It's basically a trend where people stage glamorous moments in their lives all for the glory of Instagram.
But there are some who are taking "doing it for the gram" to a whole new level.
These seemingly normal women, many of them mothers, are taking their social influencing prowess to new and ridiculous heights by actually paying professional photographers hundreds of dollars to capture picture-perfect photos of them while on vacation.
From The Daily Mail:
Shouldn't you be on vacation just to simply enjoy actually being on vacation?
Posing for a professional photographer on an expanse of white sand in St Lucia, Naomi Isted's clothes are impeccably colour-coordinated with those of her husband and children, their smiles as bright as the Caribbean sunshine.
Bemused onlookers peer over their sunglasses eager to fathom the scene before them. Could they be models showcasing a new range of family beachwear, or perhaps they're famous?
In fact, neither is true. They're just an ordinary family from Hertfordshire who've taken the extraordinary decision to hire a photographer for their holiday — paying him hundreds of pounds to ensure their picture-perfect, sunkissed memories are caught on film.
'It avoids the risk of getting rubbish pictures, or photos of only three of us at a time,' says Naomi, 44, a broadcaster and interior designer married to property developer Haydn, 50, with whom she has children Fleur, 13, and Rocco, eight. 'In the past, if I wanted photos of me with the children I'd have to pester Haydn to take some under duress. The results were often so poor I wouldn't want to show them to anyone. Then I found a photographer in the Turks and Caicos in 2017, and haven't looked back since. My kids smile for the camera when there's a stranger behind it, and it means we get a gorgeous set of pictures of all four of us taken in as little as half a day.'
Welcome to the indulgent world of vacation photography. You might think the practice would be limited to image-conscious celebrities, but it's a fast-growing trend with many ordinary people. Forget switching off with a book and leaving your hairdryer at home when the kids break up for the summer holidays. In the era of Instagram perfection, even a family beach holiday demands glossy photos for your grid and expertly filtered smiles for the Christmas card.
It's pretty sad that a getaway with your family is nothing more than a way to stage a photo op for a bunch of strangers online.
