Have a Patel (photo) shot yet?

A friend of mine told me about 'Patel shot' yesterday.

What is a 'Patel shot' anyway? Doubletongued.org says this:

Patel shot n. a candid photograph with a person in the foreground and a place or object of interest (such as a tourist destination or landmark) in the background.

The phrase reeks of derision from the word go. All of us have posed before famous monuments, but I guess the phrase originated because we Indians tend to overdo it. You'd find it easy to catch an Indian taking a photo as s/he poses before something, but it does seem true that we take lesser number of person-less photographs compared to other races. Not that any of this is wrong; it's just that I didn't understand why Indians overdo in 'Patel shooting'. A random blog search might have the answer:

In India, with international travel booming in the IT industry which employs almost 40% of the eligible educated bachelors, 'Patel shots' are the in-thing for quite sometime now. I am not sure if it is by choice or chance, 90% of such IT world groom-to-be snaps that are exchanged happen to be shot abroad in a well known tourist spot!

It is not the same with the opposite sex though. Bride-to-be pictures are usually shot at home, studio with a plain background in ethnic wear. Women travel abroad too, but the pics in western outfits in tourist spots are not preferred.

Interesting. I guess the other reason is that we travel very less compared to, say, westerners, and hence visiting these places itself is an important event in our lives, and we make sure we record it for posterity.