gone are the days when people packed multiple rolls of film, or bought them at their destinations, then returned home to drop the rolls off at the 1-hour photo kiosk in walmart. even starting to disappear are the days of the selfie stick (thank god.)
these days, the trend is a personal, travel photographer. yes, your average, everyday tourist is shelling out money to have someone follow him/her/them around for a day/week, capturing all their greatest moments on film.
that first bite of the icelandic fermented shark (hákarl) and your subsequent gag face? no longer do you have recreate that moment with your travel companion. nope, your personal photographer has already gotten it in real time.
watching the sun set over the hills at cape sounion? you don’t have to hand your camera to a stranger and hope they don’t take off down the mountain with it, as you turn your back to them so they can snap a shot of you and your sweetie facing the setting sun together, arms around each other.
i actually think it’s a genius idea. i’ve always loved browsing engagement photos, candid wedding photos, etc, and i love the idea of professional travel photos catching the wonderous face as someone’s kid sees whales fluke for the first time (incidentally, i took a photo like that up in alaska. it’s above.)
in fact, i’ve taken advantage of it before. i had a professional photographer on my skydive last year in new zealand. i got around 80 pictures and a video of the entire thing. it was just part of the package… but of course, i couldn’t wait to get back to my hostel and upload the pictures. there are entire companies that revolve around your personal travel photographer, like shoot my travel and flytographer, and there are travel planners who are incorporating photographers into their packages. shoot my travel and flytographer operate in the same way that airbnb operates, where you’re getting a local to show you around. others are more high end, and a photographer travels with you.
you only have to look at instagram and facebook to see that we are obsessed with taking photos of our clothes (guilty), our travels (guilty), airline tickets tucked into a passport (guilty), and that glass of wine we had while watching (also guilty.) i mean, one of the first things many of us do when we arrive home from (or during) our travels is upload the best of the best from our phones/cameras/gopros and some people go one step further and create a video of their trip, or of an experience they had on their trip. facebook did a study on this, actually, and the percentage of users who do just that is up in the 80s.
personal, professional, traveling photographers will likely get less expensive over time, as the market gets saturated with them. but, this is one trend i hope sticks around.