Professional ‘Pigeon Spookers’ Help Tourists Nail Instagram Photos
Here’s a photo-related job you’ve probably never heard of before: professional “pigeon spooker.” Pay a visit to certain areas of Thailand, and you may come across people who now make a living by helping tourists capture the perfect travel photo by scaring pigeons.
Do a search for #thapaegate on Instagram, and you’ll find that many tourists visit the spot to shoot the same photo concept: themselves standing or walking in front of the wall with a group of pigeons flying through the frame.
What you don’t see in these photos is that many of them were shot with the help of the professional pigeon spookers, who charge about 20 Thai Baht (the equivalent of $0.65) to help stage the shot by getting into position and then stamping their feet or waving their arms to scare pigeons into the air.
One of the 30-year-old pigeon spookers working the location says she takes in around 350 Thai Baht (or $11.50) per day for her services, according to Viral Press.
Image credits: Featured thumbnail photos by Hartmann Linge (licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0) and Louis_Parkerson