This started out like many things I create often do, in a conversation with a friend. She commented how uncomfortable she felt watching tourists go on a kind of “slum safari”. Taking pictures of local children living in desperate poverty to decorate the walls of their warm, safe homes. I’m sure it sounds as perverse to most of you as it did to me, but with many destinations offering off-the-beaten-track street photography experiences, and the ease at which we can instantly share our images online, or turn our own holiday photos into a personalised coffee table book, I started to think more about this burgeoning area of vernacular photography.
The hazy intersection of street and travel photography. Both fall under the umbrella of documentary photography, but travel is generally seen as the ritzier, glitzier, prettier sister of the tough, gritty, hard-hitting street. Both of them deal with reality. Or at least our perspective of a reality. As we seek to experience the “authentic” when we travel, the definitions only blend further.
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