Transient III is a continuation of our award-winning self-documentary series which aims to delve deeper into the tolls that eight years of travelling can take on a couple and their van.
At this stage travel becomes not so much an option as a compulsion, with every cog of our lives geared toward feeding this addiction, like a gambler fumbling for more spare change to throw into a slot machine. The risks are great, but the rewards can be even greater.
By foregoing a 9-5 lifestyle we launch ourselves into perpetual uncertainty, and find ourselves in a tumultuous cyclone of speculation that leaves little room for 5 year plans and career prospects. To ride the wave of this unsettled life we carve for ourselves we must be prepared to live with ambiguity, to be ready to pack up and go in a haze of sweat and diesel smoke at a moment’s notice. This is an environment where we struggle and thrive, a state of constant adaptability that eight years on the road has been preparing us for.
As we evolve so do the challenges, hardships disguised as opportunities, our emotions often put aside in our quest to see, to do, to be. To feed the bittersweet tooth of travel all the sugar it can taste. To clamour until the point of exhaustion wherein lies the prize: adventure, novelty, freedom.
These images draw inspiration from mundanity. Their beauty lies in the ordinary and their composition belies the simplicity of travel, stripped down to its bare basics: comfort and continuity. They capture tender moments, scenes not usually witnessed by a lens, and present them in all their rawness and intricacy.
We live in perpetual motion; the journey must always continue, the wheels forever turning, carrying with them our habits, our routines, our curiosities.
In our world of hyperbole amid a never-ending showreel of vistas, each more spectacular than the last, few things can be more grounding and humbling than a simple pit wash in a public toilet.
Jan. 24
As a new January rolled around the compass needle pointed south, promising warmth and splendour. First we had to brave the icy climes of Dover followed by a wintry crossing over the Alps with a slipping clutch, the cold bracing enough to freeze our doors shut, constrict our veins and dilate our pupils; cold enough to feel alive again, at last.
Feb. 24
February threw us to the most extreme western point of Europe through a haze of motorways and sandstorms. We spent nights cradled in the bellies of volcanoes swathed in total comforting blackness and a mist which clung damply to our sheets and made sleep impossible. The wild heights of the Azores islands and primeval rainforests of tree ferns tickled our souls, but a modest public toilet proved to be our sanctuary when we fell ill from exhaustion. The journey ended not on a high but a series of lows, our spirits washed out by the rain that eroded great chunks of our van and our sleep. Fatigue became our constant companion, and never had we been so relieved to see the English Channel.
