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Picture this: It’s day three of your long-awaited and well-deserved beach vacation. You and your beau are lounging on the sand. A calm breeze blows by and you’re sipping a tropical drink.
If only you had a photographer on hand to snap some high-definition shots of this picture-perfect moment. Dream big.
Well, you don’t have to dream that big.
The Wall Street Journal reports on a new trend among vacationers, which we’re calling BYOP—Bring Your Own Photographer.
Believe it or not, some vacationers are hiring photographers at their vacation destinations to be sure that they preserve their vacation memories in top-quality photos. For trendsetters like these, photographers are a necessary vacation expense, much like the must-have beach bag of the season.
Resorts are catching on to the money-generating power of vacation photography all across the country.
At one of the Four Seasons hotels in Hawaii, hotel guests can hire a photographer by the hour to snap family beach walks or romantic meals for two. The going rate? $800 per hour.
Similarly, Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida offers families a ticket package that includes a professional photographer and early access tickets to Epcot, one of Disney’s theme parks … for $350 an hour.
Private vacation photography companies are popping up, too. Tricia & Co. Photography, a top family vacation photography company, offers professional photography services in multiple destinations—you can search for a photographer in both summer destinations (like Los Angeles or Paris) and winter destinations (like Vail, Colorado).
And while you may be wondering how this photography fad can be so popular given the steep price tags, Andrea Peterson from The Wall Street Journal has a few explanations.
For example, Peterson believes that social media may play a key role in the rise of vacation photography. Vacationers may feel pressure to post crisp, well-documented photos of their vacations on social media sites for friends and relatives. Additionally, vacationers simply may not want to deal with stresses like keeping a camera charged and close by. And “self-take” photographs—ones that require a reversal of your camera and a hyper-extended arm—never turn out quite right.
So, if you’ve got the cash and the scenic backdrop to boot, is a photographer a necessary vacation extra?
