In tandem with those new gadgets entering our household — to the great dismay of Andrea — I’ve been sampling co-fermented coffees by the handful. Ahem, am I boring you yet? I promise I’ll get to talking about photography very soon.

Co-fermented coffee beans are harvested and left to ferment with ingredients such as fruits like mango or coconut. This infuses the coffee with mouth-watering fruity aromas. Think of it like cucumber water, but for coffee. While this coffee novelty storm tears through my spare time, on my work time, I’ve seen my feeds and magazine pages inundated with very colorful, vibey imagery coming from the worlds of cycling and running.

The running and cycling spaces are insanely competitive by nature. But now, the marketers and the creative directors wearing all black have gone mental with how they want their campaigns to look. My colleague Pierre David from SATISFY Running says cycling and running both have the problem of having no real “tricks.” In surfing or skateboarding, there’s always a climax where the athlete performs their best trick on the ramp or wave, and boom, you’ve got the shot. Trail running? Not much to see except people breathing heavily through the forest.

Perhaps the athlete jumps down a rock at some point for a shot, but that’s not exactly like Gabriel Medina going airborne at Teahupo’o.

So, as an answer to the age-old question in the cycling and running worlds of “how do we make this look cool?” we’ve come up with what I call “vibey edits”.

My non-scholarly definition of them is as follows:

“Vibey edits” defines work which has been unnaturally altered in post-production to solve the photographer’s or brand marketer’s existential crisis of subjects without easily accessible visual interest. Or more precisely, work that looks like this:

Now, I had a long chat with my coffee geek friend Pete Milne about co-fermented coffee. He is not a fan. To be honest, this shocked me a bit because I was thoroughly enjoying them. In one fell swoop, Pete expanded my view on coffee once again. To him, coffee should accurately reflect its environment. In the wine world, this is called “terroir.”

Terroir is a French term used in English to describe how a specific region’s environment—including soil, climate, topography, and farming practices—gives a crop (most commonly wine grapes) its unique, unmistakable character and flavor.

For Milne, when you start altering your green coffee beans by co-fermenting them with blueberries, you start modifying their natural state. They become something else, no longer a reflection of their environment.

That got me thinking about “vibey edits.” What if “vibey edits” are the co-fermented coffee of photography? They both address consumer fatigue by infusing something unexpected and interesting to make average coffee taste good or average creative direction look cool, all while giving a big middle finger to the environment in which they were produced or captured.

When you travel as a photographer to shoot a brand campaign in an incredible place shaped by earth, fire, and water, you are leveraging earth’s natural beauty. You’ve poured many hours into research, hired people to scout the locations, spent a fortune on travel to get everyone there, had access to the best gear, and — let’s be honest — shot incredible work straight out of camera. So why alter the images so much that that natural essence of the place is completely gone from the work? Why go all the way there in the first place?

I am specifically talking about heavy post production here. I have nothing against in-camera effects or the use of flash or light modifiers… And, guilty as charged, I’ve also experimented with heavier-handed edits over the past two years. But I have been winding it back.

What got me into shooting photos was the unstoppable desire to be outside in the elements. So why was I altering these landscapes I so dearly love almost beyond recognition? To make a photo stand out more? To get more work? Meh, I wasn’t convinced, and here we are now. Me telling you it’s time for a change. But before that, let’s take a brief trip down the history of the internet.

I’m going to show my age here but, back in the Deviantart days, people would upload insanely edited images to the site and the photography community would look down on them.

A similar thing happened with 500px where supernatural imagery started to appear, and the photography circles didn’t approve.

But now there is so much content, and so little time, that we’ve accepted this new vibey edit movement and told ourselves: “Edit like that, and you will get work from brands who want to be cool and trendy.” But once a trend is named, it’s too late, it’s already dead.

This trend had its place in time. It sat at the intersection of the editing boundaries being pushed into the 300% levels and a general fatigue with photography in advertising.

What if the future of the brands at the forefront of visual culture was to actually bring back the terroir in which they are shooting their catalogs and ad campaigns? What if giving a sense of place and proudly representing the athletes and landscape as they were on shoot day was the new target?

That’s a future I am ready for.

PS. I want to make it clear that I am not directly attacking any creator nor shaming anyone for liking this style. My intention is simply to provide an alternative on something that I have been thinking about.

Watching

In an effort to use a documentary approach in my work, I’ve been digging into the classics. One of them is W. Eugene Smith and his series The Country Doctor. The story was commissioned by Life Magazine to illustrate a developing story about the shortage of doctors in rural areas of the U.S. in the 1940s. Smith was tasked with documenting the life of Dr. Ernest Ceriani, a GP enlisted to provide 24-hour medical care to all 2,000 inhabitants of the town of Kremmling, CO. I was moved by the simple compositions and more so the fact that it looks like Smith wasn’t even in the room where he shot the photos. I could only find a few frames where the subjects look straight into the lens. But when they do, it’s for a reason. See the photograph below where we feel slightly haunted by the look of fear in the patient’s eyes.

Country Doctor on Magnum Photos

Go further

The Lofoten Experience 2026: This September, join me in the stunningly raw Lofoten Islands, where dramatic peaks rise straight from the sea and golden light lingers for hours. We’ll go beyond the iconic spots to photograph local fishermen, rugged landscapes, and life in the Arctic Circle.

My editing presets: Speed up your editing workflow and achieve unique edits with my Lightroom editing packs.

This newsletter is edited by Danny Smith

This is much more than a photo tour. It's an expedition-grade story lab with real commercial assignments for large brands designed to supercharge your way from a landscape photographer into a commercial-grade storyteller.

See what's included

You might think I love cameras. Considering I’m someone who makes a living by making pictures, it’s fair to assume I’d get excited about the latest sensor innovations coming out of the big camera-making houses of this world. The truth is I cannot locate the part of my brain interested in that. It’s simply MIA. So when Hasselblad reached out to me about trying their latest medium format wonder machine, I wasn’t sure what to say.

What tipped the scales? Timing. I was about to take off for snowy Aspen, CO to shoot a catalog for Obermeyer, a brand I’ve been working with for the last 6 months as what they’ve called a “Creative Advisor.” Essentially, I just come up with wild ideas for what the brand needs to do to gain relevance among its target customer. It involves a lot of staring at the sky, indulging in long sauna sessions, and writing out dreams upon waking up. It’s my favorite kind of gig because I even get to execute on some of those ideas.

You see, consultants typically wave their arms, make a lot of noise with their mouths, and then drop off their grand plan onto some poor mid-level employee at the company and wish them good luck on the execution. This is different. I’m like a chef — at least I feel like one — Who gets to dream up a three-course menu, but then I’ve got to actually cook the meal, which is a very rewarding part of the job.

Anyways, back to Colorado. Upon landing, I was greeted by… summer. In early March. The Rockies have had such a shit winter this year that the people tasked with tracking snow depth at the ski resorts may as well have jetted off to Hawai’i for an early vacation, only to be met by historical floods.

Ironic?

Perhaps not as much as me showing up to Aspen to shoot a winter clothing catalog with zero snow on the ground. It’s a bit like trying to go for a swim in the Aral Sea: It’s not going to work. Because I knew I was going to be in trouble, I made sure to accept Hasselblad’s offer and brought the X2D 100C with me, along with two of their flagship lenses, one of the most competent lighting technicians in Colorado, and a smoke machine to make up for the lack of snowy atmosphere.

This is textbook stuff. When you know the conditions are going to be tough, you bring the best crutches you can: an expensive camera, the best lights, as many props as you can carry… You’re attempting to spend your way to greatness. It generally works! You have to perform magic by using all the tricks in the book and hoping the customer doesn’t notice your tomfoolery. It’s very draining for everyone involved, but your job is to perform no matter the conditions.

The mood was grim as we wrapped our final day of location scouting. We knew we were in for a tough one. We had planned to create our very own fashion show at one of the neighboring ranches, an idea that sounded wonderful if it had still looked like winter at the ranch. There were piles of muddy snow in some of the shaded areas we could use, but it wasn’t really what we had envisioned. Thankfully, the second-biggest storm of the season wasscheduled for our first shooting day. We became cautiously optimistic.

As dawn broke, our hopes were confirmed. Twelve inches of fresh snow had fallen in town, and it was still heavily coming down. We were thrilled. So, with the X2D 100C in tow, we drove back to the ranch to shoot our first day of the catalog with that calm confidence that comes from knowing the weather is on your side. I don’t think I’ve ever been so lucky.

How was the Hassy?

Let me preface this by saying I don’t spend more than 30 seconds familiarizing myself with the intricacies of new camera menus. I dread them, and I’m just not that interested. I make sure that 1) It’s in RAW and 2) The autofocus is in Single and it’s in the most basic mode. The rest I can work with on the fly.

The X2D felt a bit clumsy for someone who’s used to a Canon or a Leica system. The wheels all turned in the wrong direction, and the buttons were tiny and difficult to operate while wearing gloves. The viewfinder was quite underwhelming compared to the one in the Leica Q3, which has to be the best viewfinder on any digital camera. But besides the AF areas developing a mind of their own as a result of the rapidly falling and melting snow on the camera screen, I found the experience quite nice. For medium format, it’s a quick camera. I also found the internal 1TB SSD fast and unbothered by burst mode.

All these tiny flaws were quickly forgotten when I started to review the images on the first night. This camera is a beast. I love using my Hasselblad H1 medium format film camera because it makes images that feel like life. There is a grandness and generosity to them. The separation between subject and background, essential when you’re shooting fashion, is deep and evident.

I’m delighted to report the people at Hasselblad pulled off this same magic trick with the X2D, especially at focal lengths past 45mm. I also adore the way the camera looks. It’s mostly black and dark gray, with square angles reminding me of older cameras such as the 500C/M. I admit to being a bit heartbroken when I had to put it back in the return box.

So if you find yourself needing a $7,400 camera that makes images so grand that you could live inside of, the X2D II 100C is for you. It’s not a Swiss army knife, though. I wouldn’t use it as a daily camera — it’s too big and heavy for that. I’d keep it for those big shoots where you need to pull out all of your tricks.

Watching

The Anthony Hopkins interview I didn't know I needed. The YouTube algorithm surfaced this gem last week and it was so engaging I watched it in one sitting. I couldn't look away. Hopkins is incredibly articulate, witty, and unapologetic.

Drop whatever you're doing and give it a watch.

A little more

The Patagonia Retreat 2026: Experience Torres del Paine beyond the iconic viewpoints. You’ll explore remote trails, search for pumas, and have the chance to meet and photograph local gauchos in the dramatic landscapes they call home.

This newsletter is edited by Danny Smith

After 10 years of continued partnership, Canon USA and I parted ways as of January 1, 2026. We’ll get to the “why it ended” bit shortly.

First, let me take you back to fall 2014. I’d just moved to L.A. — well, The Valley. You know, the less glamorous side of the Hollywood Hills where aspiring actors audition for erectile dysfunction commercials. It’s amongst that bizarre clique that I was trying to make a name for myself. Same dreams of fame, different approach. I’d finally made it to my dream city. Almost.

One morning, I drafted a list of dream clients. Having shot a few photography assignments the past few years, I put Canon at the top. I’d always been a Canon guy. Then out of nowhere, Land Rover rang, wanting someone to shoot a story for their brand new WellStoried platform — a place where owners could upload photos of their Landies and write a story.

So off to the Sierra I went to shoot a story about an old Defender 90 Soft Top with a comically slow V8. (I promise we’re almost to the Canon bit. The stories are intertwined.) I delivered, they were happy. Then, for reasons beyond the scope of this story, I rented a house in the middle of Montana and spent the winter shooting personal work.

Come spring, I was back to my Canon mission. I dreamed up a four-month European road trip in a Land Rover Defender, ending in northern Norway, telling stories of people living off the land. It was to be called “Alternative Living.” Simple, except I didn’t own a Defender. Or any car. This was 2015, the last year Defenders would roll off the production line. Forever. I wanted one for posterity. The only thing was, I didn’t have 37 grand. Yes, new cars were that cheap at the time.

In a flashbulb moment, I decided to take this roadtrip idea, turn it into a photo book, and get Canon as the flagship sponsor. Amazingly, they said yes. I took their money, bought the truck, and Andrea and I set off on our grand adventure.

That trip launched our 10-year partnership. Now here we are at its bitter end. Yes, there were some signs that the flame was slowly dying. Even my agent felt that we were growing apart with them. Ideas didn’t really click the same way, energy had shifted, and my contacts had moved into more executive roles. On most calls, I’d been with Canon the longest. Then came the rainy Friday email with the dreaded “unfortunately” speak. Corporate firing playbook and all.

Am I sad? Not really. It was an incredible time, I got to work with a lot of smart people, and create work that I couldn’t have done alone. Canon kept the dream going and I’ll never forget that. Shout out to Melissa and Kevin for their loyalty and tolerance of our sometimes silly ideas. It was a grand time. From shooting the world release of the iconic 5D Mark IV to taking some of the insanely sharp wildlife telephotos to the Arctic, I got to play with a lot of gear.

Now, I feel free. Outside of the walls of exclusivity clauses, I can finally share my interest in other cameras and lens systems

Plans with other camera makers? Maybe. But no exclusivity.

A question from a reader

I get a lot of questions in my DMs from people looking to start out in this industry. Some are too good to answer just once, so here we are.

Steve asks:

Hey, how did you find clients before clients started finding you?

One thing I’ve always cultivated is singularity. Lateral thinking. Attempting to form our own opinions on things is getting harder and harder. I knew that to get hired by anyone, I needed something unique to tell or show. There had to be a factor about my work and story that would make whoever I was talking to think, “I want to work with this guy” or “I don’t want to work with this guy, not a good fit.” I am always after polarities. I want to leave strong impressions. That practice has cost me a lot of projects, but it has also brought me a lot of good ones.

My advice is the following: spend time building something unique: a body of personal work, a blog, a story, dress in a different way, listen to different music, cultivate a healthy disdain for what’s too popular. That’s brand building — your own little universe. As you do that, bring your lateral ideas to people in your close circle, the ones who are more likely to take a chance on you. Your success rate will increase. What you cannot do is produce the same work as everyone else, listen to the same stuff, look at the same movies, and expect to come up with anything original that would make someone hire you. Cultivate singularity in your work, but also in how you dress, what you look like, and the things you do. It will make you attractive to the clients you want to work with. Don’t believe me? Why do you think Casey Neistat wears spray painted sunglasses to bed? Or Peter McKinnon cultivates different alternative styles throughout the years? Or Terry Richardson shoots Contax T2s? Or Anthony Bourdain wrote like a punk rocker?

They understood something fundamental: Memorable beats perfect. Every time.

PS. This will be the last numbered issue. I set out to write this newsletter nearly two years ago with the goal of staying the course for 24 issues, a clean two years. Check. From now on, you can still expect the same monthly cadence, but with some shorter-focused issues, as well as the usual longer editorials you’ve been receiving.

Shot by Daniel Conrad Loosli

A little more

The Patagonia Retreat 2026: Experience Torres del Paine beyond the iconic viewpoints. You’ll explore remote trails, search for pumas, and have the chance to meet and photograph local gauchos in the dramatic landscapes they call home.

This newsletter is edited by Danny Smith

Right, let’s see if I remember how to do this. After taking August off from this newsletter, I thought I’d triumphantly get back on the saddle in September. But a whirlwind of projects like taking a train to the Arctic Circle (because apparently I like things complicated) and hosting the Lofoten Islands Retreat (where we ate our weight in Norwegian cinnamon rolls) kept me away from the stable. Well, reader, rest assured that I return fully energized and ready for this peculiar journey we’re on together into the world of creative fulfillment.

On our misguided cult for performance

I recently read an essay on efficiency by French researcher Olivier Hamant that has inconveniently forced me to reexamine my life. I must admit I’m truly obsessed with optimization. It’s something I eat for breakfast, and it has metastasized into most aspects of my existence.

Take, for example, a simple chore like bringing a pair of muddy shoes from the kitchen to the downstairs entrance. I’ll delay the trip so I can bundle it with other future errands that might take me downstairs. That way I only go down once, arms loaded with a backlog of assorted bits — only to drop something halfway and have to make that trip twice anyway, the very thing I was trying to avoid as “inefficient.”

My wife then gleefully points out the elephant-shaped contradiction in my approach: I’ll willingly run for three hours in the mountains, but then orchestrate elaborate schemes to avoid going down the stairs twice. This optimization mindset is probably responsible for many good things in my life. After all, if you approach your schedule as something to fill to the breaking point, you get a lot done. But I fear it has a growing dark side of which I’m not fully aware.

Consider creativity. Its very essence comes from observing, from doing nothing. If we’re constantly doing things without any time for reflection, how are we supposed to develop original thoughts?

People talk about “f***-you money,” but what if the real prize is “f***-you time?” Yes, time we can waste on our own terms.

But will simply carving out slots of dead space be enough to change our entire approach? Look at most marketing around tech or appliances. It’s always about “saving time” so we can do “things that matter.” But then we proceed to spend that saved time staring at our phones or TV screens. Is that what matters, then? Looking at a screen?

I decided a true shift was in order. Just the idea of looking at blocks of time in a calendar goes against the essence of being creative. In his anti-performance essay, Olivier Hamant says the following:

Performance is the sum of effectiveness – that is, achieving one’s objective – and efficiency – achieving that objective with the fewest possible means. Robustness, meanwhile, consists of maintaining the system stable and viable despite fluctuations.

Robustness, huh?

Hamant emphasizes that living organisms always prioritize resilience over performance, having been selected throughout evolution for their ability to face uncertainty. A tree doesn’t risk death by waiting until the last ray of October sunshine has passed to start dropping its leaves. As soon as temperatures drop below the safe range at night, the process begins. It’s not optimizing anything, it’s simply ensuring its survival.

Take photosynthesis, the process of turning sunlight into food for plants and trees. We learn that it’s wildly inefficient; only 3-6% of sunlight is absorbed by the leaves, and the rest is “wasted.” But that’s precisely the point: It protects the plant from potential damage and ensures the survival of the species.

What if we treated our time the way plants do? At least some of it. I’m not asking you to sit idly in the sun for days on end (although that may be the very thing we need?) But what if our quest for performance became a quest for robustness and resilience instead? Wouldn’t that make us happier?

The answer is far above my pay grade, but I’m going to experiment with this. In fact, I’ve already started: This morning I made a trip down the stairs with my muddy shoes as soon as I took them off!

Less theory, more dust

It’s no secret that I have been hosting creative photography retreats. I like to put an experience-planner hat on a few times per year and design experiences that will feel transformative to folks. The rules are simple — every retreat needs:

1. Transformation: The most meaningful shift I aim for is seeing participants leave with the confidence to take on commercial shoots independently, and to truly believe their work is worth paying for. They should finish the workshop inspired, self-assured, and supported by a new network of industry friends. Most importantly, they walk away with two major clients added to their roster and a compelling new portfolio.

2. Photogenic locations: Since we’re all going to have to travel, why not host these in visually stunning spots? Greenland, Morocco, Lofoten Islands, Patagonia… Very ugly places, we can agree on that!

3. Building a crew: Although there are a lot of return guest, every retreat starts out with a slightly awkward meeting of everyone in a hotel lobby. We shake hands, give hugs, talk about the journey here, but, deep down, we know we’re about to become brothers/sisters. Part of an intimate group of people who have been on the road together, working on a collective effort to produce the best work the group is capable of creating.

4. Real shooting conditions: For every retreat, there are two paying brands and briefs to execute. I am often also on the hook to deliver work to the brands. This raises the stakes for everyone. We have a real project to deliver.

If this sounds like something you want to experience for yourself you may want to check out our upcoming Morocco No One Sees Retreat happening this November in Marrakesh and the High Atlas. There are two spots left as of today.

Morocco Retreat

What gives me strength amidst all the AI speak

I’ve been trying to write this piece for months, but the discussion moves so fast I can barely keep up. Two weeks ago, it was Sora, Altman’s new AI-generated TikTok knockoff.

People immediately started calling the stuff made with Sora “AI slop,” which I found both amusing and, oddly, hopeful. Humans were pushing back against something absurd. The idea that anyone would want to consume endless AI-generated content was so preposterous I could barely comprehend it. Calling it “slop” felt like a small victory. It was one of those rare moments where humanity felt connected, even briefly, in collective rejection of something fundamentally ridiculous.

Which brings me to the actual problem. Because it turns out that “Slop” isn't just what you can make with Sora, its everywhere.

After using ChatGPT most of the past year, I’ve noticed a troubling pattern. It became most obvious when I asked it to do something simple: change the background on an image. It reproduced the text with typos and incorrect fonts. It’s clear that ChatGPT is optimizing for speed over accuracy.

But that makes the output nearly useless, as I ended up opening Photoshop and doing the job myself in about the same amount of time it took to generate the flawed image.

That experience made me wonder: What if all the seemingly impressive reasoning it produces for creative tasks is just like that poorly rendered image? What if it’s all speed with no real substance?

Most days, I feel like I can get ChatGPT to reinforce whatever I tell it — it never challenges me. It’s relentlessly optimistic, even when I deliberately pitch a terrible idea. And don’t get me started on asking it to produce anything creative with genuine gusto.

The problem is the following: AI doesn’t ask what’s missing. It knows everything that’s been done, but that’s it. It seems unable to think outside of established wisdom. What makes human thinking impossible to replicate is exactly that. We can take a concept or a piece of work and challenge it, turn it on its head, and produce something different afterward.

I will still use AI for what I find it good at (research, spreadsheets, and logic), but for anything that requires original thinking? No thanks, we’ve got art books, museums, and our human spirit.

Watching

Werner Herzog’s Into the Inferno. Although this film about Katia and Maurice Krafft came out in 2016, I keep coming back to the insane footage seen in this clip. The way humans are displayed against the natural forces is a source of inspiration.

Go Deeper

The Morocco No One Sees Retreat 2025: Experience Morocco and the Atlas Mountains beyond the usual postcard spots with Alex Strohl.

My editing presets: Speed up your editing workflow and achieve unique edits with my Lightroom editing packs.

This newsletter is edited by Danny Smith

NB: I wrote this piece for the first issue of Field Mag Print, consider grabbing a copy to see these images, and many more, in all their printed glory.

How riding home in the dark, and dreading monday made me a photographer

As a teenager growing up in a remote corner of Southern France, I had a bit of a tradition. I'd drive my underpowered 50cc dirt bike to a high viewpoint near my parents' house to watch the sun set over the forested hills. The viewpoint was perfect—it had a worn-out map of the various points of interest such as chapels falling into disrepair, sleepy hamlets, creeks, and names of the highest summits. When I say summits, it was more like lumps that were higher than the other lumps. These weren't the Alps—more like Nature's half-hearted attempt at topography.

Sitting on the edge of the rocky cliff on fencing so ancient it remember the revolution, I'd feel the October freeze (that's when the best sunsets start) on my prepubescent face. It was eerily quiet. I knew I was going back to boarding school tomorrow, Monday, but for now, I just wanted this moment to last forever. So I'd stay until the very last blue hue in the sky, until darkness had successfully completed its hostile takeover of the day. Then I'd ride back home in near total darkness, with the timid yellow headlight as my only reference point. It was on those Sunday rides that I learned to look at light—how the yellow headlight was pleasant to look at in the blue hour, how inviting it felt.

I didn't realize it but later on, those quiet moments perched on my viewpoint, watching the sky gradually go from day to night would become my sort of inspiration well. But as with a lot of things in life, it started out of necessity. I simply wanted to stay out longer because I dreaded going back to school the next day. And, to this day, I don't enjoy waking up at 4am for a summer sunrise, so I'd focus on shooting sunset and the light that happened right after, so I'd get more light opportunities. Constraints breed creativity. I'd play this blue hour game so much that it became a kind of signature where people would only talk to me about blue hour, and that's how they got to know my work. But what they didn't know is that it wasn't a conscious choice, it was just a way to keep that teenage boy alive. To preserve him like a dried flower between the heavy pages of adult life.

Why am I telling you about blue hour? Well, if I ask my photo catalog about blue hour, it says that I have more than 144,000 images tagged under that. So you could argue that I've spent a lot of time working with that elusive time of day. Through this guide, I'm going to tell you how you can too, if you are so inclined.

Gear Stuff: Cameras, shutter speed, ISO, and the all mighty aperture

Making satisfying shots at blue hour isn't a democratic endeavor. It's one of those few moments in photography where having fancier gear will actually yield substantially better results. Most other conditions won't. When shooting in falling light, you need three things:

1. A camera that handles high ISO more elegantly

2. Having a steady hand and/or a stabilized sensor (IBIS)

3. A lens with a very low aperture such as f1.4 with stabilization

This combo will make you unstoppable. You won't need to lug that silly tripod and you'll just have a much better time knowing that you're only relying on one camera and one lens. Less gear = less decisions to make.

As for the camera, I'd go for the nicest one you can afford, even if it needs to be second hand. The newer the better because sensors get dramatically better at handling low light. And, more importantly, most manufacturers have started stabilizing their sensors so we can shoot at crazy low shutter speeds. In any endeavor, I prefer using a lower shutter speed with a lower ISO. This gets me the cleanest RAW file possible for enjoyable post-production. I might just add noise after the fact, but I want to choose how much goes into it, not the other way around. So... get a camera that handles ISO 6400 very well and that has, preferably, a stabilized sensor.

Once you're up on that alpine ridge, with your new fancy camera in hand, and that elusive twilight you have been waiting for all day, remember to relax your breathing. I like taking a big breath in and holding it as I press the shutter, running through as many cycles as the day will give me.

If it's a really dire situation where it's getting very dark and I need to be mega steady, I'll turn the camera upside down and place the screen against my forehead to gain extra stability. That simple trick has saved me more times than I remember.

When it comes to the lens, go for wide—big scenes look at their best during blue hour as a rule of thumb. Usually I love to incorporate a lot of foreground to create leading lines that are hard not to look at as a viewer. It's about that irresistible balance of lines, placement of light, and shapes in the landscape that a satisfying landscape image lies for me. My go-to lens for these nocturnal endeavors is the 24mm f1.4 with stabilization. But you can also rock a wider lens with an f2.8 aperture, it just will need more ISO's.

Make a day out of it

My favorite part of chasing blue hour is that you get places all to yourself. Usually, after sunset, everyone leaves and this human ebb and flow has created so many peaceful memories in the mountains than I can remember. I also couldn't tell you how many times I've had to explain to people walking down the mountain at 6pm why I was waddling up... The life of the twilight aficionado resembles the one of the salmon, rushing up against the river's flow. Instead our river is a human river. I secretly enjoy this outlier part of the process.

Still, shooting darkness in far away places comes with its set of natural challenges such as: You'll be walking down in the dark. All restaurants will be closed.

Those limitations give us room to create our own experiences. Let me paint you a picture. Imagine yourself deep in some mountain range you love, having witnessed a warm summer sunset at this place you've been researching for days. The sun has now fully set, everyone has left, you've packed a light down because it gets cold up there, even in August. You are with a few friends, sitting on flat rocks, cameras by your side, sharing a few slices of prosciutto, chunks of cheese, and passing on a baguette—a makeshift feast that no three star chef would sneeze at given the view. You snap a photo between bites. Maybe share a joke or two. You're in good company, and there's no other place you'd rather be right now. That is the pinnacle experience of blue hour for me. And, you will probably build your own. But the beauty resides in its making. You are the architect of the experience and that to me is the draw with photography. Later on that night, you will sleep easy knowing that you gave it all, that you stayed until it was completely dark, no stone left unturned, and the goods are resting in the memory cards.

Go Deeper

The Lofoten No One Sees Retreat 2025 (1 spot left): Experience the lesser-known side of the Lofoten Islands with a group of like-minded photographers led by Alex Strohl.

Editing flow playlist on Spotify: Get in the mood to do deep work with my instrumental playlist.

My editing presets: Speed up your editing workflow and achieve unique edits with my Lightroom editing packs.

Why Not Make It Easy?

I just came back from a week in the Dolomites where I hosted one of our bi-annual business of photography retreats with a group of eight fellow photographers. No matter how many times I have run a retreat, I still find the experience transformative. Most of the alumni don’t know each other, yet they are parachuted into the equivalent of a photographic battlefield. They have to execute real commercial assignments given by a creative director for real brands, all while being sleep deprived and buzzing with the energy of back-to-back shoots, without much time to reflect or edit their work.

A few years back, one of the alumni humorously pointed out that these experiences should not be called “retreats,” and that “army bootcamp” was a more appropriate name for them. While he was obviously joking, the effect was not lost on me. Yes, in a way I could build the retreats as a mellow and cuddly week where we shoot some photos when the light is nice, hike to see wildflowers, and lay in the shade between class time, but I don’t think I’d be doing the students a service. 

For the most part, these are people who have decided to invest in themselves, and who are in pivotal moments in their career. They took leaps of faith, and now they need to make it happen for themselves and their families. I want to do everything in my power to help them become happy and successful commercial photographers and filmmakers. So, throwing them into the beat of a commercial shoot, with a lot of people on set, tight timelines, demanding talent, and exacting clients, seems like the best use of everyone’s time. It must be working, because some of these fellows are on their fifth retreat — which pushes me to improve, tinker, and rethink every time as well, because I can’t feed them the same material over and over.

I’m very proud of the work the students shot for their Van Rysel assignment in Val Di Susi… The assignment? Shoot the brand’s new gravel bikes reflecting the more casual ethos of this new range.

The assignment for Mazzer grinders had us in some very un-shit places, and it’s fair to say they delivered on their work. Their mission: capture an espresso bar in the morning for the countertop grinders; and in the evening, a sunset mission at an alpine lake.

Alumni:
Juan Moncayo
Bentley Zylstra
Vicky Fenner
Matt Hildreth
Corbin Heist
Benjamin Israelin
Becca Searns
Callum Davis

Massive thanks to Evan Ruderman and Alex Tarin for helping me produce these experiences. I couldn’t have done it without them.

BTW, we’re opening applications to the Lofoten Retreats this September in Norway. If the Dolomites retreat sounded like a good time to you, consider joining us and apply here.

On Genuine Self Expression

One of the many benefits of doing Gestalt therapy every week is that it’s helping me reconnect with my instincts. Because I have been grinding quite hard the last 10 years, trying to keep my head above water, I realize that for survival’s sake, I often catch myself numbing my feelings or muting my inner voices. While that is extremely useful for keeping track of projects and deadlines, it isn’t useful at all for fostering creativity. 

You see, creativity is the thing that’s deep inside you, like the hidden part of the iceberg. But to access it, you first need lines of communication between consciousness and unconsciousness. Your inner world and your outer world. To put it simply, if you don’t stop to notice how you react to things, you can’t really know why you like or dislike things. But when you stop and notice, you start making connections again, and you start to learn about yourself again. That hidden self is where I believe creativity lives. 

The program of becoming a functioning adult is designed to sabotage part of these lines of communication. You have to trade your time for money, the trash needs to be taken out, and the taxman wants his cut at the end of the year. Years go by, and without guard rails, we end up veering far away from the child who knew how to live in the moment, act out of instinct, and privilege play above all else — for him, there was no future, no past, only the now. My adult self is too often caught up in the act of keeping up with profit and loss statements vs. focusing on genuine self expression, and I want some of the child self back. 

So here’s what I am doing to encourage him to come back: 

1. Turn my phone off at 8 p.m. Most days I succeed, and that gives me time to do something more fun like playing a board game with Andrea, reading a book, or simply putting ideas to paper.

2. Start the day without a screen. No phones for the first hour of the day. Instead I stretch, do some cardio, journal, or spend time with my 3-year-old daughter (who has a lot to teach me about being a child). These two methods, and much more, I owe to Benji from Wylder Pursuits who has been challenging me with all kinds of new ideas.

3. Big time blocks for riding my bike or running in the forest. It boggles my mind how much creative thinking happens while on a 3-hour bike ride. Thoughts run free, imitating the repetitive motion of the crank case.

4. No scrolling. Whenever I inevitably open Instagram, I don’t allow myself to scroll down past the first publication. A quick DM check, and move on. I will use IG on the browser to catch up on peers’ work, but I try to be intentional about doing just that. 

5. Create sacred creative space. I have been carving out time blocks, ranging from a few hours to a week, where I tune out the voices in my head and simply focus on making great work for the sake of it. Without any regard for its outcome, since I cannot control it. Some aspects of doing this newsletter fall into these time blocks. I’ll also go look at my photo archive and start making new sets out of forgotten folders, or re-edit some past work with a different eye. Or even better, I’ll go on a trip for a few days to keep building on a personal work series. (More on that this fall!) It seems as though the more engaged I am in this process, the more everything else takes care of itself.

6. Study my early work. What made it flow naturally? What was I feeling and thinking about? Who was I with? What were we doing? I believe a lot of the answers lie in this simple act.

I understand these methods are a form of luxury. Not many people have the time or resources to carve out hours out of their busy day to go on a bike ride, or take three days off to go photograph something. But if you are reading this, then you must be one of the lucky ones who has the time to think about their creative pursuits. I hope you experiment with these, or even better, build your own methods and share them with me here.

Watching

I found this short film very powerful, emotional, and somewhat dangerous. That’s why I feel confident saying you should give it a watch this evening. I first viewed it on the plane and was brought to tears by the end of it — although some research suggests that we are more emotional on planes due to cabin pressure and the general isolation the experience brings, I still was very moved when I watched it a second time at home with Andrea. Our human mind can’t comprehend how old the universe is, and I immediately default to: “What am I doing with my life?” when I’m reminded of how insignificant our lives can be in relation to the universe itself… Anyway, by the next morning that hint of sadness should turn into fuel.

Go Deeper

The Lofoten No One Sees Retreat 2025: Experience the lesser-known side of the Lofoten Islands with a group of like-minded photographers led by Alex Strohl.

My editing presets: Speed up your editing workflow and achieve unique edits with my Lightroom editing packs.

This newsletter is edited by Danny Smith

Both revolve around the same maddening truth: we spend most of our time urgently avoiding the work that actually matters. Shall we?

Lessons from the Dolomites

I’ve just returned from three weeks of traveling through Europe for various assignments, a series of films for CNN in Turkey, and a campaign for NOMOS Glashütte in the Dolomites.

I’m afraid to admit that it all felt very business as usual — nice, but familiar. After completing more than 150 assignments, it all starts to feel quite normal. You go somewhere incredible, meet a crew of usually very nice people, shoot, celebrate the fact that once again, we got away with it, and go back home. Of course, I wouldn’t trade any of it, but every once in a while, it’s important to challenge yourself to do something that feels new to you.

Four Days That Changed Everything

For years I’ve wanted to take time off, head to a hut in the mountains with no internet, and do deep work. It started as an ambitious dream of spending 6 months in Scandinavia. But then it became unrealistic with work and family. Then it was 1 month in the Alps, but as soon as I penciled that into my calendar, both CNN and NOMOS came knocking, asking me if I was available that exact month I had carved out for my retreat… As any sensible freelancer would do, I said “I’d move some things around and make time for them.” So my retreat was once again postponed. 

Except it wasn’t. With the encouragement of my lovely wife Andrea, I was able to carve out four days in the Dolomites by myself, free from any obligation, to finally have that much-needed thinking time.

Making coffee at Chalet Liosa - the rhytmn of my days.

It was incredibly transformative. You really need three days at a minimum, because you spend the first two trying to disconnect from the day to day, and then by day three you get to work. It’s a bit like thru-hiking — everyone says you finally get into the groove by day three. I admit to feeling that too.

A full article could be dedicated to organizing a personal retreat, but today I’ll give you my humble essentials, based on what worked for me:

1. Pick a place with no distractions: No restaurants, no fun things to do, no internet. Usually going somewhere in the low season checks that box.

2. Don’t over plan it: I kept my time very free flowing by adopting a mindset of having an abundance of time, thus removing the pressure to perform anything. The goal is to reconnect with yourself and your ambitions.

3. Keep logistics to a minimum: I love to cook, but I opted out of doing groceries to save time on cooking and cleaning. All my meals were at nearby restaurants. I also decided to pair this retreat with fasting windows, so I’d skip every breakfast and there was a 24-hour fast in the middle. It is incredible how much time you have in a day if you remove meals. You’re left with 5- to 6-hour blocks of uninterrupted work time.

4. Don’t chain yourself to a desk: Every day I made it a point to spend 2-3 hours exercising at low intensity so I could work on the problems I couldn’t solve by looking at a piece of paper. Could be hiking, jogging, or mellow bike rides. We all have our definition of what an easy workout is, so just do your version. It’s amazing how walking for hours on end can temporarily remove all the knots in your mind and help you see things with more perspective.

5. Go alone: Don’t try to mix this retreat with a family vacation. This is about removing every aspect of the day to day so you can focus on the future you want to build.

The takeaways

This retreat helped me understand where I want to be in the next few years, and what goals I should set. Here’s where I landed:

Go hard on the photography retreats we organise every year: After working on what I value for a full day, I realized how much I enjoy assembling experiences with the potential to be transformative for others. BTW, we’ve just opened applications to the Lofoten No One Sees Retreat this September so you can partake in one those life-changing experiences.

Stop playing it safe with StudioFRR: Matthew Woolsey and I started this dream creative shop a few months ago, but we haven’t 100% fully committed to it because we get busy with other missions. The goal is to go all in on it — say no to all the other stuff, and go hard on it.

I hope this inspires you to carve out the time for this critical work we all need to do every couple years. Although the work never stops, and it’s healthy to check back in with who we are vs. who we want to be every few months, it’s important to do these big sessions that allow for direction-setting decisions.

50,000 subscribers > 500,000 followers

Or, why you need to own your audience before someone else does

I know, this is a bold statement, but I believe it to be true. Let me lead with an example: If we asked the founders of Huckberry or Moment to choose between keeping their IG or their email list, which do you think they’d choose?

If you guessed their email list, you are right. If we took away their email list and left them with their IG and Facebook audience, their business wouldn’t survive, hence that bold claim above. Let’s examine why.

The beauty in an email list is that you have built it and you own it. People have at some point agreed to let you email them, and that email is going straight to their inbox. I know email tools like Gmail are filtering a lot of marketing, but there are ways around it. As a business, if you decide to change email platforms, you can simply export your audience file and move it to a new platform. You can even print it and put it in a book if you are so inclined.

However, with a social media audience, things start to get a bit messier. Yes, you have built that audience; people have chosen to follow you, but that audience is not yours. It’s Meta’s, it’s Google’s, it belongs to whoever owns the rails. So, that’s all well and good until the platform decides to change things up, because they now have the desired scale and they can start to monetize. The algorithms, the ads, the updates, all those things start barreling down the mountain, leaving you stuck because you now have to pay to reach that audience you thought you built. For a lot of brands it’s even crazier because they spent money acquiring an audience and they’re stuck constantly having to pay to re-acquire it…

It’s simple business. Meta calls it G.E.M: Growth, Engagement, Monetization. Those are the three stages of any social media platform.

It’s ironic that I’m writing this, because this is what some of the most prominent North American bloggers told me at a travel marketing conference back in 2013. I was all in on building an Instagram audience, and they weren’t into the idea of not owning their audience. They were not going to invest time into it. Well, for better or for worse, all these bloggers had to get on IG eventually, but they had a point. I didn’t want to hear their point back then, I simply labelled them as dinosaurs who didn’t want to live with the times, but there was wisdom in their stance.

Luckily, their words left an impact on me. After leaving that conference, I immediately started building an email audience. Moved by the now classic 1000 true fans essay, I loved the idea of having direct access to an audience who cares about what I have to say. If you are reading this, you are probably a part of that audience, and I thank you for having stuck with me for so many years.

Of course I value my IG audience immensely, but I value my email list just as much. Sure, it doesn’t have the clout of being “millions of people,” but it can influence quite a lot of people in more profound ways. It’s slow media vs. bite size. It’s David vs. Goliath.

“The best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago. The second best time is now.” — Source Unknown

If as a freelancer you haven’t started building an email list, I need you to do the following: 

1. Come up with a promise of why anyone should give you their email. It could be that you’re going to send them photos you like, a free product, or maybe you’re going to release a book, or an online class. Whatever that is, just promise something worth signing up for, and deliver on it.

2. Make a simple page on your website called “Sign Up.” (I keep mine at the bottom of every page.)

3. Add a form to capture people’s names and emails

4. Promote that freshly made signup page.

5. Thank me in one year, or twenty.

Outtakes

Work With Us

Matthew Woolsey and I run StudioFRR, a boutique creative shop that helps brands grow through better storytelling. We specialize in breaking companies out of the dead-end loop of paid ads and algorithm decay.

Our clients include founder-led companies and marketing teams at larger brands who prioritize genuine connection over empty reach metrics.

Apply to work with StudioFRR

Go Deeper

The Lofoten No One Sees Retreat 2025: Experience the lesser known side of the Lofoten Islands with a group of like-minded photographers led by Alex Strohl.

My editing presets : Speed up your editing workflow and achieve unique edits with my Lightroom editing packs. All photos in this issue were edited with them.

First, an announcement: There are two spots left on my Dolomites Photo Retreat this June 2025.

I built these experiences to be transformative both on a personal and professional level by sharing my playbook for becoming a fulfilled and successful pro photographer. To keep things actionable, we will tackle two different commercial shoots from real clients, all in the incredible setting of the Italian Dolomites. 

If you are ready to create standout work and take your career to a new level, please apply here today. I only do one or two retreats per year, so these spots will sell out.

Dolomites Retreat

Patagonia For 5 Days

I’m in a cloud of haze as I search for the words for this introduction. The culprit for this groggy feeling? Two words: jet lag. After fighting to keep my eyes open for 10 minutes, I was able to extract myself from bed at 9am, stretch, do some push ups, and walk down to the studio where I find myself now, wondering if I should have remained in the horizontal position instead. 

You see, I just got back from Chile where I was making a film with my good friend Isaac for one of the LVMH brands. (They won’t let me say which one yet!) It was one of those assignments you can’t say no to. The kind where you imagine yourself as a grandfather, telling your wide-eyed grandchildren, “Yeah… grandpa did this one day…” Once the project is out, and the people in the Parisian offices with herringbone wooden floors and high ceilings allow me, I’ll give you the backstory in one of these next issues.

“I don’t tell my plumber what to do”

Those were the client’s words, verbatim. Mercifully, it wasn’t one of mine. But still, as a colleague of mine recounted this heated exchange he had last week, it made me reflect on our relationship with our clients.

The client was upset about missing shots — shots they had never requested in the first place. The irony? This wasn't even a paid job; my colleague was doing a favor. I wrote about this approach previously: Either do favors for valued relationships or charge full price, but never discount. That's exactly what he did. When the client complained about "missing crucial shots" after delivery, my colleague responded, "You never mentioned those needs or provided a shot list. How was I supposed to know what you wanted?" That’s when the touchy plumber analogy was put forward by the client.

So… It’s true that I don’t exactly write a detailed plan to my plumber for how he should do his job. I trust him with the gist of the project, like “please install this new sink here.” But if a client tells us, “please photograph my new table here,” are we supposed to be like the plumber and just do what we think is best? I’m not so sure because on the surface, it seems reasonable. But there's a fundamental difference between technical trades and creative services that this analogy misses entirely.

A plumbing job has a clear, objective outcome: the sink works, doesn't leak, and meets code. There's a finite set of "right ways" to install plumbing, all leading to the same functional result. Whether the pipes run slightly left or right behind my wall makes no difference to me as the client.

Photography and filmmaking don’t work this way. When a client says, "Please photograph my new table here," the possible interpretations and executions are virtually infinite:

• Is this for e-comm requiring clinical white-background product shots?

• Is it for a high-end catalog where lifestyle context matters?

• Do we need details of the craftsmanship?

• Are we showing the table alone, or styled with accessories?

• Will these images be used in print, IG, or both?

• etc…

Each of these questions fundamentally changes the approach, and none of them has a universally "correct" answer like plumbing does.

While it would be nice, mind reading is not a service we offer.

As creative professionals, we constantly battle the assumption that we should intuitively know what clients want without adequate briefing. The truth is that even experienced creatives can’t read minds and require some form of direction. Ok… to be completely transparent, I have to admit that often, clients come to me with a “carte blanche” approach where I have a lot of creative freedom. They usually want it to look like the photos I share online, straight out of that universe. It sounds fun, but it can be very exhausting because it takes a lot of empathy for the client to get the balance between what serves me and what serves the client right. But even in these circumstances, there are a set of deliverables, a timeline, and a budget.

The problem with a lack of visual direction is amplified when working for free. My colleague found himself in the awkward position of having donated his time and expertise, only to be criticized for not delivering something he was never asked to provide. It's like giving someone a free ride and having them complain about your choice of route.

The solution

For photographers and clients alike, the solution lies in better communication:

• Establish clear expectations upfront - Even for free work, a simple email outlining deliverables protects both parties.

• Ask the right questions - As photographers, we need to proactively interview clients about their needs, even when they seem reluctant to provide details. In this case, asking if there any “must have shots” would have been useful.

• Sniff test - some clients won’t be worth your time and if you get bad vibes as the conversation advances, you can always send the gig to someone else without creating an enemy but still preserving your sanity

Trading Security for Sovereignty

I sometimes lay awake in the wee hours of the morning. One thought leads to another, and then another. This time I found myself pondering the life choices we all make and where they take us. We often see the highlights of our peers: the big shoots, the dream clients, the incredible locations. But what go unseen are the sacrifices made and the struggles encountered. Let me preface this by saying I am fortunate enough to not have encountered life-threatening hardship in my life — most of the bad things that happened, I was the one who put myself into them. 

But struggles are struggles. Like with anyone, there are highs and lows in my career. Some days you feel like you’re on top of the world with endless momentum and enough strength to tow a freight train. Then, there is an off month, and you find yourself covered in doubt, wondering how you’re supposed to keep doing this for 30 more years. To be honest, I have never thought about quitting. But I sometimes wonder what it would be like to have a real job. You know, one with a steady paycheck and built-in vacation time. 

Here’s my humble roadmap to navigating this unconventional career path.

Building a career without a roadmap

Obviously, no one really knows what they want to do when they leave high school. I didn’t either. There are, however, very respectable careers that offer a predictable path such as law, doctoring, accounting… But what do you do if those don’t sound like you? I was bad at math and I couldn’t imagine spending 10 years studying. I wanted to go out and “see the world,” but counselors couldn’t really help me find a job that did that. Ok, I could be a pilot, but again, I’m bad at math. The thing is that the world changes so quickly that my job didn’t exist when I left school. I somehow invented it by following my intuition, and doing what other people whom I looked up to were doing. So when people ask me how they can do what I do, I tell them the following.

1. Never stop building your network and meet people (college is a great way to do that) — opportunities are attached to people.

2. Develop a strong discipline by training you to do hard things.

3. Create, constantly. You never know who will see the work and what is going to happen.

Comparison to others

This is a tricky one I struggle with. What helps me is remembering that the world is not a zero-sum game. It’s not because someone has been handed a very good opportunity that anything has been taken away from me. Of course, as there are more and more people in one specific field, then at some point we all are competing for the same opportunities, at least on the surface. That’s hard, of course, and frustrating. In this case, you want to diversify and build your own identity outside of that niche by doing things in new ways, or adding new services, for example:

• Developing communications skills to be invited as a keynote speaker.

• Positioning yourself as a full service production studio.

• Bringing two different aesthetics together: ie. fashion and running ( What Satisfy and Salomon Sportstyle did).

• Learning how to fly FPV drones.

• Building a recurrent model with your clients vs. one off projects

• Tackling other aspects of the marketing puzzle for your clients: art direction, styling…

Once you have your own thing going, you will find it easier to not be comparing yourself to your peers as much because you are doing different things. The key is to see yourself and what you do as completely unique and irreplaceable. That is a lifelong struggle, of course.

Saying no to a safe but uninspiring job

The universe favors the bold, and the rewards you reap are only proportional to the risks you take. That’s the equation, at least. But some of us are not innate risk takers, so what to do? To me, a steady job was never in the equation. I’d be a terrible bus driver because I’d want to finish the trip as fast as possible to go for a run. Cook in a restaurant? Can’t do that very well either… The only thing I was good at was looking at the landscape and realizing what bits of it would make a good picture. I don’t think anyone is hiring for that job. But I somehow, miraculously, found a way to turn it into a career. And you can too if you truly believe it’s the life you want. If you are OK with the stress of creating original work day-in and day-out, getting paid on other people’s schedules, having your schedule change at the last minute. I know it’s the life that suits me most, but make sure you really weigh the pros and cons according to what you value.

Consistent output: If I do something, something will happen.

To do this job, you need a certain level of madness. You need to be able to pour tens hundreds of hours of work into something and hope anyone cares enough to consume it. And often, those are self-funded personal projects, so no one is there to reimburse you for your fuel or mileage. But deep inside, you have to believe whenever you have an output of work, something will happen. Someone, somewhere, will notice it. Maybe they will forward it to a friend, or show it to their partner, or boss. Most of the work I get is through that. So if I don’t put anything out, then less work comes in. Seems simple, but it’s easy to forget. 

So freelance life is full of horrible hurdles and it’s not worth pursuing — or is it? Yes, freelancing is a never-ending circle of chasing payments from clients who treat invoices as optional reading, getting no replies to emails, then too many at once, and producing work that's often consumed and forgotten faster than a Big Mac. The freelance existence isn't so much a career as a pathological condition, a madness that compels sensible people to trade security for sovereignty. Yet there remains something stubbornly empowering about crafting a life outside the norms of conventional employment. The freelance journey simply offers a different landscape for life — sometimes breathtaking, sometimes barren, but always, unmistakably, our own. 

Outtakes

This newsletter is edited by Danny Smith

Go Deeper

My editing presets : Speed up your editing workflow and achieve unique edits with my Lightroom editing packs. All photos in this issue were edited with them.

The Dolomites Photography Retreat 2025: Experience the still-authentic side of the Dolomites with a group of like-minded photographers led by Alex Strohl

Strohl x Moment 45L ultralight camera pack: “You no longer need to choose between a mountain pack and a camera bag. With this bag, you get both” — Moment

Adventure Photography Pro Workshop: Learn what it takes to make iconic work.

Masochism in Lycra

Today, I am sore. My legs are speaking a language only gravel bikers understand — a dialect of deep aches and sharp complaints, mapping every rock, climb, and descent from yesterday’s battle. The irony, though, is I got peer pressured into doing this 200-km race, but couldn’t be bothered to wake up at 5:30 a.m. for it, so I ended up missing the start and joining the group at the 50-km mark.

All in all, I rode a respectable 150 km (90 miles) and I can’t even imagine how my race mates’ calves must feel. My quads are like smoldering coals, and my calves have turned into tightened, reluctant fists — my body’s honest accounting of what was borrowed against tomorrow’s comfort. Racing is a bit like drinking, except you skip the pleasant buzz and go straight to pain, suffering, and questionable life choices.

It’s interesting because I wasn’t planning to surpass myself. I was going to ride with my buddy Max, who was aiming for a reasonable 20-km/h average. Well, we ended up averaging 27 km/h throughout the race, which felt a bit frantic. 

Every week I devote 6-7 hours to what I call “voluntary suffering,” whether it’s biking or running. Besides needing it for my mental health, I also adore the culture of sports. You share this common pursuit with people, a set of values, and in this day and age I want to belong to weirdly inspiring groups of people. Nothing bonds humanity more than collective masochism in moisture-wicking fabrics.

Racing, though? I don’t really do it. I race enough everyday in my career to keep the standards high, to win the best bids for projects, to put out work that is interesting to my audience. Sports are my hobby. Nobody expects a slide deck “by Monday” after I’ve gone on my bike ride. I’m a Sunday “athlete” in the same way the people who own Olympus cameras are photographers — enthusiastic, well equipped, and blissfully free from professional consequences. Frankly, it’s one of the healthiest relationships I have.

Am I making excuses for myself or should I just enjoy what works for me? I would love to hear your take.

My 15-Year Love Affair with Lenses

With NAB in the rearview mirror, I feel like this is the perfect time to talk about camera gear. I’ve spent the last weeks going through tens of terabytes of my photography archive to unearth anything resembling insight. I’m delighted to report that I found some. The questions I set out to answer are the following:

• How does each focal length shape our visual storytelling and approach?

• How do you pair the right lens with the right shoot?

• How has my relationship with these lenses evolved over 15 years of professional work?

Every photographer has their trusted companions — pieces of glass that shape not just images, but entire careers. Over 15 years of shooting, I've captured more than 400,000 frames with these six distinctive focal lengths. Each one has become an extension of my vision, a unique voice in my visual vocabulary. From the expansiveness of ultrawides to the isolating precision of telephotos, these are the tools that have helped me translate the world as I see it. And today, I tell you what I think about them.

15-35mm

Out of all the lenses in this series, this is my most used by a country mile: over 143,000 photos shot with it! It’s the only lens that’s never left my camera bag, and it’s been with me on every fool’s errand. That’s not going to change anytime soon. 

I absolutely adore ultrawides because they represent with the most accuracy how the natural world feels to me. Anytime I’m outdoors, it feels like I finally have room to breathe, to open up. This lens gives that same feeling to my photos. It leaves room for air, interpretation, and most of all, context — something I always strive for. Showing what’s beyond the edges of a scene is one of the most satisfying things I can do, and this is the only lens that empowers me to do that.

Its biggest party trick? How it exaggerates the relationship between foreground and background, making images feel layered and immersive. If the foreground has something worth showing, it draws you right in — and if it doesn’t, just zoom in to 28mm or 35mm and boom, you’ve got a solid portrait lens. 

It’s common wisdom that there’s no perfect Swiss Army knife, but this one comes pretty close. Of course, you can’t overuse it — otherwise it loses its effect. Still, I feel like I’ve built my career on the back of this lens. So many photos, and honestly, so many I still enjoy looking at. After all, you’re only seeing 14 out of 140,000.

24mm

If you go by focal length, this is my second-most used. According to Lightroom, I’ve shot north of 71,000 frames at 24mm over the years. But focal length doesn’t tell the full story — there are 24-70mm zooms and 24mm primes. The one I’m talking about is the almighty 24mm f/1.4 prime.

The reason I’ve used it so much is simple: the aperture. As someone who likes to shoot in low light, sometimes before sunrise and often after sunset, the ultra-low aperture makes a lot of sense. You get more light into your sensor without cranking the ISO too high. Cameras have come a long way, but I still find most things beyond 6400 ISO not very nice to look at, so any bit of light I can scrape “naturally,” I will.Besides the logical reason, there is love and affinity for the object. I love how heavy it is. I love how it sits on the camera. And, most of all, I love the way that it limits my field of view (versus an ultrawide) while still allowing me to make sense of the chaos within a scene.

Most of these were shot in Norway’s Lofoten Islands with a few exceptions. Cowboys: Colorado; surfers: O’ahu; farmer: Switzerland; alpine lake: Switzerland

50mm

How could I do this write up without mentioning the nifty fifty? People have praised this focal length because it supposedly mimics “the human eye” field of view. I’m not sure I buy that — my view of the world feels like I have a 15mm macro lens screwed onto my eye sockets. The field of view is gigantic but I can also get macro-close to things.

So, the 50mm… I’ve shot 8,161 photos with the old EF 50mm f/1.2, and 8,694 with the new RF 50mm f/1.2. That’s not counting the film shots. Overall, the 50mm is my fourth-most shot focal length, and it took me a while to love it. 

It was too tight for the work I like to do, but I realized that if used wisely, it produces larger-than-life images. Akin to a medium format camera, especially if paired to the right camera body. It’s the perfect blend of neat bokeh and wide field of view.

70-200mm

Now let’s get into the less prestigious world of zoom lenses. Initially brought to market and perfected by Canon, these pieces of glass were meant to bring photographers closer to the subjects they couldn’t simply walk up to. The purists scoffed at these because they were improper: photographers had to get close to the action, often at the peril of their lives, and if you didn't do that, you were not a proper documentarian…

Nowadays, no one really cares whether you use one or not. In fact, 90% of the photographers I know have one of these in their kit.

If I had to give a name to my 70-200mm, it would be the “make it happen.” This glass doesn’t care about my excuses, it delivers solutions and makes a statement. Checking Lightroom reveals I've captured roughly 31,400 frames within this focal range. I typically reach for it when inspiration wanes or after exhausting possibilities with wider glass. But this seemingly practical relationship barely scratches the surface.

Many of my all-time favorite images were created with this lens. As someone drawn to cleaner, more "minimal" compositions, it's the ultimate isolation tool — sometimes to a fault, where it could be accused of producing overly simplistic images.

Yet this very quality is why I cherish the 70-200mm. It's a permanent fixture in my travel kit because the few times I left it behind, I inevitably found myself wishing I hadn't.

100-500mm

This beast isn’t just an extension of your vision; it's a tactical strike on distance itself. If the 70-200mm is the “make it happen” lens, this is the nuclear weapon — the Manhattan project in coated glass and weather sealing. It sees everything, but sees nothing at the same time. Point it at the wrong thing and it becomes useless. It really is a tool for separating subjects from their environment. My 17,000+ frames with it might seem modest until you consider its specialized applications.

This is what I pull out when I’m in front of a massive landscape, too big to capture with anything else. I draw a big breath (waiting for the stabilization to kick in) and methodically begin scanning at maximum reach. That’s when small compositions within the faraway landscape start to appear, almost like hazy miracles.

It won't win beauty contests with that protruding barrel, but this lens delivers extraordinary rewards for your patience.

You could argue that a lot of my best blue-hour work was done on this puppy, and you’d be right. Thank you for all these years, 100-500mm.

Watching

I enjoy re-watching this cycling film about the descent from Whitney Portal all the way to the desert floor — a mad 4,500-ft foot drop on smooth tarmac over a pretty short distance. I don’t know if I’d have the nerve to go this fast on a bike, a human torpedo wrapped in lycra, one pebble away from the worst imaginable road rash. Mad respect to those who ride it this fast.

This newsletter is edited by Danny Smith

Go Deeper

My editing presets : Speed up your editing workflow and achieve unique edits with my Lightroom editing packs. All photos in this issue were edited with them.

The Dolomites Photography Retreat 2025: Experience the still-authentic side of the Dolomites with a group of like-minded photographers led by Alex Strohl

Strohl x Moment 45L ultralight camera pack: “You no longer need to choose between a mountain pack and a camera bag. With this bag, you get both” — Moment

Adventure Photography Pro Workshop: Learn what it takes to make iconic work.

When Enough Is Enough

Lately, I have been reflecting on happiness. Are we doing everything we can to be unhappy? Is the appetite for more making us chronically dissatisfied?

I’ll answer with an anecdote: When I’d repeatedly ask my ski coach to break down how to do a specific drill, he’d hit me with: “Alex… You think about stuff too much.”

He wasn't merely exhausted by my relentless technical inquiries; he was delivering an accidental koan that cuts to the marrow of modern discontent. We are a civilization of overthinking primates, endlessly dissecting our own dissatisfaction while happiness melts away.

I’ve always been a thinker — not necessarily in the smart sense, but in the way of someone who’s always questioning things, inquisitive, boiling with curiosity. Luckily, it hasn’t prevented me from acting in life. I must have inherited my father’s instinctual decision-making skills which, honestly, have been a gift (so far).

As part of my quest to answer these burning happiness questions, I’ve started seeing both a Gestalt therapist and a life coach every week. I’ve also been having conversations with peers in my industry, to hear their take on the matter (and the general state of our photography industry) because for most of us, our identity, our moods, and outlooks, are linked to our work.

One of these peers is Chris Burkard. He is always the optimist, the excited, and unstoppable. He has the vitality of 100 human beings and for him, a day is 48 hours long. For these reasons, I've always loved spending time with him. Last week, when I asked him the hallmark question: "What are you doing in 10 years?" Without blinking, he blurted out: "The exact same thing.”

There’s wisdom in that statement. Here’s a man who has spent almost two decades building the life of his dreams and who’s telling me, “You know what? I’m happy with what I’m doing, I’ve arrived.” Isn’t that a lesson for all the hustlers out there? And don’t get me wrong, Chris is one of the hardest working in the field…

Perhaps happiness isn't something to be pursued at all, but rather the residue left behind when we're too engaged with life to notice its absence.

What moves the needle for commercial photographers ?

It’s the age-old question… But one I ask myself every Sunday, when I plan my week ahead:

What is the most important stuff I need to do? It’s funny because I know the answer inside and out, but I still like to repeat it out loud, as if hearing it gives it more impact.

As commercial photographers, we grow by doing the following:

1. Create (groundbreaking) personal work

2. Network

3. Distribute your work

4. Seek unique inspiration

Rinse and repeat. If you do this, I promise you will have all the success you want and then some. Let me expand.

Create Personal Work

This is the MOST important aspect, that’s why it goes first on the list. When you are making work for yourself, you’re scratching your own creative itch. You’re actively imagining things and bringing them to life. What you’re aiming for is a direct connection between your heart and the work. I like to imagine they’re connected by an invisible cable. I know that I’m in that zone (or close) when I feel a deep satisfaction while pressing the shutter. I can feel it throughout my body that I’m getting the shot I wanted.

If you look at most photographers’ websites, the “Personal” work category is the most visited. That’s because everyone, even clients, prefer seeing what our vision is, what we do in our free time, instead of just looking at our commercial portfolio. Now more than ever, we get hired based on who we are, not just what we do. So, I’m writing this for myself too: Create more personal work, every month, no excuses.

Network

The power of connecting with others, especially prospects, is multiplied by the quality of your portfolio. A quality portfolio has:

1. Some personal work: the kind relevant to your industry

2. At least five different client shoots: all relevant to the industry you want to work in; extra points if you have clients similar to your new prospect

3. No repetition: Avoid showing two similar images from the same shoot; as the curator, you need to pick the one you love most.

4. Brevity: I’d rather show 20-25 very strong images than 50 filler shots

A note on portfolios: I know very successful creatives who don’t have a portfolio. They’d rather make custom portfolios for the client in front of them for a more boutique feel.

Now back to the matter at hand. What I mean by “networking” is that you connect with others in the manner you know best. If you’re outgoing, then go to events and trade shows. If you’re an introvert, get on Linkedin and be of value to your prospects. See the Jake Dyson interview for strategies.

What matters most is that you genuinely connect with others whose work you appreciate. Don’t be pushy, don’t ask, be pleasant, and add value.

Distribute Your Work

This is how you choose to publish the work you produce. You have a lot of options here, but each requires a different type of curation. Here is the list I use (in no particular order)

1. Website: Where I put the work that’s most likely to get me hired

2. Social: IG, Linkedin, Substack — Where I share stories and thoughts along with the work

3. Books, zines: Where the work is incredibly curated, like 0.5% of my work ends up here

4. Gallery shows: Even more curated than books; 0.01% ends up here

Each of these has a purpose, and there’s no doubt you can be highly successful doing only of these really well. I like to be present in all these ways because it keeps it refreshing and interesting. Every platform has its challenges and benefits.

Seek Unique Inspiration

This is when it comes in handy to be curious. As photographers, we should seek inspiration in a lot of fields outside of photography. Obviously looking at photography books is very effective at informing our vision, but there are other places to look. The takeaway for me is to not look at Instagram for inspiration. I know it feels very effective; you can find anything so quickly on it, but if it ends up on your Explore page, it’s probably because it was highly derivative or entertaining. And neither of these are an ingredient for inspiration soup.

I’ve been going through this massive book called Art In Time: A World History of Styles and Movements, and it’s been so rewarding to learn more about the art movements I thought I knew enough about.

In the end, success as a commercial photographer isn't mysterious — it's methodical. Create work that moves you first, connect genuinely with others, share strategically across platforms, and feed your vision from diverse wells of inspiration. The photographers who thrive aren't necessarily the most technically skilled, but those who consistently execute these four fundamentals while maintaining their unique perspective.

Listening

A decade of curation narrowed down to this playlist - I’ve compiled my 500 favorite songs for your listening pleasure. Email me the ones I’ve missed!

Watching

Early morning in Stokksnes, Iceland — Chris Burkard

This is one of my favorites from Chris. The soft hues combined with the fresh snow on the peaks (Vestrahorn) make it irresistible. I also used to think it was fully staged — there was no way the horses would walk into the sea like that, so perfectly. But as it turns out, I was wrong, and this shot happened in front of Chris. 

Here’s the story from the horses mouth (no pun intended):

The story behind the photo is pretty simple... It was February on the southeast coast of Iceland & I had returned to try and photograph a wave that had always been lacking swell during my summer trips. Winter seemed like the best option. We parked, hike up over the frozen dunes and made our way toward the beach. The surf was high & the sound of the sea was a continuous roar. We finally got a view of the beach and just at the high tide line two Icelandic horses were making their way in unison toward the surf. I fumbled to grab my small camera out of my jacket and take a photo. They marched toward the water. Stopped and turned around for home. The moment happened so fast.. no time to adjust settings or do “another take” the moment was there and gone. Yelling over the sound of the waves was impossible. I later learned they were the landowner Omar’s horses and I made a big print for his house.
This photo has always been a good lesson that when I’m working I never leave without the camera, and more importantly it should be preset & ready to actually take a photo, not tucked away in a backpack in need of a settings adjustment.

Chris Burkard

This newsletter is edited by Danny Smith

Go Deeper

My editing presets : Speed up your editing workflow and achieve unique edits with my Lightroom editing packs.

The Dolomites Photography Retreat 2025: Experience the still-authentic side of the Dolomites with a group of like-minded photographers led by Alex Strohl

Strohl x Moment 45L ultralight camera pack: “You no longer need to choose between a mountain pack and a camera bag. With this bag, you get both” — Moment

Adventure Photography Pro Workshop: Learn what it takes to make iconic work.

An obsession with the American West

I’ve just dragged my restless soul back from Paris, where I spent a day with legendary photographer Pierre De Vallombreuse working on my upcoming American West exhibit. By some kind of cosmic administration error, I got Pierre to agree to help me narrow down 10 years of documenting the American West (more than 40,000 images…) to under 100 images. Needless to say, his merciless eyes were kept busy by the amount of inadequate work I brought up to his studio. Although, as he reminded me often, with the skeptical eye of someone who has spent way too much time looking at my work, all I need is 30 very good ones, and I have a show.

To my surprise, I left his studio quite cheery and excited. We succeeded in getting rid of the off-topic/overly commercial work, identified 50 strong images, and, even more importantly, unearthed a whole set of photos to go make. We need more details, and more portraits, and heartfelt photos where I’m not trying to make things look good, but just the way they are. A crutch from my commercial photography background…

I asked AI to compete against itself

While it is clear that LLMs and GenAI are seen as a threat in a lot of industries, it is unclear how that threat will actually materialize. 

So in a twist of midnight genius, I thought, why not ask AI what it would do to not be replaced by itself? 

A lot of the things GPT spewed out were already pretty evident, but there were a handful of things I needed to read again, because, as much as I hate to admit it, it made a good point. I'm sharing the three most resonant bits and why they struck me below.

ChatGPT prompt : If you were a commercial photographer, how would you stay relevant against AI generated imagery? It seems like your clients could just use AI to create their campaign images?

Answer: Good question. AI-generated imagery is getting crazy good, but if I were a commercial photographer, I’d focus on what AI can’t do (yet) and what clients actually value beyond just “having an image.” Here’s how I’d stay relevant:

1. Brands want real stories, not just pretty pictures. I’d focus on shooting real people, real places, real moments—things AI can’t fabricate convincingly.

Alex: This sounds like fluff, but there is insight hidden in plain sight. Yes, GenAI can’t (as of now) produce very convincing humans, especially in video form, but the takeaway here is to really lean into imperfect imagery, to use a documentarian eye, not a commercial eye. Document human processes (athlete training, artisan working) to add even more weight to the work.

2. Offer Strategic Visual Thinking, Not Just Photography.
   Many clients don’t just need “a nice image”; they need a visual identity that aligns with their brand.

Alex: I’ve heard this argument before where folks claim that GenAI, at the end of the day, still needs someone to tell it what to do — to “art direct it.” While I agree with the idea behind it, I’m not seeing any of my peers mastering how to direct AI tools… So in the end, it’s the early GenAI adopters, who were not necessarily art directors, who are best positioned to take on the new GenAI director roles. The takeaway here is either to master those tools, or to position yourself above the food chain, where you are an advisor to the marketing department and you can either help them cast GenAI directors or steer them toward real photography/filmmaking if that aligns with their strategy.

3. Clients don’t just hire photographers for the images; they hire them for the experience of working together.

Alex: This resonates a lot because we commercial photographers have gotten lazy at client servicing. The presentation/image delivery/invoicing suite of tools is making the process feel very commoditized. I draw parallels here with the experience of staying in a very nice boutique hotel, where it feels like the hoteliers “get you.” Everything feels as though it was made for you, and the entire experience is about making your experience easy and personalized. We need to bring that bespoke energy to our clients. For that reason, I’m doubling down on that in 2025.

It seems then as if the real enemy is complacency, not GenAI. Those of us who won’t update our skills, our tools, our ways of doing, are the ones who will be bulldozed by progress. If your work feels generic or transactional, AI can and will do it faster. I hate to say it, but the real question then becomes: What are WE doing to stay ahead?

The Emotional Language of Camera Gear

These have to be the two questions I get the most…

What gear do you use?
What camera should I get?

My go-to answers?

“Get the best camera you can afford…”

This is helpful because I don’t want to see folks getting into debt to buy the latest camera only to realize, one year down the road, that they didn't need such a capable tool for what they do.

”Spend most of your budget on the lens, not the camera.”

This will always be paramount. Think of the camera as the engine in the car, and the lens as the tires. A massive engine won’t get you far on worn out tires, at the first corner, you’ll go straight into a telephone pole. But a mighty little engine, on high-end performance tires, will take you anywhere fast, with a big grin on your face.

This took me a whole year to learn. I started my professional career on a beat down Canon 5D Mark I (still known for the bright, soft colors it produces) and a Canon EF 35mm f/1.4L. The “L” stands for “Luxury” in the Canon lens range, by the way. I had a five-year-old third-hand camera body and a brand spanking new 35mm prime lens that cost twice what the camera did. With that kit, I shot a lot of iconic work.

But in the end, I should make clear that while I do think about camera gear, I don’t think about it from a technical standpoint. I do think about how it influences my work, however. I’m more interested in the correlation between using a specific camera or lens and the work I produce with it.

The insight here is the following: Focus on the feeling surrounding the gear.

How does using a 15mm vs a 400mm change the way you see the world?

What happens when you look through the viewfinder of that medium format camera?

I have this Hasselblad XPan, and when I grab it I feel like a member of the Bang-Bang Club, about to be parachuted into a war-torn neighborhood in the suburbs of Baghdad.

Because what we do is so intangible, and often carries no meaning except to us, we get better by being more and more in touch with our feelings. It seems like most of our adult life experience is about numbing feelings, but as creatives we have to do the opposite and defend those seemingly anecdotal impressions because they create fuel for our work.

If you feel a certain way grabbing that old film rangefinder, go grab it, and let it take you places. Producing personal work is ultimately what gets us hired. To drive the point home, GMC ended up running my “BTS/for fun” film shots in their TV commercial instead of my more polished digital shots. It seems like the moments I captured with the BTS camera resonated more with the client. 

Perhaps because I was in a more relaxed state of mind when I was shooting those? I couldn’t tell you.

All I know is that being in tune with the way cameras make me feel has led to more breakthroughs that I can count.

Watching

Palawan, Southern Philippines — Pierre De Vallombreuse told me that it took him 35 years of going back to this valley to make this photograph. I believe him. Now, I need a print for my new studio.

This newsletter is edited by Danny Smith

Go Deeper

My editing presets : Speed up your editing workflow and achieve unique edits with my LR editing packs.

The Dolomites Photography Retreat 2025: Experience the still-authentic side of the Dolomites with a group of like-minded photographers led by Alex Strohl

Strohl x Moment 45L ultralight camera pack: “You no longer need to choose between a mountain pack and a camera bag. With this bag, you get both” — Moment

Adventure Photography Pro Workshop: Learn what it takes to make iconic work.

The world of automotive photography sits between making sheet metal erotica and baroque portraiture. That realization rang true for me once I realized the amount of time we spend agonizing about lighting said metal, placing the car in the landscape in a flattering way, and making talent look natural. Jake Dyson has made this peculiar niche his personal fiefdom.

I found myself sharing his company during a GMC campaign in Utah a year or so ago. My contribution to that shoot was simple, I was to be Alex Strohl and capture photos of adventurous things for the expensive camera kit directors Renan Ozturk and Eric Crosland had brought with them, along with a heavy dose of client expectations.

Being talent in a large shoot like that is enjoyable because you get time to observe others at work, I used those opportunities to study what makes people good at what they do — although I should probably focus on looking rugged for the camera but I just leave that to the low quality sleep you get in such endeavors.

So, here’s what I learned from shooting with Jake Dyson.

1. Relationships Open Doors, Not Cold Emails

This approach was uncovered during my first hour-long chat with him, and I found it very insightful. Most freelancers go about it the slow way: Get your first gigs for small local companies, then organize a portfolio, then start reaching out to clients with that portfolio. Spend years doing that until you finally end up on a large production. 

Jake followed a more creative path.

Step 1 - Shoot BTS: The foundation of his success began with shooting behind-the-scenes (BTS) content for local campaigns. By starting with local opportunities, he built a starter portfolio very efficiently. One of his early breaks came from shooting BTS for a car commercial, which later led to the director hiring him for a high-budget US Army campaign.

Step 2 - Have a Relevant Portfolio: The second part of this approach was the portfolio. He understood that having high-quality, relevant work was crucial to landing bigger campaigns,but not for the reason you might imagine. Conventional wisdom dictates that once you have some form of portfolio, you start “reaching out to brands.” Our boy Jake followed a more unconventional path. 

Step 3 - Bypass Brands: Instead of contacting clients directly (they rarely choose the stills photographer for large video productions), he targeted a select group of commercial directors with influence on these decisions and started reaching out on IG. He'd share genuine appreciation for their latest campaigns without asking for anything in return. Importantly, this wasn't a mass messaging strategy — he sent just a few thoughtful, authentic comments each month to directors whose work truly resonated with him. 

Jake knew they would look him up, so he made sure to have work relevant to those directors he messaged. If he hadn’t had those few images from the BTS shoots (which, let’s be honest, made him look like he punched way above his weight), he would have been wasting his time.

2. Define Your Niche and Own It

You have heard this before, but it is now truer than ever. Clients don’t want generalists, they want experts in their field. Having understood that, Dyson focused 90% of his efforts on photographing automotive. That field picked him because he has always been into cars. Make sure whatever you end up specializing in is something that you’re naturally keen on. If you force it, you may last 10 years, but it will be a boring 10 years… 

3. Work Smart: Delegate and Focus on Your Strengths

Coincidentally, the GMC shoot Jake and I were on last year was also his first major car shoot. He must have been doing things right because since then, he’s shot for BMW, Bentley, Jeep, Nissan, and Audi. So when I prompted him on that, I was reminded of how much psychology plays a role in this field. It’s not enough to know your strengths and weaknesses as a person. You also have to organize your productions based on that. That’s a totally different ball game. Two examples:

1. Acknowledging that he’s not a lighting geek, and that he is much better at communicating with a team/client, Jake built the set around that. He assembled a tight light crew with whom he shares the vision and “lets them roll with it” while he does all the client communications. 

2. 2. Also knowing his limitations when it comes to post-productions, Dyson works with both editors and retouchers to take the final images to the next level, like this shot for the GMC campaign.

Well, that’s it for the Jake Dyson interview. I hope you enjoyed this one as much as I did. I've outlined the more important takeaways below:

• Offer to shoot BTS for productions happening around you, even if it’s for free or a small day rate. This gives you exposure to professional sets while building a relevant portfolio that looks higher-end than your experience level.

• Target decision makers in the production pipeline and find ways to approach them creatively, without being annoying. Be patient with that: You just want to add value, not ask for anything.

• Nurturing relationships > Mass emailing 

• Choose your specialty genuinely. Whatever you decide to focus on, make sure you have been/are interested in it.

• Figure out where you add the most value personally and build a team around your strengths and weaknesses.

• Try working with a retoucher on your next project to take the final images to a new level.

Follow Jake Dyson on Instagram or Behance

This newsletter is edited by Danny Smith

For those of you still with me, here’s a gallery of my favorite shots from the GMC Utah shoot with the Xpan II and Portra 160/400

Check out the AS1 Essentials & AS2 Wild Editing Pack

Let’s get into the photos now.

#1 Slim Aarons - Corsica

If you don’t know Aarons’s work, you’re in for a treat. After serving as a combat photographer during World War II—an experience that earned him a Purple Heart after being wounded during the invasion of a village in Italy—Aarons decided he’d had enough of war. In a moment of irreverence, he gave his medal to a “blonde” whose name he couldn’t recall and resolved to spend the rest of his life photographing “attractive people in attractive places doing attractive things.” This photo is a perfect reflection of that mission statement and one of my favorites of his. Especially because it’s from an area I didn’t even know existed! I’ve sailed from Corsica to Sardinia but must have been asleep when we passed by the Lavezzi Islands!

Slim Aarons Books

#2 Henry Kornaros - Iceland

I’ve always had great respect for people who commit to shooting ‘high-stakes’ commercial work on film, especially medium format. Henry is one of those individuals, and I love what he created in Iceland for Bandit Running.

“From a vision standpoint, the main thought was to put the gear to the test in the environment it's meant for. Bandit has 1 thing about them being pretty unique in the running space and that's that they follow a season schedule like most fashion houses, unlike most running/outdoor brands. Which leads them to this one unique issue being a New York based brand when they need to shoot a collection it's never the season it's meant to be because of schedule. So for this campaign we couldn't shoot the Winter collection in New York when it was still almost 80 degrees in mid October when it needed to be shot, so originally we thought let's go to Iceland, there will be a mix of Snow/Ice + other biomes that read cold. In regards to the helicopter being a main motif that's featured throughout the campaign, it really came down to 2 things. One being a time saver/practical aspect of having only 2 days in Iceland to shoot the project, instead of driving around to places. The other reason is that a lot of the images that we were inspired by were from ski & snowboarding campaigns/editorials and in some of those images they were being dropped off on the top of a mountain via helicopter. So it was this thought of being dropped off to run in places that you can't get to without a helicopter (or a big hike) was a fun take on it.

So to circle back to the top of what I'm giving some backstory on is that we wanted an emphasis on putting the gear to the test in a diverse grouping of locations + biomes and temperatures.

Everything was shot on film, about 60 rolls of Portra 120 with varying speeds and about 10 rolls of Portra 35 with varying speeds. Camera wise I shoot RZ67 II + 37MM Fisheye, 65MM, 90MM, 110MM and 250MM & Contax G2 with the 28MM or 45MM.”

Henry Kornaros

#3 Brendan George Ko - Hawai’i

I reached out to Brendan to feature the first photo in the set but when he shared the backstory, I knew I had to share the entire set.

“As someone that lives on both the mainland and in Hawai’i, I see two completely different views of the islands. Both of these views implies a paradise: from the outside it is a form of escape into a world so beautiful it can be experienced as a fantasy, lush vegetation, perfect weather, beautiful shorelines, warm waters, and its taste, sweet as the tropical fruit; from the inside it is a place under illegal occupation from the American government, it is the most expensive state to live in, but those fortunate to live here they are part of deep and caring community, where aloha (unconditional love) is not a commodity but relationship to the people one surrounds themselves with. Paradise is what the first people to arrive on these islands two thousand years ago found. Along the journey to arrive here, there were atolls which had sparse fresh water from the lack of cloud blocking mountains, or more southern islands that were too cold to grow all their favorite canoe plants, what would later be named Hawai’i had everything they needed.
So when I see this image of Hala (pandanus) against the Northern coast of Hawai’i, I see something that describes that ancient notion of paradise, there, Hala, a canoe plant that the voyagers used as a sail material and brought to new islands, already here and greeting them to their new home.”

Brendan George Ko

#4 Emily Garthwaite - Tigris River, Iraq

“The Tigris river, known as the Dijilah, has always been a conduit for more than water. Along with its sister, the Euphrates, it formed the eastern bound of Mesopotamia and irrigated some of the earliest civilisations on earth. For 7000 years its cycles of flooding have created seasons of plenty and scarcity, and at natural ports and confluence points major centres of power and influence grew. Political capital flowed up and downstream with the products of the ancient commercial world.

Many of those settlements of the old world are still industrial hubs; cities like Mosul, Baghdad, Samarra and Basra. Today almost 30 million people live in the watershed of the Tigris, but now the river faces existential threats on multiple fronts. Since the 1970s Turkey has built 16 new dams on the upper reaches and, with another 6 to come, the construction has already reduced the flow of water to Iraq. Dams in Iran and inside Iraq too also contribute to a significant change in the waters of the Tigris on its way south.

Meanwhile temperatures rise, and so too does reliance on increasingly sparse resources. Combined with over-consumption and aging water management systems, the Tigris may run dry before it reaches the Gulf. Millions of people’s homes and lives are at stake. Another result of the drying of the river, and the increased brackishness of the estuary, may be the death of the southern marshlands. There, since the time of the Sumerians, the Marsh Arabs have maintained a unique way of life, settling in reed-built huts and using water channels to travel between their herds of buffalo. The land often said to have been the Biblical Garden of Eden survived intense persecution under Saddam Hussein, but now its fate is tied to that of the river that feeds it.

This project tells the story of the uncertain future of the Tigris, and places it in the context of modern Iraq and the wider region.

And the image:

It was taken in Abu Al-Khaseeb district, just south of Basra. You can actually watch a video of me heading off to take the photograph.”

Emily Garthwaite

#5 Joe Greer - New York

Another shoot for Bandit, this time by Joe Greer, on film, and in a studio. Sounds like a big headache? It was…

"This year, I had the privilege of shooting Bandit's spring and summer campaigns entirely on medium-format film, a departure from my usual outdoor, natural-light photography. Both shoots were at ARI Camera Rentals' studio in Queens, featuring a 30-40 foot-wide LED backdrop. The controlled environment brought its own challenges, like managing pixelation and working within a tight framing space, but it also pushed my creativity in exciting ways.

For the summer campaign, Bandit’s founder, Tim West, envisioned a theme centered on the intense energy and heat of a New York City summer. The LED screen displayed AI-generated visuals, capturing that mood, while I worked to incorporate motion and emotion into the images. Shooting entirely on film—over 100 rolls across two days—I balanced technical demands with creative flexibility, leaning on my experience as a photographer and my background as a runner to craft authentic compositions.

Despite the constraints, I found liberation in working within these boundaries. Shooting with longer focal lengths, exploring dynamic motion blur, and finding unique compositions allowed me to merge my love for film photography with the essence of the running community. It was a collaborative effort with Bandit’s incredible team, models, and creatives, resulting in some of the most rewarding work I’ve done in years."

Joe Greer

#6 Guillaume Blot - France

This set hits close to home—literally. The shot below, along with many photos in Guillaume’s book, was taken in sleepy roadside bars near where I grew up in France.

“Gérard, a regular at the Café des Récollets in Largentière, Ardèche, France. This photo will grace the cover of the my book Rades. A year later, he confided that he wasn’t wearing his sunglasses for style, but because he had just undergone eye surgery.”

From the book Rades, a photography book capturing a France of lively bistros, their owners, and regulars.

Guillaume Blot

#7 Mason Mahon - Pemberton, BC

This place has always lingered in the back of my mind because I flew over it with Bradley Friesen and Cole Sprouse on a cold winter morning. We were on a day mission to the Pemberton Glacier, and Brad wanted to show us this scene along the way. We snapped a few shots and carried on, but a few weeks later, I stumbled upon Mason’s image.

This particular spot means a lot to both Rory Bushfield (pictured) and I. When I mentioned to him that this spot would be a great place for us to winter camp, he told me that the road had been dedicated to his wife (widow), Sarah Burke. It was one of those situations that felt so right. This photo was taken the morning after our first night staying in it here, and it had snowed 3 feet overnight. In a lot of ways it felt like a gift from Sarah, as we continued to follow our hearts and dreams in the mountains.

Mason Mashon

#8 Dean Bradshaw - Alaska

Here’s yet another catalog shoot for the 2024 roundup. Capturing shots that feel natural during a commercial shoot is one of the highest achievements for a photographer—and Dean did just that.

“Where to begin—this shoot was an incredible experience, and one I’m truly grateful for. It was all about real people, real locations, and real action. For a brand like Filson, which embodies grit, hard work, and rugged environments, there’s no better way to capture that spirit than by diving into a genuine adventure and approaching it like a photojournalist. Instead of meticulously crafting each frame or staging scenarios with models, the team embraced the idea that the magic happens when you immerse yourself in dynamic, authentic scenes—real people doing real work. My focus was on staying in the action, even while navigating deep snow and the cold. The conditions themselves were as much a character as our talent. 

My approach was the same as it would be for any photojournalistic assignment in extreme conditions: fast, reliable cameras, shooting plenty of frames and putting myself in the right spot. Nothing fancy when it comes to gear - what was more important was finding the best angles and compositions on the fly. I tend to thrive in that kind of chaos, so it was a lot of fun. 

As for challenges, working in the snow was the biggest hurdle. The physicality of the shoot is all part of the story—moving through deep snow and capturing moments that were often impossible to repeat. That said, we lucked out with relatively mild weather and plenty of sun, though I wouldn’t have minded a bit more snowfall to heighten the drama of the images.

All in all, it was one of the most memorable shoots I’ve been on, with an incredible team and very rewarding since we were shooting something authentic without a big crew and with a ton of freedom.”

Dean Bradshaw

#10 Evegnia Arbugaeva - Siberia

Every few months, I check in on Evgenia’s work. On my latest visit, I discovered this now-completed series about her hometown in Siberia. These are the characters and conditions I can only dream of capturing—places where it feels like time has stopped. I did get Evgenia’s blessing to share this set but didn’t hear back in time about the backstory. If you’re curious to learn more, just grab her book linked below.

From the book Tiksi which explores the peculiarities of the far north through the eyes and games of a little girl.

Evgenia Arbugaeva

#11 Clara Shuku Mokri - O’ahu, Hawai’i

“This is a photograph of my good friend and surfboard shaper Trey Martinho in Oahu, Hawaii. As cheesy as it sounds, anyone who has dedicated their lives to surfing will tell you that it’s so much more than just a sport—the spiritual connection is more akin to a religion than anything else. To me, surfing is my way to connect with my Indonesian ancestors—people who depended on the ocean to live and travel, and who have recreated in it for generations. Without fail, surfing boosts my serotonin and eases my mind. When I began photographing in the water, I assumed that these feelings would translate. While in many ways I still experience the peace of being in the water, there’s so much more to surf photography than just the standard light and composition. In addition to "getting the shot", the photographer also has to do it while swimming, fight the currents to stay in position, dodge oncoming waves and stay out of peoples’ way. There’s also the element of the unknown beneath the surface. On this particular day, shortly after swimming out, another surfer had paddled up to me saying that he had just seen a great white shark in the lineup.”

Clara Shuku-Mokri

#12 Joseph Haeberle - Oregon

Typically, I come across more photographers who aspire to be cowboys or ranchers—which is fine. But when I discover someone who’s more rancher than photographer, I know I’ve found a true gem. I’ll cut Joseph some slack for his rather succinct caption; I’m sure he’s back out fixing fences.

Cowboy nap on the Carman Ranch in Wallowa, OR

Joseph Haeberle

#13 Maria Lax - Sweden

Maria’s work has been an inspiration since I found her nearly five years ago. The way she lights her saturated scenes at night is something I admire. She’s one of those photographers who makes me miss winter during the summer. I got her blessing to share this image but she’s been too busy with the holidays to give me the backstory so I dug up some technical bits about her process, mainly to satisfy my own curiosity.

“Maria Lax's process for creating her distinctive night photos with lights involves using continuous lighting, lens filters, and colored gels, along with long exposure techniques to capture vivid, colorful scenes in low-light conditions. Influenced by her background in cinematography, she experiments with various types of lights to push creative boundaries, often shooting in natural settings like forests, which she considers her "safe space." Lax aims to transform familiar locations into almost unreal landscapes by enhancing colors and contrast in post-processing without altering the original elements of the image. Her solitary shooting sessions in remote areas allow her to immerse herself in the atmosphere, resulting in otherworldly images that blur the line between reality and fantasy.”

Maria Lax

Thomas Lodin - Australia

“I captured this photo at Bells Beach, Australia, in June 2023. I was accompanying my surfer friend, Arnaud Mestelan, to document his trip for Oxbow as part of the documentary Walkabout, produced by the brand and centered on him and Robbie Page. After nearly 40 hours of travel, we arrived mid-afternoon to be greeted by an exceptional swell—the first of its kind in three years. Mesmerized by the endless right-hand waves rolling out of sight, Arnaud couldn’t resist jumping in the water before nightfall. He wanted to shake off the journey and get his bearings in preparation for an even more promising swell in the days to come.

From the cliffs, I photographed every one of his waves while exploring the area to find the perfect angles. As night fell and Arnaud emerged from the water, he paused to take in one last set of waves. By chance, I was perfectly aligned with him and managed to capture the moment. Arnaud’s stance and the light perfectly reflect his state of mind: a surfer experiencing a unique moment at Bells Beach, a legendary spot rich in history and energy. With his Single Fin Pipeliner under his arm, the image takes on a timeless quality.”

Thomas Lodin

That’s it for today. Thanks so much reading, and a solid year to you.

Alex

Let’s go.

How I’m Editing In 2025

The big problem for me is that we’re inundated with perfect imagery. Cameras have gotten extremely capable, lenses are sharper than ever, and I feel like we live in an 8K world where we can see too much detail in everything and everyone. We are experiencing a film photography boom, fueled by people’s desire to infuse some kind of flavor and imperfections into the life they choose to photograph. There is also the growing market for specialty lens filters that add a “glow” or a “mist” to your images (I love those, by the way). When you think about it, it’s bonkers to buy a $2899 lens only to throw a $79 filter in front of it to make the lens we worked too hard for, effectively “worse.”

But I empathize with this movement of worsening gear to take away “the digital edge.” I’m even a big proponent of it, so much so that I’ve spent the better part of this year developing new editing resources to make my images less perfect, more raw, more “surreal.”

In 2025, to paraphrase the great Todd Hiddo, I’m going to shoot like a documentarian and edit like a painter.

This takes me to my AS2 WILD Editing Preset Pack, which I’m delighted to introduce to you today. You’re getting the premiere before anyone else. 

Since this is a photo issue, please allow me to demonstrate with images.

You get the idea… AS2 WILD is all about differentiation. It’s made for those images that need that extra surreal touch because within one set, multiple worlds can exist. The rules have changed. We are not bound to have the same consistent edit for every single photo. We have the freedom to create our worlds, and reinterpret reality whenever we see fit. 

Get your WILD pack here. It’s on a launch sale for a limited time.

AS2 WILD EDITING PACK

The Best Photos of 2024

Throughout the year, I meticulously save the images that stop me in my tracks or intrigue me so I can revisit them later. Up until now, those folders have stayed in the depths of my computer and I thought, why not share them with you? I look at photos every single day, I genuinely love it, and I figure that if you read this newsletter, you do too. 

So… there is a grand total of 24 photos. I’m showing you the first 12 today and the remaining 12 in the next issue.

For every photo, I’ve reached out to the photographer to gather more info, anecdotes, the back story, juicy stuff. Consider this an exclusive, just for you. For the photographers I haven’t been able to make contact with (all-star legend status), I’ve dug through the archives and dissected interviews, in different languages, to bring you what I believe is most important and not the usual boilerplate interview answers we photographers tend to give when asked about the same images over and over.

#1 Flo Pernet - Paris 2024 Olympics

I love how Flo was able to get an iconic shot like this one out of hectic race schedule and tough weather — those are the shots I have the most respect for, because the photographer had to work with what they had and make the most of it.

“So it was my second day shooting for Paris 24 and fun fact, it was actually free entrance so everyone could come with their camera, no accreditation needed. That was my first time shooting cyclism and damn it was FAST. So basically for this competition, talents starts one by one on the starting line. So when someone pass in front of me, I have a gap of 2 to 3 secondes to shoot them. Then I wait for the next athlete and I have 3 seconds again. The rain was pouring all day long and I could see the reflection on the floor. Because of the weather, everything was really grey and flat, so I started to look at other perspectives and trying to embrace the weather rather than being mad about it. I shot this picture with a 15mm, so the original picture is way wider than the final result. But I love spending time during the edit to crop on details because I have full control on the composition.”

Flo Pernet

#2 Kamil Bialous - Tofino, BC

I find a lot of the surf photos out there very repetitive or factual — like sport photography. Whenever I come across one that feels absolutely right, I have to save it. I love the imperfection in the image — there are some chromatic aberrations on the subject, and the focus is not perfect, which makes this shot even more interesting to me.

“I was asked to shoot a photo essay related to surfing, for more of a lifestyle magazine, but the waves and weather had been horrible for a long time so I wasn’t sure how that was going to line up. I decided to focus on the sensations around surfing and the water, and more of the feeling around it. Photographing the feeling of something is always the most interesting for me. Thankfully we got sunny weather for about 3 days as the magazine was about to go to press and I shot every evening as a few surfers started showing up with their longboards. These were probably the first small waves of the year so the longboard crowd was stoked. I really like to push the camera sensor to its limits, and generally prefer a darker file to a light one. So with that in mind I swam every late afternoon shooting those feelings around surfing until my battery ran out in my water housing. This was a frame that happened to be in there among a few other good ones.”

Kamil Bialous

#3 Coddy Cobb - DEPTHS

Ever since I saw Cody’s Cascadia series back in 2016 I’ve been a fan of his work. He seems to reinvent himself still sticking to his vision every year.

"A cold night, deep in the Uncanny Valley. An experiment with light and form in the Great Basin of Nevada, this photo captures pure surface information and allows me to print in a three-dimensional relief.

The Great Basin has a unique way of distorting time and space. Driving for hours down dirt roads with a distant cloud of dust as the only evidence that you’re not the only person remaining on Earth. Endless basins and ranges folding into one another, deep caverns descending into limestone. At night, the darkness feels absolute - no lights on any horizon, just craggy peaks emerging from shadows that your eyes never fully adjust to. It’s the kind of isolation that makes you question your own scale. It’s as exhilarating as it is haunting, a feeling that I’m always attempting to articulate in my photographs of the West.”

Coddy Cobb

#4 A foggy Himalayan Morning

“A NASA Mission Control operator at Johnson Space Center captured this oblique, northward view of the Himalayas using the International Space Station's External High-Definition Camera as it orbited over central India at sunrise.

The image highlights fog flowing from the mountains into shadowed valleys to the south, a phenomenon caused by overnight cooling that condenses water vapor into fog, which dissipates with morning sunlight.

The center-right features Nepal's Sagarmatha National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site spanning 1,200 km² (460 mi²). It includes Mount Everest (the darkest triangle in the far right) along with glaciers, valleys, and seven other prominent summits.”

NASA Earth Observatory

#5 Christophe Jacrot - Vercors

One of my favorite contemporary photographers. Christophe is constantly chasing rain and snow in obscure parts of Europe. I hope you’ll spend time looking through his site, because there is some remarkable work.

“This chalet is located in a small ski resort in the Vercors region of the French Alps. The resort is unique as it sits at a climatic boundary between the north and south. Just one cloud can bring up to eight hours of bad weather, with stronger winds and colder temperatures than most places.

I have two photos of this chalet: one from before its renovation and one after, both taken in identical weather conditions. This is the post-renovation version.”

Christophe Jacrot

#6 Brice Portolano - Inch of dust

As if we needed more proof that light can make or break an image… Brice is one of those guys who spends time walking the walk, and that shows in this image. The horses are loaded up, and you can tell they’re all out for a few days together.

“Argentina, January 2020

It was still dark when we saddled and packed our horses for the first day of the cattle drive. Our goal was to bring the herd of cows to the summer pastures, high in altitude. Around 8.00am, the herd was slowly moving through a thick cloud of dust when Sky, one of the gauchos, entered my camera frame as she was pulling the pack mule.

For three days we rode through the Andes Mountains, leading the herd with the help of our dogs. It felt like I was travelling through time, living a life meant to disappear.”

Brice Portolano

#7 Manu Pelissier - Golden Pillar of Spantik

The complimentary colors, the composition, and sheer scale in this photo elevate it into the alpinism hall of fame for me. I love the fact that I had never heard of the photographer either… Since I couldn’t contact Manu, I asked climber Marko Prezelj (pictured) to recount that day.

“This image was taken by Manu Pellissier in 2000 on the Golden Pillar of Spantik. It shows me on the morning of our third bivouac during the free climb of the Fowler-Saunders route. The day before, we climbed until late afternoon but couldn’t find a comfortable spot to bivouac. When route-finding in the dark became impossible, the four of us stopped for the night.

I remember squeezing into my sleeping bag with my boots still on, sitting on my backpack after removing my crampons. Several times during the night, I found myself hanging on the rope. Only in the morning did I realize how exposed the terrain was.

That day, we climbed to the summit and descended to one final bivouac before reaching base camp.”

Marko Prezelj has some serious climbing shots

#8 Jay Kolsch - Filson W23

This is one of the shots in this list that makes me seriously jealous! I wish I had it in my portfolio. The light is out of a Caspar David Friedrich painting.

“This was the last photograph I made capping off the W23 Filson campaign we shot in Montana. It was late March and it had been unusually warm. We spent the week chasing the snow and hadn’t had much luck. Production had found locations that worked for tighter needs but we still had not found that big scene setting photo for Filson’s winter roll out. All week long we searched for that big epic moment to no avail. At the end of the week we packed up the gear and checked into our flights feeling like Montana had gotten the better of us.

When I woke up the following morning and peered out the window I was shocked to see a sea of white. A random, unforcated small snow storm had pulled into the valley early that morning and coated the ground. Just what we needed. Moments later I saw the creative campaign director rushing out of his cabin headed in my direction. We all knew what he wanted. We rushed to unpack and get ready to make one last photograph. We spent 10 minutes fumbling, trying to make that photo feel sprawling and triumphant but it wasnt until we took a break to grab a ladder that the clouds started to envelope the mountains behind him. Realizing the scene finally looked complete I rushed talent back into the scene and shot the final frame.”

Jay Kolsch

#9 Jeremie Villet - Chamois

I’ve spent a decent amount of time shooting with Jeremie, and his dedication to creating his ethereal work is boundless. The man spends hundreds of nights a year in the wild, just waiting for the perfect moment, and when you see the work come out, it all seems worth it.

“I had been camping for 10 days in the Jura Mountains, hoping to catch a glimpse of a lynx against the pristine snow. One day, I heard a distant lynx call and watched from my hide as a group of alert chamois formed a circle. It was a cloudy day, the kind “when the snow and sky shared the light.” With no shadows or shapes in the snow, it felt “as if the chamois were floating in empty space.”

Chamois are agile herbivores, related to goats and sheep, and native to the mountains of Europe and parts of Asia. In summer, they graze in high meadows and move down to the forested slopes in winter. The hilly forests and high pastures of the Jura Mountains provide the perfect habitat for chamois to feed and shelter, and for lynx to hunt by stealth. Chamois prefer steep open spaces where they can spot approaching danger from a distance.”

Jeremie Villet’s New Book

#10 Achille Mauri - Crocs x Satisfy

If you make a commercial shoot look like a stolen street photo, you have my heart. I recommend you check out the entire set on Achille’s IG because it’s a great example of how to use hired talent and mix it with passers-by.

“I shot this for the Satisfy x Crocs collab in Santorini during the off-season, sometime in April. The island, usually packed with vacationers in August, was mostly empty. However, there were quite a few nudists on the beach, which turned out to be an unexpected but amusing addition to the shoot.

Interestingly, the nudists were about the same age as our talent—around 65 to 70 years old—so I decided to incorporate them into the scene. This gave the impression they were part of the casting, but they were just random beachgoers. At one point, it even looked like one of them got naked and joined in, which worked perfectly for the vibe of the shoot.

I used an underwater housing for the camera, which is always a great tool for these shoots.”

Achille Mauri

#11 Pentti Sammallahti

Sammallahti’s book, “Me Kaksi,” which means “us two” in Finnish, is one of those books I never get tired of looking at. Highly recommend, if you can find it.

“Helsinki, Finland, 1982.

I have to push myself to go see people. I find it hard to approach them; I like to keep a certain distance... In my photographs, animals play an important role. They indicate the scale, they represent the gateway into the photograph. Sometimes I direct them; they are my actors...”

Pentti Sammallahti

#12 Forrest Mankins

Only Forrest can make a photo of a fence interesting. He is the one person I know who can photograph the most mundane thing in the most compelling way. This Montana fence is one of his prime examples.

“I’ve been looking at this road on and off for 10 years now. I’ve seen it in the dead of winter, when the wind wanted to take the Land Cruiser door off, and I’ve seen it in August under wildfire smoke. But, with a late snow a few Junes back, I’d never seen it like this, and must have spent 30 minutes on the side of that road just looking. Photography is such a wonderful reason to notice things.”

Forrest Mankins

If you haven’t already, you can grab the AS2 WILD Preset pack here — it’s on sale for a very limited time.

AS2 WILD PACK

Thanks so much reading, and your support.

This newsletter is edited by Danny Smith

PS. I’m not sure why but my MTN Light Camera Backpack is on sale right now.

Building a Narrative in Photography

Steven Pressfield, in his book Nobody Wants to Read Your Sh*t, sums it up in a colorful way:

“When you understand that nobody wants to read your shit, you develop empathy. You acquire the skill that is indispensable to all artists and entrepreneurs — the ability to switch back and forth in your imagination from your own point of view as writer / painter / seller to the point of view of your reader / gallery-goer / customer.”

To me, photography has always started with empathy. Why am I making this image? Who will see it? I like putting myself in the shoes of the end viewer because to me, the success of an image depends on that final connection with the viewer: Do they see what I saw? A lot of photographers will tell you they shoot for themselves only, not for others. I believe it. But I want my work to be seen by others. And when you shoot only for yourself, unless you’re really good — like, top 1% really good — very few people will ever see it… All this takes me to my basic rules, honed and field tested over the last 12 years of my career as a “stand-in-the-cold-waiting-for-the-action-to-happen” photographer.

#1 Play the “What If?” game

This one is inspired by my friend Isaac Johnston — he is always trying to push what’s possible even further. So the “What If?” game is simple. Let’s say you’re going to photograph skiing. You have one or multiple subjects, you know roughly where and when, for example:

”My plan is to head up with Tyler and Oakley to the top of Mount Snowville at 4pm and shoot some nice ski turns at sunset.'“

Cool, man.

While that’s an acceptable plan, it could use a bit of “what if” magic. So what if instead of shooting at sunset (predictable), we shot in the middle of the night? What if Tyler and Oakley were lit with weird neons?

What if instead of going for clear skies, we did in the middle of a snowstorm?

The goal of the “what if” is to get you to break past your comfort zone, to try unexpected combinations, and in the end create work that forces people to stop and look. It helps to play this with a friend or creative partner, but if you are alone, just play with ChatGPT. Ask it to create strange scenarios with a handful of prompts. It will be super cheesy (for now), but there could be one fetus of an idea that sparks something within you…

#2 Finish your project and move on, even if it’s not perfect

You’ve probably heard the old Steve Jobs quote “real artists ship.” I love it because it’s another way of saying ideas are cheap. Everyone has them. Some more than others, but they are not enough. That’s why I force myself to put work out. Even when I’m not sure about it, or it could be better… 

But the fact that it's out there lets me move on. I also get to look back at it and get slightly frustrated with the imperfections (that most people never see), and that motivates me to go out and do better. 

Confession: All of the Adventure Buddies zines I released I felt could be improved. We could do more printing tests, change the paper or layout… Endless modifications costing time, money, and creative energy. So I just shipped them before I started to lose my mind over them.

#3 Make sure your subjects are/look legit

Probably the biggest takeaway from my career. In any photograph, if your subjects are not real or don’t look like they should be doing what they’re pictured doing, then you’re wasting everybody’s time. Either they are themselves in the photograph and that’s fine — you have minimal input to give — or they pretend to be someone else. That’s when things get tricky. Here I’m referring to commercial photography where you get to shape all aspects of the final images. 

So whenever I hire talent, I go out of my way to determine whether they fit within the aesthetic. If you are shooting cowboys for a western brand, for example, wouldn’t it be easier to just hire proper cowboys for the shoot? It would, but your client may not like their faces, or will request a more diverse cast. This is my favorite situation, because you really earn your wage. What I do is hire a “consultant” (not their real job, but that’s their role) to help me prepare for the shoot — in this case, a real cowboy helps me put together the outfits and activities, and on D-day can even disperse some riding lessons, or get specific: “Would you tie the knot like this or like that?”

This applies to any field, whether it’s running, climbing, diving… Always make sure you’re getting real people doing their thing, or surround yourself with experts in the field who can help you make it all look legit. That will set your work apart tremendously.

Canon EOS R5 Mark II: First impressions

I’ve finally had the time to shoot a few images with the R5 Mark II. Here are my first impressions before this becomes my workhorse and I become way more biased about it.

+ I love the large viewfinder: Turns out it’s the same as the EOS R3, which is massive and bright. Perhaps one of the most important components of a camera, in my view. It determines how excited I get about what I’m photographing.

+ Dynamic range is impressive: I know that the numbers say it’s the same as the R5, but I found it to have a great deal of information recoverable in highlights and shadows. I could make those recovered parts way more natural in the editing.

+ Intuitive experience: If you’re used to the R5, the Mark II feels natural in your hand and there’s virtually no adaptation period (aside from having the on/off buttons on the right side of the camera now!). Also, the files work seamlessly with my R5-specific presets, so great job Canon for keeping this very consistent.

More to come as I shoot with it in the coming weeks.

PS2. All photos in this newsletter were edited on my AS1 Lightroom Presets

Reading

Too many people want to be social-media influencers - The Economist

“Influencers first took off because consumers thought of them as “people they could trust”, says Anita Balchandani of McKinsey. To remain influential they need to strike a balance between getting paid and convincing followers they are still “authentic”, one of the industry’s favourite buzzwords.”

A reminder all of us in this industry need. The only thing we have with our audiences is trust, and it is earned, not given. But how do we say something is bad when we’re hired to say it’s good? The most obvious approach, one that I’ve desperately tried to follow, is to only work with brands I believe in. It’s about reverse engineering life: I like shooting Canon, what if I worked with them? I like running in Salomon shoes, what if I became one of their ambassadors? You get the idea… But every now and then, a moderately good brand comes our way with a large budget and we have to decide what to do about it. Do we take the check and tell ourselves this money will allow us to do more personal work? Or do we flat-out decline because it will erode trust with our audience? Such are the questions we must address every week.

What would you do? Let me know by email or in the comments.

Watching

Juergen Teller on How to Be a Radical Photographer

What I appreciate most about Juergen Teller’s work is his ability to think in terms of “What if?” He starts out with a concept, but then keeps making it more and more interesting. He is willing to say “this is boring… What if I asked Schwarzenegger to put his head inside the alligator’s mouth?" 

The Strong Man and the Crocodile: Schwarzenegger by Juergen Teller

Here’s Teller’s recounting that Schwarzie shoot:

‘At six o’clock in the morning the hotel phone rang. Back in 2000, I didn’t have a mobile phone. You couldn’t imagine that today. “Servus, Juergen, Arnold here,” he said in broad Austrian. “Thought I’d give you a call and tell you my idea.” Completely groggy, I thought his ideas were good too. So, I had to get up at four o’clock the next morning to go up some mountain in Malibu. There I waited for Arnold Schwarzenegger. The sun rose, and he rode elegantly past me like a cowboy on his horse. It was sultry, dusty – I was totally wiped out. Picture taken. Then I had to climb back down on my own. Later in his office I said, “I’ve got an idea too now, Arnold, climb into the crocodile’s mouth.” “Juergen, for you I’d do anything.”’

This newsletter is edited by Danny Smith

Now that I’m settled into my newly built studio (pictures below), I can write to you again. 

Today, I’ll discuss a blind spot in the photography industry, share some outtakes from the Greece shoot, and leave you with a powerful thought on the effects of positive thinking.

The Business Of Art

When people ask about my job, they imagine I spend my time gallivanting around the world, capturing photos like a butterfly drifting from flower to flower. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. In reality, I spend much of my time building presentations on my computer, waiting around in airports for boarding to (inevitably) start late, and having late-night calls with my agent about tricky contract details. Only if everything has worked out perfectly, only then, do I get to shoot photos in an amazing place. 

But most of the time? I’m doing the work of four people.

And you know what? I’m not alone. In fact, I know that’s the reality for most professional photographers and filmmakers. So, to help navigate this world we’ve built for ourselves, I’d like to share a few tidbits to give you strength for that next “busy” stretch. As in, every week.

In most industries, teams are split into specialized roles:

1. Accounting: making sure checks come in and bills are paid

2. Business development: prospecting, closing deals, nurturing existing clients

3. Legal: protecting the business against lawsuits

4. Marketing: like what the sales team does but on a bigger scale

But for us freelancers, we are expected to do all four at the same time — on top of the actual “photography stuff,” that is:

1. Shooting

2. Maintaining gear

3. Archiving images/footage

4. Editing

5. Cultivating some form of creativity to differentiate our work

So here we are… How do we do all that, and so brilliantly that folks come back to hire us again?

Now that we’ve defined the essential parts of our business, we can carve out time every week, or every other week, to make it happen. It’s called time blocking. 

And personally, I don’t practice it in the way it was designed.

When I look back at the end of the year, amazingly, everything essential has gotten done. But I do it all out of intuition. I know what I need to do every week, and I try to get it done (which never happens). I have, however, a firm grip on the most important parts, and they’re always changing. But for us, success comes from:

1. Cultivating creativity: personal projects and consuming a lot of different art in very different places.

2. Business development: Always having a few bids/pitches in the pipeline, because most don’t end up working. It’s like a 3-to-1 ratio, or 5-to-1 depending on the phases.

If you are the reasonable kind, you can carve out 4-5 hours a week (time-block) to work on the areas of the business that need it most, keeping the above list in mind. You’ll never run out of things to do, every week.

If you run on intuition, like I do, you’re always thinking about this stuff — on your run, while emptying the dishwasher for the second time that day, or during errands. You have a choice: Go with the predictable time-blocking approach, which can become dreadful; or rely on intuition, which can make you a bit obsessive. I choose the latter. Actually, I’m not even sure we chose our behavior, it’s the way we’re built.

There’s no secret to success. You have to outthink everyone else. But don’t get stuck just thinking. You have to act, too. I’m a 40/60 type of guy: 40% thinking, 60% action. There’s no perfect formula, but if I had to pick one, I’d say act more than you think, because consistency beats perfection.

And above all, keep the momentum going when you have it. 

The Effects of Positive Thinking

I saved the results of this research around mental toughness in sports psychology half a year ago, and I think about it quite often, especially when I’m in tough situations.

Last week, I thought it was time to research the actual study and see what else I can learn from the world of elite tennis.

Tennis and sports psychology: Mental toughness as a decisive factor in critical moments in male tennis

Here is the part I found the most interesting and applicable:

What these athletes manage to achieve in the critical moments of a match is to have the courage to play their game to the fullest in those moments. In other words, they get the best out of themselves when it matters most.

This is achieved, according to the interviewees, through careful preparation, as well as an understanding of how tennis and its counting system works. By this they mean that they want to win at all costs, feel pressure and stress, but are fully aware that they need to summon up great courage to succeed.

If they fail, they will have an understanding of it, and with that, and understand that not every point can be won. This understanding and "reasonable" fallback means that they do not give up in defeat but continue to believe in themselves.

It’s interesting because in the world of elite sports, opponents have the same skills.

They all have access to coaches, dietitians, and spend roughly the same amount of time training. So it left me wondering how I can apply these findings to our creative industry.

In photography, we also all have access to the same tools and locations. What differentiates our work, though, is:

1. Composition: How we see the world makes us frame our images a certain way

2. Concepts: The ideas we have, what we want to photograph

3. People: Who we chose to photograph

4. Style: The best definition I’ve come across for “style” in photography is “everything that is not technique.” You can also say style is the way our brain is wired. Because when you ask photographers why they make things look a certain way, they don’t always have an answer. The best ones live their entire lives the same way they create work

5. Grit: Perhaps the most important one. It’s how badly we feel the need to shoot and create work. It derives from very deep motivations like being remembered, being recognized, or whatever personal reasons we may have.

6. Attitude: This is true to all aspects in life. It’s what this study puts the spotlight on. If every day we focus on what we’re doing well, use words of self affirmation, and remember there’s nothing else we’d rather be doing, then everything will work out.

That’s it for today.

Let me know in the comments how you get your work done (or not). I’d love to hear. Also, please forward this email to a peer who could benefit from it.

Listening

I’ve listened to this instrumental track at least 20x in the last 48 hours and I dream of using it in a ski movie…

All pictures edited on my AS1 Essential Lightroom Preset Pack

Danny Smith edits and proofreads this newsletter

Kars: northeastern Türkiye

1750 meters (5740 ft) above sea level

Upon arrival in Kars, you get a sense that this place has had a rich, if not turbulent, past. Once the former capital of the Bagratid Kingdom of Armenia, it has experienced a series of upheavals: from Ottoman rule to Russian annexation, a brief period of Armenian control after World War I, and finally, its capture by Turkish forces in 1920.

But, as it is often the case, I wasn’t here for the history. I was here to hit the highlands to meet the people who give this place its edible culture, the farmers.

I really loved my time here. Everyone I met was very generous with their time, and genuinely curious about what we were up to there. It was refreshing to walk around a part of the world without a Starbucks on every corner. It felt as if I had stepped into an alternate reality of random moments waiting to be noticed.

I’d go back in a heartbeat, especially in the middle of winter to trundle along the snowy highlands in an asthmatic Lada Riva.

Istanbul And its Secret Workshops

Perhaps the most remarkable bit of information I learned about Istanbul is that it straddles two continents: the western part of the city is in Europe, while the eastern is in Asia. We can credit the Bosphorus for doing the “cutting in half” part.

I’m not much of a city guy, but there are cities so remarkable I’ll go out of my way to spend time in them. Both New York and Paris immediately come to mind. Well… Istanbul has joined them because it gave me a big slap in the face. It was so brilliantly alive, so unbridledly chaotic, that I find myself wanting to go back.

That’s it for today. Thanks for reading, and let me know in the comments what your favorite photo was from the trip!

All work edited on my AS1 Essential Lightroom Preset Pack

Danny Smith edits and proofreads this newsletter

Have you ever met someone so different from anyone else you know? Someone who gives completely unexpected answers to your questions? Who is totally immersed in their own world and seems to live a life that you could only dream of? Well… that person is Bernhard Wache, father of Seatrekking.

Watch It On YouTube

I met Bernhard a year ago during a Prada shoot. I cast him as the main character because the brand wanted an ocean-themed storyline for their Luna Rossa Ocean fragrance. We sat down together for lunch on the scout day—I always prefer to scout with my subjects—and had such an inspiring conversation that I knew I had to make a short film about his life.

And we did!

It's been a while since I’ve worked this hard on creating something. Yes, we produce the No One Sees series on YouTube, and while that takes an enormous amount of time, we’re also jumping from cliffs, gallivanting in beautiful parts of the world, and having a grand time.

SEATREKKING was different in that we let the story dictate the production. We were at the mercy of Bernhard Wache, our wild main character and the inventor of this sport. Let me just say—the man is restless! We’d start at 4 a.m. and end after nightfall most days of the shoot, bushwhacking through the Croatian wilderness while trying to immerse ourselves fully in the story.

I hope you enjoy it!

Watch SEATREKKING on YouTube

Recently, I had the amazing opportunity to shoot Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc, the most prestigious of ultra running races, with the one-and-only Alexis Berg. 

UTMB is a grueling 170-km ultramarathon with more than 9,000 m (30,000 ft) of elevation gain around the tallest peak in the Alps. The most elite runners complete the course in less than 20 hours, while the average runner does it in 40 hours. That’s just those who finish, because out of the 2,600+ participants in this year’s race, more than 1,000 didn’t finish…

Alexis, the Salomon crew, and I followed the first 22 hours of the race together, getting a couple hours of “sleep” in the car while waiting for the head of the race to arrive at Courmayeur, on the Italian side, around 4 a.m. What made the experience even more special was having Alexis as my guide through the entire race, directing us to the most interesting spots and introducing me to a bunch of running photographers and key players. It felt like walking through the Sunday farmers market with the town’s mayor. Most runners and pretty much every photographer would come say hi to Alexis as testament to his 10-year commitment to the trail running photography scene.

It’s always a treat to shoot with people who are very specialized at their “thing.” I come out of these experiences more inspired and curious than ever. On the flight back home, I thought you’d also benefit from the things I observed during those 24 hours together after the race.

Here are the things I took away from watching Alexis work:

1. Know every top runner in the race, and know every brand involved

2. Know the race course inside and out

3. Check on live race progress constantly to position yourself at the best spots

4. Shoot with two bodies: one with a wide lens, one with a tight lens

5. Make in-camera selects 

6. Use lens filters

These were just my impressions — my most educated guesses on what makes Berg’s work unique. Now, it’s time to get his take on my points and verify I haven’t missed the important things.

The Alexis Berg Interview

Thanks for doing this Alexis. Can you elaborate on my impressions above ?

I've been photographing trail running for over 10 years. In the beginning, it was an advantage to be an outsider, a naïve observer discovering everything. My eyes were curious, impressionable.

My position is very different today. I can anticipate, judge in a few seconds the originality of a situation, the potential of light. I focus on the unprecedented, with the desire to take a photo I haven't taken before, which is always a little harder, but nourishes creativity.

Photographing this sport in the mountains, I've done it hundreds of times. I know where I'm going. Some things are ritualized. I always have the same four or five favorite lenses, but each time I add something new — a new lens, different strange filters. I test things out, I like to try weird things. It's my way of remaining curious and constantly evolving.

What else have I missed?

Study maps and topos. I use several mapping apps to observe relief, vegetation, and the position of the sun. I set off with a very precise plan, and then in the field I let myself improvise, sometimes flinching and making quick decisions.

Don't be afraid of bad conditions. Bright sunshine is often boring. I love fog, rain, and night. The worse it is, the more interesting I find it photographically.

What do you tell your beginners? What do you focus on that others miss?

The first tip is to shoot manually, even if it results in botched shots. It's the best way to understand light, which is the raw material of photography. I tell beginners the same thing I tell myself: think, innovate, surprise yourself. Flow and spontaneity are important, but the more intention and intelligence you put into a photo, the more chance you have of enriching the result.

If you're doing sports photography, it's not sports photography you should be studying. Look at the technical mastery of the portrait specialists, the originality of the photojournalists, the editing science of the fashion photo cracks.

I see a lot of very factual photos of these races from other photographers but few carry emotion, can you tell me more?

There are several explanations. Many photographers have fairly restrictive briefs, which require them to focus on a handful of athletes sponsored by their client. I'm lucky enough to have a certain freedom. It's a privilege to be somewhat recognized in my field, where I'm allowed to be more extravagant. This freedom awaits all photographers, one day or another. You just have to persevere and maintain your singularity.

Lastly, because everyone is going to want to know this, what’s your go-to camera kit to shoot a race?

For this UTMB I used the Canon EOS R5 Mark II and the EOS R3. My most-used lenses are the Sigma EF 24mm f/1.4, the RF 70-200 f/2.8, and the RF 50mm f/1.2.

Follow Alexis Berg on Instagram

Watching

We made a new episode of the No One Sees series!

For this one, we focused on Croatia and its islands. It seems like this spot is on everyone’s radar, so we thought we’d show a lesser-known part of it… Although we’ve stirred up quite the controversy in the comments section of the video. Either way, Isaac Johnston and I have poured many, many hours into this film, turning 65+ hours of footage into a 40-minute episode for your enjoyment.

I think this is our best episode yet, but let me know what you think in the comments or simply reply to this email — I read all of them.

Watch The Croatia No One Sees on YouTube

This newsletter is edited by Danny Smith

Mongolia by Kin Coedel

But getting back to the matter at hand, I’m here because I want to tell you about why you shouldn’t watch our latest YouTube video from No One Sees Season 1. 

We just (re)uploaded The Hawaii No One Sees to YouTube after receiving a nice-but-firm call from the federal government asking us to remove a section of the video where Isaac and I were deemed to be swimming too close to dolphins. It turns out that on YouTube, unlike Vimeo, you can’t swap a video while keeping the same link to it. So we’re starting from scratch, which is nice actually, because Isaac changed the edit in very satisfying ways. But don’t take my word for it, scroll to see what we got up to during that month of filming in Hawai’i.

If after this you’re itching to watch the film, go ahead and indulge in 37 minutes of raw YouTube goodness.

La France by Raymond Depardon

Having spent a big chunk of my teenage years in France, it is hard for me to look at this country from an outsider’s perspective and feel that sense of wonder you get when you go somewhere new for the first time. Buildings that might seem “new and interesting” to a foreigner just seem old to me. Ordinary life here just looks like… ordinary life, not “exotic,” and I honestly miss most of those moments because I’m not even looking for them. I’m just walking around as if you were walking around the block where you grew up. So whenever someone’s work transports me and lays a fresh eye on something I’m familiar with, I can’t get enough of it. That is the case with legendary French documentary photographer Raymond Depardon.

He has created a large body of work titled “La France,” in which he just drove around the entire country, from city centers to forgotten villages deep in the countryside. Here are some of my favorites, with special mention of the first one, which I find is a masterclass in composition in itself.

La France by Raymond Depardon

Watching

If you’re not already being entertained by the Hawaii No One Sees re-edit and fancy a bit of cooking, how could I not share this video of celebrity chef Marco Pierre White making his Pomodoro sauce. It’s a recipe I’ve been following since watching this video.

Watch Pomodoro sauce - Marco Pierre White's secret recipe on YouTube

Danny Smith edits this newsletter