How to cancel populate mongoose?

Question

Mongoose

this is my code

const filteringTheNecessaryFieldsForTheTour = fieldsProjection(info);
    const pathDocumentPlace = "places.place";
    const filteringTheNecessaryFieldsForThePlace = fieldsProjection(info, {
      path: pathDocumentPlace,
    });

    const tour = await tourModel
      .findById(id, filteringTheNecessaryFieldsForTheTour)
      .populate(pathDocumentPlace, filteringTheNecessaryFieldsForThePlace);

the fieldsProjection function does the filtering of the required fields from the request, it can return those fields that are needed or an empty object. an empty object means that the user doesn't need the value from "places.place", which means I don't need to call populate . Is there a way to override populate ?