What if travel brochures were strictly made with the faces of real people that resided in the
particular destination you thought about visiting? Imagine how
you would base your decision on embarking there. Would good looks quickly win your affection hoping the country and
even the attitudes of people matched the smiling faces or not so smiling faces? This is not to say that brochures
and guide books aren’t being made using the people that truly represent the area, but what if it was the only thing? A
couple of photos and a brief description of the person’s life, occupation, dirty secrets, hobbies, and maybe even their
dreams. Sure you’d want them to be nice, fun, interesting and not some boring old snore. Where am I going with all
this? I’m not even sure. I suppose you could call it my Saturday evening ramblings.
For some reason this NY Times multimedia slide show of
Faces from
Amsterdam, photographed by Olaf Blecker got me thinking what if? The faces are very diverse
and range from old to young, live sex performers to trend forecasters, and tells whether or not the
locals go Dutch. Everyone pictured looks rather smart and seems pretty ordinary. Take the picture of Koen above
for example. Does he make you want to visit Amsterdam? He rarely plays golf
and runs 20 miles a week.
In short, the slide show is a great place to people watch, be nosey or get an idea of what some of the
country’s locals are like before leaving out to the land of windmills and things.