Candid cameras

Tiring of a selfie in Delphi or a photo in Kyoto, more Chinese tourists are snapping up professional packages to capture their travels for posterity.

When you walk around the streets of Kyoto, it's not uncommon to bump into female tourists dressed up in traditional kimonos－in fact, it's fast becoming part of the scenery there.

Last autumn, Cui Xun and her friend traveled to the historical Japanese city and promptly followed suit. Using an ancient temple as a backdrop, the pair paid a local Chinese photographer 1,800 yuan ($256) to take photos of them for two hours.

"With the temple's quaint, old charm, these pretty photos make great mementos of our trip," says Cui, an office worker from Zhuhai, Guangdong province.

She says they found it worthwhile to hire a photographer for their trip because of the convenience it offered－it let them concentrate on their surroundings rather than have the bother of taking photos of each other. More importantly, they ended up with good-quality photos that had been retouched as part of the service.

"For me, travel is not about gaining a shallow understanding of a place by making cursory observations. Rather, it's about engaging in local experiences－whether it's a cooking class, a soccer match or a concert," she says.