now... Attractive women have rights, too.

The fault clearly lies with the boyfriend. Attractive women should not be photographed. They make some people feel inadequate.

The ancients knew this; that's why they buried all those marble nudes in the sand.
posted by IAmBroom at 9:13 AM on March 7, 2013 [2 favorites]

My life reality photos. I'm leading you...

to the bathroom
to pick up the dog poop
taking out the garbage
getting up at 5 so i can catch the train. don't forget your makeup-less face and hair in a scrunchy
pushing around a grocery cart at Walmart.

Oh the exotic places I can take you!
posted by stormpooper at 9:14 AM on March 7, 2013 [6 favorites]

Now I'm imagining a similar series of photos of Samwise leading Frodo and the ring through Middle-earth.
posted by frognuts at 9:19 AM on March 7, 2013 [3 favorites]

I thought these were erotic (I'm a sucker for short shorts and come-hither looks), but I suppose it means I am over the hill if I wondered why these folks just don't settle down and get married. How could anyone be content with this woman as just a girlfriend?
posted by KokuRyu at 9:33 AM on March 7, 2013

frowner: Wouldn't it be awful if he had taken these same pictures but he and especially his girlfriend were just average-looking? Or his girlfriend didn't like to wear really short shorts? Or worse, if they were old? Or still worse, fat? That would totally mar the experience and the concept.

bongo_x:Attractive women should not have fun, or if they do they should be very quiet about it so as to not upset other people. They can’t just pretend like they’re real people. Who does she think she is, flaunting it all over the globe?

Now, now... Attractive women have rights, too.

The fault clearly lies with the boyfriend. Attractive women should not be photographed. They make some people feel inadequate.

The ancients knew this; that's why they buried all those marble nudes in the sand.
posted by IAmBroom at 9:13 AM on March 7 [1 favorite +] [!]

Frowner was in no way saying that attractive people can't have fun, or take pictures of themselves, or anything of that nature. God knows, a hot woman doesn't need anyone's permission to have her ass flaunted all over the media. Her comment wasn't even directed at hot people-it was directed at media and society, and how experiences are only valued when seen through the eyes of an attractive (white, able-bodied) person.
posted by FirstMateKate at 9:38 AM on March 7, 2013 [14 favorites]

Part of the appeal of these for me (certainly not the instagram-y-ness) was that they seem to have fun with her appearance, and trying to identify where they were by what she was wearing was a charming and interesting way to convey locale.

And for whatever reason the getting hugged by Frankenstein's monster made me laugh out loud.

As an aspiring photographer, seeing a framing technique like this, where you knew certain elements would always be the same (the hand, the girl) made finding the differences more fun.

It made me jealous for two reasons: 1.) I wish I had thought of it, and 2.) I wish I had the ability to go to those places, so it's sort of a vicarious thrill to see someone doing something I found clever.
posted by quin at 9:39 AM on March 7, 2013 [1 favorite]

Scratch the overwrought photoshopping and the Beautiful People, and the list of locations still makes me feel like a bitter little fuckup.
posted by notsnot at 9:40 AM on March 7, 2013

What I found puzzling about these is that much of what would seem central to what he wants to convey is "holy crap, look where we are NOW!"--but then they're so ridiculously overprocessed that they just look like he's photoshopped himself and his girlfriend into a bunch of photos of exotic places.

It's pretty clear that they have, in fact, been to these places, but looking at these photos gives me no sense at all of "wish I was there" or "that's what it must feel like" or what have you.
posted by yoink at 9:43 AM on March 7, 2013 [1 favorite]

Although I guess, perhaps, there's a generation for whom the distinction between "that looks photoshopped" and "that looks real" is getting pretty tenuous. No matter how "real" it looks it could easily be photoshopped, so why bother about an aura of authenticity at all?
posted by yoink at 9:46 AM on March 7, 2013

Her comment wasn't even directed at hot people-it was directed at media and society, and how experiences are only valued when seen through the eyes of an attractive (white, able-bodied) person.

Bringing it up in this context seems resentful and petty, tho... almost as petty as those whinging about the tone mapping. I liked the post-processing - it made the series seem up-to-the-moment modern and gave the photos an otherworldliness, as if you're in a dream being lead on by your muse. It's terribly romantic, which is probably the point.

The photographer has an amazing eye for composition and an innate sense of the moment.
posted by Slap*Happy at 9:46 AM on March 7, 2013 [1 favorite]

Bringing it up in this context seems resentful and petty, tho... almost as petty as those whinging about the tone mapping. I liked the post-processing - it made the series seem up-to-the-moment modern and gave the photos an otherworldliness, as if you're in a dream being lead on by your muse. It's terribly romantic, which is probably the point.

I'm not sure how discussing the merits of the photos is "petty" if you're being negative, but not if you aren't. The processing makes them look horrible to me, to the point that looking at them all actually gave me a headache. The fact that you like something doesn't make other people disliking it "petty"; it just means that you have different opinions.

I also think that the "being led by a muse in your dream" thing is probably what he's going for, but honestly in this context I find it kind of boring. Artistic men having beautiful women for muses is fairly trite; if he'd given me something other than a conventionally beautiful woman it might have been more interesting.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 9:57 AM on March 7, 2013 [3 favorites]

The Daily Mail article is worth it

I'm just wanna go my hands I think
I would if I were you
posted by ersatz at 9:57 AM on March 7, 2013

He's managed to give my brain the distinct impression that he's really only selling me the girl — or, more precisely, his sexual connection to her — and the backgrounds/locales in the images are fairly inconsequential to the transaction. It feels lazy and somewhat dishonest to me, and a little too manipulative for my taste.

"The list is long, and, of course, everybody has his bête noire, his black pet, in the series. Mine is that airline ad: the snack served by an obsequious wench to a young couple - she eyeing ecstatically the cucumber canapé, he admiring wistfully the hostess."

- Nabokov on poshlost
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 10:00 AM on March 7, 2013 [3 favorites]

I agree, he should have gotten a less conventionally attractive girlfriend to put in his art.
posted by Ad hominem at 10:03 AM on March 7, 2013 [1 favorite]

I like the idea and I don't mind his girlfriend's good looking and they get to travel the world to all sorts of places.

But he's mucked about with the colours on these pictures so much - honestly, many of them look like they've been taken in the lobby of a Vegas hotel.
posted by MuffinMan at 10:05 AM on March 7, 2013

This was hard work folks.

#1. Blow up tourist postcards so that they are ten feet tall
#2. Find a Google photo of the backside of a model and upload it into a fashion website that allows you to swap her clothes.
#3. Print out a five foot six cardboard cutout of each clothes swap.
#4. Position the cutout in front of the postcard.
#5. Reach out your hand to make it look like you are holding the cutout's hand while not jittering your camera too much with your other hand.
#6. Press the shutter button.
#7. Airbrush out the shadows.

The alternative is to find a real live three-inch tall two-dimensional model and then you don't have to blow up the postcards.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 10:13 AM on March 7, 2013

How could anyone be content with this woman as just a girlfriend?

Oh, I don't know, she's always pulling him along. You'd think she'd learn to be happy in whatever vastly photoshopped vista she finds herself in, but nooooo she's gotta drag him into the next filter-tweaked environment.
posted by The River Ivel at 10:13 AM on March 7, 2013

What I've learned from this thread is that I don't understand the distinction between conventionally attractive and attractive.
posted by found missing at 10:14 AM on March 7, 2013 [1 favorite]

Bringing it up in this context seems resentful and petty, tho... almost as petty as those whinging about the tone mapping. I liked the post-processing - it made the series seem up-to-the-moment modern and gave the photos an otherworldliness, as if you're in a dream being lead on by your muse. It's terribly romantic, which is probably the point.

The photographer has an amazing eye for composition and an innate sense of the moment.
posted by Slap*Happy at 9:46 AM on March 7 [+] [!]

How is saying "This wouldn't be nearly as popular, or seen by anyone at all, even, if the woman wasn't hot" petty, and in any way remarking on the quality of the pictures?


I agree, he should have gotten a less conventionally attractive girlfriend to put in his art.
posted by Ad hominem at 10:03 AM on March 7 [+] [!]

Again. Not talking about this couple, not talking about the pictures, not talking about the tone mapping. Talking about the audience. Is it really that hard to understand?
posted by FirstMateKate at 10:14 AM on March 7, 2013 [1 favorite]

it made the series seem up-to-the-moment modern

"Il faut marcher avec son siècle."

- M. Homais
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 10:17 AM on March 7, 2013

What I've learned from this thread is that I don't understand the distinction between conventionally attractive and attractive.
posted by found missing at 10:14 AM on March 7 [+] [!]

Attraction is subjective, so people say "conventionally attractive" to mean people who fit the media's ideal of beauty. Currently it's skinny, tall, white women (sometimes WOC but usually only restricted to the "fairer" skinned) with a tan, size b or c breasts and long hair. Google "Beautiful woman", and you get the idea- they all look the same.
And, to those of you who seem to me "but what about the pretty girls?!?!" trolling-no, I have no problem with people who look like this. I'm just stating the convention, for found missing's sake.
posted by FirstMateKate at 10:19 AM on March 7, 2013 [2 favorites]

Again. Not talking about this couple, not talking about the pictures, not talking about the tone mapping. Talking about the audience. Is it really that hard to understand?

Yeah i get you. It got picked up by the news media and posted all around he web becasue she is attractive.

I was making an abusrdist joke about how he should have replaced his girlfriend in his travel pictures. Rendering them kind of pointless as pictures of him and his girlfriend traveling.

Is it really hard not to condescend to people?
posted by Ad hominem at 10:20 AM on March 7, 2013 [2 favorites]

I like the idea just needs to be de-HDRed.
posted by aerotive at 10:21 AM on March 7, 2013 [1 favorite]

It is the way that there is no difference in near and far focus and how she never casts a shadow on the ground that really makes them look pasted there. Maybe there were two processes, a blue screen shot of the pair and a shot of the place being visited. It looks like that.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 10:23 AM on March 7, 2013

I thought they were fun, but does everything have to be shared? Also, Instagram - burn it with fire, it just makes people lazy.
posted by arcticseal at 10:27 AM on March 7, 2013

He posts some "behind the scenes" shots on his instagram, for those of you wondering about it. Here's the behind the scene for this one
posted by FirstMateKate at 10:39 AM on March 7, 2013

It's like an ad for a credit card. Or any kind of giant corporation that might spend 50 million on an agency to think up something like 'We'll take you there' as their strapline.

A motion version (where her arm remains more or less constant as she walks but the locations and her clothes/hair all morph around) would be even more unbearable.
posted by colie at 10:43 AM on March 7, 2013

Dear faceless psychopomp, please stop dragging me inexorably through your candy-colored fantasyland, I am tired and I want to go home
posted by prize bull octorok at 10:48 AM on March 7, 2013 [5 favorites]

Dear faceless psychopomp,

World's best advice column
posted by theodolite at 10:54 AM on March 7, 2013 [5 favorites]

From the discussion, it seems we need another Adorno tag.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 10:58 AM on March 7, 2013

It's actually quite a triumph how many cliches of travel/holiday cheesiness that he has managed to fit in: bright yellow rubber ring; Eastern temple hangout; Italian mask; hot air balloon; gondala; cheeky soldiers/policemen (she wears their hats of course); crowded street with many neon signs in Chinese where no doubt car horns can often be heard...
posted by colie at 11:01 AM on March 7, 2013

It's actually quite a triumph how many cliches of travel/holiday cheesiness that he has managed to fit in: bright yellow rubber ring; Eastern temple hangout; Italian mask; hot air balloon; gondala; cheeky soldiers/policemen (she wears their hats of course); crowded street with many neon signs in Chinese where no doubt car horns can often be heard...

In conclusion, the world is a land of high contrast.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 11:05 AM on March 7, 2013 [5 favorites]

I found this series of pictures annoying. He took pictures of some decent places, but they were all ruined by having some random (to me) woman's back in the middle of them.
posted by nooneyouknow at 11:07 AM on March 7, 2013

Ooh, yeah, that's exactly the kind of thing I like. Thanks!
posted by quin at 11:19 AM on March 7, 2013

Can we please turn Instagram into an app that just filters whatever is on your screen, instead of an app that edits individual photos? That way people who like Instagram can live in their crazy kitschy clownvomit world all the time, and other people can view their photos without getting dizzy. Thank you.
posted by oulipian at 11:31 AM on March 7, 2013 [1 favorite]

I became aware of it in 1984

Ha, and there's even a young Steve Jobs on the couch!

I wish I could like these (the fpp's) photos more, because they have such potential, but they are too same-same and all kind of blur together after a bit. I think Instagram-ish filters definitely have their uses, but their ubiquity does make them tiresome.
posted by rtha at 11:39 AM on March 7, 2013

"Welp, I guess we're gonna walk down the bowling lane."

"Welp, I guess we're gonna get run over in front of Big Ben."

"Welp, I guess we're gonna capsize the gondola."
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 12:30 PM on March 7, 2013

Frowner: Wouldn't it be awful if he had taken these same pictures but he and especially his girlfriend were just average-looking? Or his girlfriend didn't like to wear really short shorts? Or worse, if they were old? Or still worse, fat?

In the chirpy British comedy, Tamara Drewe (2010) the gorgeous & infuriating heroine is forever flitting around the countryside (climbing over stiles etc) in notoriously inappropriate tiny denim cut offs. When Tamara is out of earshot, an older female character says crossly:

"I found those
shorts really irritating. Going
around with half her bum hanging
out. I mean, WHY?"

Her teenage daughter shoots back: To annoy people like you
posted by Jody Tresidder at 1:04 PM on March 7, 2013 [3 favorites]

While the pictures may be perfect....

you do realize...

in every photo...

she's farting.
posted by stormpooper at 1:50 PM on March 7, 2013 [1 favorite]

She may be conventionally attractive but in that third photo I fear for her health and wish to give her a sandwich.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 3:34 PM on March 7, 2013

"My Girlfriend's Butt: A Visual Essay"
posted by The Card Cheat at 3:37 PM on March 7, 2013 [1 favorite]

Back when I used to listen to the Beatles Paperback Writer I always thought "Okay, so he's working for the post office ["His son is working for the Daily Mail"♫]...".

Then I happened to fly Air India a couple of years ago and their one in-flight English newspaper was the Daily Mail. Sweet jebus, what a monumental piece of garbage—just think of the resources wasted putting it out!—that hypothetical guys son should be ashamed of himself!
posted by blueberry at 6:09 PM on March 7, 2013

"My Girlfriend's Butt: A Visual Essay"

Five-paragrapher, for sure.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 6:10 PM on March 7, 2013

I saw some people walking around town with those name tags hanging around their necks. I found that conventionally attractive.
posted by found missing at 6:16 PM on March 7, 2013

The men at Comic-Con were ... conventionally attractive ...
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 6:19 PM on March 7, 2013

Someday I'd like to create an image, that would single-handedly contain everything horrible, dated, and embarrassing to any and all that might mistakenly gaze upon it.

A photo, that despite the possibility of some fashions reoccurrence, would still be ugly. (Perhaps it might even be used as a multigenerational warning sign).

The subjects would be awash in mullets, lip-liner, and acid-washed jeans. There would be a custom AMC Pacer station wagon with both gull-wing doors and a Scarface mural. Each 5x7 print of the image would be doused with a mixture of flop-sweat, expired fish sauce, and Drakkar Noir, then rolled in the dust a single Funyun.

The title would be in written in freehand mouse using MSPaint; a subtitle in multi-color (CGA palette only) comic sans would feature prodigious use of both lens flares and fluorescent pink glow.

But this image would only be amusing...

until I made it HDR,
aka the Thomas Kinkade'ifier*.

*Seriously, HDR programs should automatically add 3 frolicking gnomes to each image they process.
posted by blueberry at 7:04 PM on March 7, 2013 [1 favorite]

so gross on so many levels.
posted by Conrad-Casserole at 3:24 PM on March 8, 2013

I find these tacky and horrible and super enticing. 100% because of the woman, though; the travel photography is awful. Really, rubber ducky ring?

But the woman's style sense in the various locations is captivating to me, for some reason-- the fact that she IS so conventionally attractive is to me a kind of puzzle, the ways she fits into these different environments so elaborate-- I find that as a woman, I'm always dressing for the part of being everywhere, always being sexy, always looking just carefree enough. And these photos make me feel like in some breathless way that effort is worth it, that I'm not going to change some things about the media, beauty, femininity, so there is a bit of wistful excitement in it. That shred of empowerment women get from being sexual in public, being free to be women in a yawning, carnal sense. The kinds of beauty a woman can embody and the way that our energy shapes our experience. It makes me miss my boyfriend and the city.
posted by stoneandstar at 7:57 PM on March 8, 2013

Oh, fucking Christ though, it's not anger toward the woman for daring to be attractive or wear shorts, it's about the fact that most of the time in shitty tabloid kitsch and mainstream, poshlust advertising garbage like this the excitement is about the voyeurism of gazing at a woman's ass & pretty much just supplying the neverending pipeline of woman as object/scenery/possession of the man, the man being positioned (rather obviously here) as subject.

(Basically the theme here is "men, don't you wish you had a hot ass leading you onto year-round vacation!" Well, duh-- I feel like if a woman made a similar series in a similarly ugly fashion it would be a joke tumblr-- Your L.L. Bean Boyfriend-- or a comic feature on "what women want" and not what is basically a cruise ship ad elevated to art because there's a sultry hourglass figure in it. This is basically erotic photography-- I'm looking forward to the day when male eroticism and gay/queer eroticism gain similar cachet on Metafilter and elsewhere.)
posted by stoneandstar at 8:05 PM on March 8, 2013

Now I'm imagining a similar series of photos of Samwise leading Frodo and the ring through Middle-earth.

That would be awesome.
posted by homunculus at 9:28 PM on March 9, 2013 [1 favorite]

He posts some "behind the scenes" shots on his instagram, for those of you wondering about it. Here's the behind the scene for this one

I wish there was one for this one. Did anyone walk by, and if so, did they just not think anything of it?
posted by homunculus at 10:54 PM on March 9, 2013

...it's about the fact that most of the time in shitty tabloid kitsch and mainstream, poshlust advertising garbage like this the excitement is about the voyeurism of gazing at a woman's ass...

The funny part is her ass is only in a few of the photos.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:41 AM on March 10, 2013 [1 favorite]