What is hiking aesthetic? You may have been visiting your favorite social media sight, and seen a category or hashtag concerning ‘hiking aesthetic’. Pinterest has a credibly big community of posters posting under this category, for instance.
You check out the pics, and kind of get a feel for what it might be, but you’re not in the know, so there’s no real way to confirm just exactly what this social phenomenon is.
I’ll have a go at it for you…
What are the aspects of hiking aesthetic?
The aspects of hiking aesthetic are scenic beauty on the trail, skilled photography with staged shots, and color corrected or filtered final products, model hikers, attention to fashion, and the portrayal of living one’s best life out in nature.
Scenic beauty
When you’re examining hiking aesthetic photography, the first thing you’ll notice is that the scenery looks like a postcard, or National Geographic Magazine cover. The photographer is striving to maximize beauty by consciously grabbing the most photogenic areas of the hiking trail to shoot in.
These aren’t just random phone camera shots of a person waving next to a trail marker sign, or sitting on the ground with a red face, and their tongue hanging out of their mouth, after climbing 3,000 feet over 2 miles.
This quickly brings me to my next observation:
Skilled photography
Often the photography in the hiking aesthetic photos looks like it’s from an accomplished photographer. They’re using a high end camera, with high end lenses and filters, and have mastered shutter speeds, ISO, composition, etc. Everything in grabbing the picture has been thoughtfully planned.
Staged shots
The people in the shots are often posing or being posed in a manner that tells a story. They’re smiling so wide their teeth are showing, while casually carrying a 25 pound pack up a steep graded meadow, with colorful spring flowers in the foreground. They’re looking rather thoughtfully out at a mountain, while sitting on a small rocky landing in yoga pants, and with no sit pad. Or perhaps they’re meditating in that position.
I’ve even seen one where the model, or their photographer, has taken the fly off their backpacking tent to let the morning sun in, so that they can get a shot of themselves, sitting up in their sleeping bag, and looking out at that golden, fiery ball, filtered by the noseeum mesh of the tent.
Color corrected or filter modified pictures
Again nothing escapes the photographer’s eye with these glamour hiking shots. They fix the highlights and shadows and do some color correction, or apply a LUT. Whatever results in the most eye catching picture possible.
Model hikers
And these aren’t just the regular Jane and Joe’s, you see when out on the trail. The hikers are often of above average attractiveness: fit with symmetrical, V-shaped faces. They look as though they’ve been lifted out of a Land’s End or Eddie Bauer seasonal fashion magazine.
Actually if you click through, to some of the Pinterest pins’ landing pages, these are attractive travel bloggers, leveraging their handsomeness to market products on their blogs.
P.S. I read one of these hiking aesthetic travel blog articles – a guide for beginner’s backpacking – and though the photos were killer, they were recommending nasty tasting water treatment tablets, that take 30 minutes to an hour to kill off whatever is in the water, and of course don’t give you an option to physically filter out suspended particles in the water. I won’t leave a link for that one, because I’m not sure you can trust their advice on the subject.
Attention to fashion
Some of the fashion choices in these pics don’t seem like the best fit for being out on the trail, but they sure look aesthetically nice!
Portraying quintessential living
The Oxford dictionary defines ‘aesthetic’ as a noun, in the following manner:
aesthetic – a set of principles underlying and guiding the work of a particular artist or artistic movement.
Oxford Dictionary
As words constantly evolve, the latest iteration of aesthetic riffs off this notion, save it refers to the involvement, or portrayal of quintessential life, in some way.
For example, a modern blogger, or social media participant, may use the words ‘Fall aesthetic’ to mean immersing themselves into the entire experience of that season. Pumpkin spice lattes, Autumn wardrobe photo shoots with typical New England Fall colors in the background, warm comfort clothing, couch blankets and bedding, pumpkin and Fall leaf themed decor, and open fires built in their chimneys are all part of it.
Hiking aesthetic then further refers to living one’s best life on the trail. Or at least the portrayal of such.
I’m not sure if prioritizing a matching outfit should be on the top of one’s list when planning a multi-day backcountry trip. Or if sleeping under a full moon next to an alpine lake, such that the light reflects off the water is really a great idea, with the bugs apt to get you in such a place.
But if you’re wanting to photographically capture yourself, or a fellow hiker, having the best time of your life, hiking and backpacking, you might for example strive to capture how you, or your friend interacts, in a subtle manner, with the steam coming off your Jetboil, artistically. Or you may pack in gourmet level food, for the first day of your trip, and cook with a Jetboil skillet full of colorful, flavorful food, for a particular shot.
Further Reading
Thanks for checking out my musings on what hiking aesthetic is! Check out my main page for more camping, hiking and living articles. See ya out there…