Albeit filling his Instagram feed with beautiful shots of landmarks unique to each country, Rich McCor is not your typical tourist.
The 29-year-old Londoner who works as in a creative agency goes the extra mile and incorporates intricately designed paper cutouts, which transform what we usually see on tourism sites and Facebook feeds into works of art.
His Instagram popularity soared after his feed was featured on Daily Mail in October 2015, going from 5,000 followers to 60,000 in a week.
In the 2015 interview, he mentioned, “I would love to somehow make this hobby into a career, and if it involves travelling to places to shoot these images then that would be a dream come true.”
As if a fairy godmother of Instagram took a liking to him after the article, his wish came true not long after, when Lonely Planet took an interest in his work and sponsored part of a round-Europe trip to feature landmarks in places such as Stockholm and Copenhagen.
Not only around Europe, he has also gotten the chance to travel around the world (Singapore, Hong Kong, China, the US) and worked with their country’s tourism agencies, so it looks like his brand of Instagram photography has definitely caught on.
Humble Beginnings
His start in his unique brand of Instagram postings began humbly enough – his feed was filled with personal shots of daily life and his paperart projects, and that background makes the situation all the more endearing because you see someone who just happened to get famous doing what he loves.
A photo posted by Rich McCor 🇬🇧 (@paperboyo) on
Isn’t that the dream?
He had also started experimenting in his brand of travel paperart on a weekend trip to Lisbon in Portugal and around London, and even from those early photos, his distinct style and unique way of looking at common sights can already be seen.
A photo posted by Rich McCor 🇬🇧 (@paperboyo) on
In an interview with Mashable, his inspiration simply came from trying to photograph the landmarks around him in a different way.
“By combining photography with my paper-cutting skills I came up with the idea of turning Big Ben into a wristwatch. After that I started looking at the landmarks and architecture around me in a different way, and I kept on taking photos.”
This caught the attention of crowd-sourced recommendation ‘Little Black Book’ website Great Little Place – London, who challenged him to come up with 10 unique photos for them, and in all, McCor decided to include paper cutouts.
And as they say, the rest is history.
@paperboyo In Singapore
In collaboration with @visit_singapore, Singapore Tourism Board’s official Instagram account, our sunny island has also been paperboyo-fied!
What’s special about each of his 14 posts is that each contain a tidbit of information about the landmark which will astound even us locals!
His work didn’t seem to impress one of the residents at our Jurong Bird Park though…
A video posted by Rich McCor 🇬🇧 (@paperboyo) on
Regardless, his beautiful shots of Singapore were not only gorgeous, but also inspires us to look at these ‘common’ sights in new and creative ways.
Personally, I’m definitely looking forward to seeing more of his quirky cutouts changing perceptions of how we look at the world.
Interested? Follow him on Instagram for updates!
This post originally appeared on discoversg.com.