bear with me on this post, as it’s going to be about love.  but it’s about how love, photography and travel all mesh together.  so not too mushy.

below are photographs from a man who has been capturing his girlfriend during their travels around the world and posting them to his Instagram.

they are fantastic images.  breathtakingly beautiful.

the photographer is making the conscious decision in every photograph to show him holding his girlfriend’s hand as she seemingly leads him into a fantasy world.  there is a curated, artistic element to the photographs and not just simply landscapes of various travel destinations.  so for that I would argue that they should be categorized more as art rather than pure travel photography.  would you agree?

 © muradosmann

now these photographs below feature a couple in various travel destinations that are certainly highly un-stylized.  they might have slight editing for lighting purposes and such, but they are certainly not the fantastic images as the couple above.  they do however have a composition that they stick with in every photograph, which is like the couple above.  fantasy or reality then?

 © Brinson + Banks

does the fact that the second set of photographs are not edited take away from the destinations that they are photographing themselves in?  you could argue that both sets of photographs are “good PR” for the specific destination.  one shows what the place really looks like.  the other shows an extreme, stylized image that an individual would know not to be real (at least I hope you know it isn’t real).

is one set better for a destination than the other?  or can they both be helpful?