When London-based photographer Rich McCor decided to become “a tourist in his own city”, he came up with a unique way to approach the project by creating detailed cardboard cutouts that temporarily changed the context in which the local iconic landmarks were viewed. The travel site Lonely Planet caught wind of McCor’s project and expanded it to other capital cities with equally famous landmarks, including Paris, Copenhagen, Stockholm and Amsterdam.
My first idea was using a cut-out to transform Big Ben into a wristwatch. Whilst I was there, a girl and her father took an interest in what I was doing and I showed them the photo on my camera screen. They were full of enthusiasm for the idea, and it spurred me on to do more. I then took photos of St Pauls, the London Eye and Trafalgar Square and whilst I was doing this, I would post them on my Instagram alongside a quirky fact I’d picked up about the landmark. Then one day Lonely Planet contacted me on Instagram, they liked what I did and wondered if I wanted to create some photos for them. Of course I said yes, and it led me to Stockholm, Amsterdam, Copenhagen and Paris- I crammed in so much in the few days I was in each city, running around with a camera, handful of cut-outs and a head full of random facts to accompany each photo.
The Little Mermaid Statue, Copenhagen
