ABSTRACT
Many generic definitions rarely mention photographs as being essential to blogs because earlier forms of this genre were incapable of including images. Nevertheless, travel-related photographs are integral to blogs discussed in this study, appearing alongside entries, as entries in themselves, in photo galleries, and in the form of slideshows. Tourism and photography are inextricably linked to each other, so much so that they are described as ‘modern twins’ (Baerenholdt et al. 2003, p. 69). Moreover, photographs in personal online narratives are generally self-presentational elements that provide a context for the experiences described therein (Nelson and Hull 2008; van Dijck 2008). Indeed, travel photography may be employed in a carefully and deliberately constructed performance of an ‘ideal self’ (Lo and McKercher 2015, p. 147). Against this background, this chapter examines how photographs in independent travel blogs contribute to the overall presentation of various aspects of the online self of travel bloggers. Some analyses of travel-related photographs identify discursive styles that are either associated with or distinct from tourist discourse (Dann 1996; Robinson and Picard 2009; Urry and Larsen 2011). This chapter draws on these findings to determine how various narrative techniques in these images associate the experience represented within with travel or tourism and examines the discursive tensions that arise as a consequence.
