Monday, January 3, 2011

Photo Books: the death of the “Gift-Shop-Type-Big-Photo-Tourist-Book”

We’ve all been to a big city that has a gift shop haven’t we?  In those gift shops we’ve all seen a nice book that contains photos and explanations of said big city.  There are great shots of buildings and the people and the natural scenes of the city.  You might even have one from a city or place that you’ve been to.

Most likely though, half the photos in the very expensive book are photos of places that they tell you are famous, but you haven’t ever seen those places.  But they must be really famous places since they are in the book!  When you buy the book you’ll put it on your coffee table to show people the places that you’ve traveled to.  Unfortunately that book only contains 3-7 photos of places you’ve actually seen.  The rest of the photos are places you’ve never seen and perhaps could be stock photography that are not even in that same city!  Who knows!?

What if…

What if you could travel to that same city and take your own photos of places that YOU’VE ACTUALLY BEEN TO and then put that into an attractive coffee table book.  Your visitors to your house could look at it and assume that they were looking at the old “gift shop type Big photo tourist book”.  Until of course, they see your photo in the book!

Think about it.  Your book would be all the things you actually saw in that city.  That book would show your day or a couple days that you were there.  It would show all the things that interested you about the city.  The people.  The architecture.  The tourist locations.  The non-tourist locations.  The food you ate.  The food you didn’t eat.  The photos won’t be like the photos in the “gift shop type Big photo tourist book” but they will be photos that you took in places where you were standing!  Instead of only a few photos in the book of places you’ve seen, each photo would have a story.  Talk about captivating your visitor!

How about you all?  Have you even purchased a “gift shop type Big photo tourist book?”  Would you think about doing this the next time you take a trip to a big city?