Now that holiday season is upon us, social media is exploding with holiday pictures (mea culpa, too). Instagram has changed how we travel, driving hordes to 'undiscovered' locations, jostling to replicate the same iconic shots. In 2015, the tourism board of Wanaka, a New Zealand town, began to invite social media influencers to post about their travels, resulting in a 14 per cent increase in tourism.

While idyllic sunsets and magical vistas are the travel photos we all share, there is an entire invisible photographic world, the political and aesthetic underbelly of travel: visa and immigration photos. Last month, I had to make a new passport and apply for visas. This was an utterly traumatic process. One, because contact with the authorities brings on Kafkaesque feels. The forms and websites of all these departments are designed to exacerbate this terror in a way hostel matrons can only aspire to. Every sentence is ominously crafted to make you feel that a spelling mistake could result in jail-time and permanent banning from contemplating any trips.