LOS ANGELES, CA - Area man Roger Wade decided to remove any possible doubt that he actually visited the Incan Ruins of Machu Picchu in Peru by having a photograph taken showing him in the foreground and the famous tourist attraction clearly visible in the background.

The decision isn’t one that Wade took lightly. “My friends all know I travel a lot and they pretty much all knew I was going to Peru on my round the world trip,” Wade said, “So there’s no reason to think anyone would doubt me anyway, but it seemed like the right thing to do at the time.”

Philosophers and scholars have been debating this issue for well over a century now and there is still no clear answer: Is it more ridiculous take your own low-quality picture of a famous landmark that has been photographed literally millions of times by more talented people using far better equipment, or is it more ridiculous to have an even worse shot taken of the same place, but this time with you and your goofy grin standing in front of it?

Every tourist that has ever set foot in France has a photograph of the Eiffel Tower somewhere in their collection, and almost every one of these photos is awkwardly framed with a gray or even rainy sky in the background. Many travelers choose to leave well enough alone and futilely just try to capture the tower itself in their poor-quality snapshots, but many others go further by staging their group in the foreground as if to say, “Not only were we at the Eiffel Tower in person, but this is what we were wearing that day.”

During Wade’s 6-month long trip in the first half of 2005, he visited over 20 countries and took over 1,200 photos, but appeared in fewer than 10 of them himself. So what made Machu Picchu so special? “I originally wasn’t going to be in any of my pictures,” Wade said, “but right after my group tour ended this stunning American girl walked up to me and offered to take my photo since she noticed I was on my own. I was powerless to do anything other than hand her my camera.”