Exploring the planet by vehicle is no easy feat; avoiding danger, navigating perilous roads, and dealing with dangerous animals and potentially hostile areas while motivating yourself and your companions through heat, sleet, and occasional suffering. Try doing all of that while filming the adventure – taking the time to maintain your precious equipment, plan content,…
Modern Explorers :: Chris Burkard
Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in Overland Journal’s Winter 2021 Issue. Chris Burkard is best known for his work as an adventure photographer. But in more recent years, he’s built a warranted reputation as an ultra-endurance athlete. In the summer of 2019, he set a new solo record on Iceland’s WOW Cyclothon, completing…
State Change :: A Sinuhe Xavier Photo Exhibition in Mexico City at LOOT MX
Sinuhe Xavier | LOOT MX State Change 09-09-2021 Publisher’s Note: We are excited to announce this gallery event in Mexico City, featuring Sinuhe Xavier. Sinuhe has been an essential member of our team, and has also been a luminary of creative visual storytelling for travel, vehicles, and overlanding. Sinuhe’s earliest photographs of Land Rovers in…
Rwandan Legacy
There is a mist that hangs over this small landlocked country in the Great Rift Valley. The clouds fall gently over the mountains, quietly holding the land and shrouded forests even when the sun shines. Rwanda is not the first place you would visit in Africa, but it’s a short distance from Tanzania or Kenya…
Weather a Dull Moment
Words by Lisa Morris, photography by Jason Spafford. Typically, what do you do when the weather isn’t playing nice? Weather is the defining quality of a landscape, and aside from the extra effort involved, the wilder it is, the more compelling your photograph. It determines the two most pivotal landscape features: lighting and mood….
The Dark Night Rises: How to Shoot Night Skies
Words by Lisa Morris, photography by Jason Spafford. When done right, starry-night-sky shots are impressive. Astro-photography can seem like a daunting genre, but trust me when I say it’s an easier task to undertake than you think. A few hundred shots in, that light will be shining as bright for you, and I’m here…
A Distilled Guide for Travel Photography
Words by Lisa Morris, photography by Lisa Morris and Jason Spafford You’ve got the basics of composition under your belt, and with a good skill base, you continue your love of photography as a fun and creative outlet. Who doesn’t love visiting places tucked away off the beaten track, brimming with photogenic shots? When…
How to Shoot a Minimalist Landscape
Words by Lisa Morris, photography by Jason Spafford Arguably, location is the most crucial aspect to consider when shooting minimalist landscapes. Certain places seem to lend themselves to minimalist photography more than others. Indeed, it’s possible to create minimalism in many locations with a carefully selected composition and the right lens. However, shooting from…
Water You Doing Today?
Words By Lisa Morris, Photography by Jason Spafford I’m always drawn to photographing water, whether in the form of white-fringed waves crashing on the shoreline to a lake as still as a millpond or the sheer power raining down in a waterfall. Shooting water is a tonne of fun and easy to create results that…
Soft and Hard Light
Words by Lisa Morris, Photos by Jason Spafford Light isn’t something you can hold. You can’t touch it, or feel it – it lacks physicality yet bears a presence. So to take pleasing pictures, you need to start treating light as the subject – a shape-shifting object with the power to make or break the…
How To Shoot Into the Sun
Words by Lisa Morris, Photos by Jason Spafford The sun, a brilliant round disk of light and warmth, can be tricky to encompass in a well-balanced picture. Due to an acute intensity of brightness lies an inability to view it directly overhead. Although challenging, with some inexpensive equipment, the sun is a dramatic image-enhancing inclusion….
How to Photograph Fire
Words & photos by Lisa Morris Whether you’re wrapped up in the warmth of a crackling fire indoors, red coals gleaming from the ash below, or sat around a cosy camp as tongues of flame flicker, it’s hard not to be spellbound by the amber light. It’s easy to lose yourself in the snap…
How to Shoot the Northern Lights
Whether you’re off to the northern reaches of Canada or Alaska, the Nordic countries, or Scotland this winter, you’ll be tingling with excitement to recreate the northern lights from photography you’ve been drooling over for goodness knows how long. Latin for the northern dawn, the aurora borealis displays a solar-powered jig of shimmering green swathes…
How to Shoot in Hard and Soft Light
Light isn’t something you can hold. You can’t touch it or feel it—it lacks physicality yet bears a presence. To take pleasing pictures, you need to start treating light as the subject, a shape-shifting object with the power to make or break the ambience. What’s stirring in one moment can leave no impact on the…
How to Shoot Snowscapes
Words by Lisa Morris, photography by Jason Spafford. I don’t know about you, but the excitement of seeing the first snowflakes settle fills me with a purity of spirit. Especially when everything gleams white in graceful silence, leaving behind a grey and dreary world for a fresh and sleek one. Snow and frost transform…
How To Keep Your Camera in Focus
Words By Lisa Morris, photography by Jason Spafford. Common focus issues can be the fun sponge in sucking all the pleasure out of shooting pictures. As one of the more technical arts you can pursue, such difficulties can baffle and confuse us all. Whether you’re new to photography, just keeping it lighthearted, or have…
What Camera Do I Need?
Words By Lisa Morris, photography by Jason Spafford. Before setting off on your next getaway, road trip, or vacation of a lifetime, you may be in a quandary as to which camera to invest in. Do you really need to spend $5,000 on a professional camera with an array of lenses, a complete set…
Sandstone Canyon Solitude
I first visited this canyon on the border of Utah and Colorado eight years ago. The adventure was suggested by my friend J, who I had met when we both worked as interpretive rangers for the Clear Creek ranger district back in 2009. On our inaugural trip, we descended into this rarely visited wilderness area…
Why I Shoot Adventures in Film
I bought my first 35mm film camera from a charity shop on the outskirts of London for £20, a Canon AE-1, along with a note from the previous owner: ‘Take good care of me, I’ve been on many adventures, and hope to see many more’. It came into my life at a time when I…
How to Stay Creative During Our New Normal
No one foresaw becoming a shutterbug stuck at home. As we bide our time through a strange, new “normal,” we must make the most of what we’ve got—in the comfort of our home and on our doorstep. In such unprecedented times, more than ever, we need a creative outlet for ourselves. In the UK, while…