WSJ:
For summer vacation, the flight is booked, the hotel is reserved, the bags are packed, but what about the professional photographer to take snapshots and make you look supernaturally gorgeous?
A growing number of hotels and resorts are offering sessions with photographers to chronicle guests’ vacations. Travelers want to record memorable moments without ruining them stressing about focus and flash. They want more sophisticated shots to share on social media. And vacationers realize that an iPhone may not catch that perfect surfing or skiing triumph.
In May, Jumby Bay, a Rosewood Resort in Antigua in the Caribbean began offering a “Together Package” for couples that includes a two-hour shoot with a professional photographer. Earlier this year, the Sanderling Resort & Spa in Duck, N.C., launched an “Everlasting Memories” package with a family photo shoot and a YouTube video of the session (a disc of images is guaranteed within a week).
The Four Seasons Resort Bora Bora is planning to unveil a “Romance” room-service menu in August that will feature a couples’ photo session. Walt Disney World in 2010 started selling a $350 one-hour “Enhanced Portrait Session.” It includes retouching and flourishes such as black-and-white and sepia shots and a customized photo book (prints cost extra). A perk: Getting to wander around the Epcot theme park before it opens to other guests.
A host of independent freelance wedding and adventure photographers are also starting to offer vacation travel shots, seeing them as a lucrative side business.
Photo by Robert Kneschke/ShutterStock.