Hiring Vacation ‘Paparazzi’ for Professional Photos Is Growing Trend
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iStockphoto/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) — Summer is a time for millions of people to set out on journeys full of fun and adventure. Vacationers usually take lots of photos to capture the great memories they’ve made.
Until recently, vacations that cost thousands of dollars were being captured on cameras that cost only a few bucks. But some people are changing that.
Enter Allie Hawkins, a photographer who says vacation photos shouldn’t be an afterthought. She makes a living at the helm of Island Photography, a company that captures memories for travelers vacationing on North Carolina’s Outer Banks.
“There’s always that family member who is the one taking the pictures and is never in any of the photos. That’s usually the person who winds up hiring us to capture memories that include everyone,” Hawkins told ABC’s Good Morning America in an interview that aired Friday.
Hawkins’ clients are part of a growing trend: people paying to have their vacations professionally photographed.
Genevieve Shaw Brown, travel editor for ABC News, said social media sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, were a big driving force behind this phenomenon.
“People want to create the illusion that they’re having the perfect vacation or they have the perfect life and a professional photographer is certainly going to help you do that,” she said.
The Internet is full of vacation photo package deals, ranging in price from a few hundred dollars to several thousand dollars. Those packages are available all over the world, from Disney resorts to the quaint streets of Paris.
Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio