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Photographer Inspires Serious Wanderlust With ’72 Hours’ Project

By Ellyn Kail on April 29, 2016

Wales

Iceland

When Wales-based photographer Finn Beales travels the globe, he gives himself three days to immerse himself in the culture and landscape of each place. He seeks out the holes in the wall, pulls back the layers to reveal the bared, thrumming heart of every locale. He lives for the mountain air, for the scent of forgotten spaces in faraway lands.

72 Hours In… is the photographer’s ongoing diary of his journeys through dozens of cities and villages. Whenever he is commissioned to do a shoot overseas, he carves out time to cultivate a personal connection with every location, and to create images purely for himself, images that will never make it to his clients. He is never without his camera while he’s on the go.

Most of all, Beales confesses, he yearns for wide open spaces. He loves best those natural wonders that make him feel small, a speck floating throughout the wild terrain.

Over the course of the project, Beales has learned to toss aside the guidebooks and trust the wisdom of the locals, even if there might be a language barrier between them. The more he explores, the more he hungers for new places and new experiences, for moments that are at once simple at extraordinary. He says of climbing to the top of an erupting volcano, “It was a fairly brutal journey, but worth every step,” a sentiment that surely can be applied to many of his expeditions.