Why do we take pictures of famous landmarks?

Or artwork like the Mona Lisa? It's not like there aren't thousands of images already in existence of that particular painting, or, in the example given by Rob Walker, we're going to forget what the Grand Canyon looks like. He argues, though, that the camera is a device that makes the experience real for us:

I was randomly reminded of a passage from White Noise that seems relevant. It’s a somewhat famous bit about “The Most Photographed Barn In America,” and conveniently, a site called Check In Architecture has plucked that very excerpt and posted it right here. Basically the barn is known for being photographed, and as a result, people show up to photograph it. “Every photograph reinforces the aura,” one of DeLillo’s characters observes. The suggestion here is that we take pictures of much-photographed things precisely because they are much-photographed.

You might remember I posted an image (one included in Walker's article) back in the Tumblr days.