Personal travel photographer?

If that's the going rate, then I volunteer to be your travel photographer!!! :-)

(In all seriousness, I still opt to ask someone else to take a photo if need be when I'm in a pinch. There's always Photoshop if it turns out awful...Look for someone carrying a large, expensive camera with a big lens, chances are that person could take a decent photo with any camera. In worst case, ask for an encore if the photo is really crappy).

I'll do it for free if you pay my travel expenses!

I travel solo all the time, and I manage to get my photo taken as much as I would like. Often it's a wonderful way to make a connection with people from other parts of the world, other tourists as well as locals. In fact, other tourists or guides on walking tours will often ask me if I want them to take my picture. My usual reply is, no I wouldn't want to spoil the beautiful scenery by sticking my face in the middle of it.

I also do selfies from time to time, usually just when I'm reporting in on Facebook. But if you were to look at my travel albums, you'd find very few pictures of me, and I prefer it that way.

So for me, I'd have no interest in hiring someone to do that. But if your vacation memories would be enhanced by having more pictures of yourself at the sites you visit, and it's worth the cost, by all means go for it!

Fortunately our driver Jefferies, is also a fairly good photographer.

Buy a cheap lightweight tripod and simple screw your camera onto that and set the self timer. Test out at home first. Alternatively, ask sensible looking people to take your photo - but make sure the camera is not dropped during the handover.

Sandra,

I would never pay for something like that, especially as half an hour and 15 photos is not really going to be a good representation of the entire holiday. I always travel with a P&S camera as well as my dSLR, and that's the one I give to strangers to take photos of me. If someone were to run off with the camera, it wouldn't be a huge loss. I back my photos up each night on a Netbook, so would only lose the photos taken with the P&S on that day.

This is something that has been very popular in Asia for many years. Seen it in Japan, China, and Korea. At a popular tourist site like the Great Wall or Disneyland Tokyo, you can hire a professional cameraman to follow you around, or even hire a TV film crew to document what you see and do and edit it down to a professionally done-up DVD. Also noticed some Asian tour groups in Europe with one of these TV crews tailing the group. When I took a tour of North Korea a few years ago, my group had one of these TV crews filming us. Everyone in group, including myself, swore we wouldn't pay for the DVD as we all had our own cameras with us. But at the the end of the tour they showed us the edited-down footage with music score. It was quite hilarious and charming so we all broke down and purchased the DVD...best souvenir from the whole trip.

If you want a stranger to take good photos of you at famous sites, look for the one with all the camera gear...they'll be the perfectionist ;)

I'll look for somebody with a camera and is in the same situation as I. Last year, I didn't really speak to many people. I think I was mostly afraid of "talking to strangers." Perhaps I should try and loosen up a bit this time around!

Thanks, everyone!

" in various well-known spots (such as Houses of Parliament or London Bridge)."
Doubt you'd want a photo on "London Bridge", more likely Tower Bridge:
http://ichef-1.bbci.co.uk/news/624/cpsprodpb/113F5/production/_89854607_towerbridge.jpg

Sandra, I'd encourage you to definitely get out of your comfort zone and talk to strangers. It makes trips so much better (and sometimes it just helps pass the time, when you're eating alone for example). I assume you're going to England due to no language barriers, so by all means do talk to people.

This is a real thing? People pay good money for this? I could buy a lot of theatre tickets and/or good meals for that kind of money. Okay, it's not what I would spend my money on, I would go for the free photo from a stranger, but it's your trip, so you should do as you like.

Too expensive. I take great photos myself and occasionally have strangers snap a photo of us at a great location.

Sandra, it might help to remember that when you go to a touristy location, most other people there are tourists also. There's an understanding that people want pictures of themselves in front of or next to famous sites. The poster who offers to take pictures of people who take a picture of her gave you great advice.

Sandra, I'll be in Europe in the spring and would be willing to negotiate that fee if you'll be around as well 😜. Seriously, you'll often see a couple or a group taking pictures of each other or trying to do a selfie so just step up to them and offer to take their photo. They will be more than happy to reciprocate.