Hi friends,

This has been a busy in-between trips type of week. I have been working through Kenya files in the morning and Nepal files in the afternoon, and somewhere in the middle I am trying to remember to pack for the next trip.

I posted some Kathmandu and Mara work this week, and the Kathmandu set in particular has been getting a kind of response I did not expect. It might be one of the most moody & cinematic cities I have ever photographed.

Sunday I leave for Kyrgyzstan.

Eight days across the country with friends and a local guide, mostly off-grid, mostly out of cell range, with one stretch of camping in the Sary-Jaz Valley that everyone we have talked to has flagged as remote and cold and worth bringing serious sleeping bags for. The itinerary is mountain passes, yurt camps, alpine lakes, eagle hunters, and a canyon locals call the fairy-tale canyon. I am going in with very few photo expectations and a lot of curiosity.

What I do want to share today is what I have been doing this week to get ready. Trip prep is its own skill, and the better I get at it, the more present I can be when I am actually there. That is this week's tip.

The temptation when you are going somewhere you have never been is either to over-plan every shot or to plan nothing at all, and both miss the same point. The goal is not to know every photo you will take before you arrive. The goal is to know enough that you can actually pay attention once you are there.

Here is what I do the week before any new country.

First, I try to find how local photographers shoot the place, not just how tourists do. Tourist photos all converge on the same five locations, taken at the same five hours, with the same five compositions. Local photographers are shooting the country they actually live in, which means textures, people, weather, and the unglamorous-but-honest details. Search a country's hashtag in your native language and you get the postcard. Search in the local language or follow a guide-led account from the region, and you start to see what the place actually looks like.

Second, I map the light. Sunrise and sunset times shift significantly the farther you go from your home latitude. Kyrgyzstan in June has light from about 4:50 a.m. to almost 9 p.m. That changes how you plan a day, where you put your most important shoots, and how much you actually sleep.

Third, I leave room for the trip to surprise me. The shots I plan from home almost never end up being my favorites. The ones I love are usually something I could not have predicted, in a moment I was not expecting. So I go in with a short list of must-see locations and a much longer list of "this looks interesting, I will see when I get there." That balance is the thing.

Capture One is reportedly up for sale. PetaPixel reported on May 28 that Axcel, the Nordic private equity firm that has owned the photo editing software since 2019, is running an auction process via Stifel. No buyer has been named.

GoPro disclosed substantial doubt about its ability to continue operating. In an amended SEC filing on June 1, the company and its auditor cited ongoing losses, looming debt covenant breaches, and a memory-cost spike of up to 115% driven by AI chip demand. This is a notable escalation from the strategic-review announcement in early May.

National Geographic Traveller (UK) announced its 2026 Photography Competition winners. The winning work is on display at London's King's Cross from May 28 through July 12, with Granary Square turned into an open-air gallery. Categories included Landscape, People, Urban, Aerial, Wildlife, Food, and Portfolio.

Polaroid released a new limited-edition purple 600 Film. The company describes the results as "completely new to instant film" and unmistakably psychedelic. A niche release, but a fun one for Polaroid shooters.

Mikko Lagerstedt is a Finnish landscape photographer whose work I keep coming back to whenever I want to remember what restraint looks like in this medium.

He shoots a lot of fog, a lot of night, a lot of empty space, and almost nothing of what would normally be called "subject matter." His images are usually one tree, one rock, one shoreline, with whatever quiet weather the country is offering, and they somehow carry more mood than most photos with five times the action.

His work has been published in BBC, Nikon, Adobe, and Business Insider campaigns, and he has exhibited internationally. What I find more useful, though, is his philosophy: he has said that his goal is to capture how a place feels, not how it looks. That sentence rewires how you frame a landscape if you sit with it long enough.

For any trip where you are not sure about the water (which covers most international travel and basically all backcountry trips), the LifeStraw Peak Series gets you covered without adding any real weight to a bag.

It is a soft, squeezable 650mL water bottle with an in-line hollow fiber membrane filter that removes 99.99% of bacteria, parasites, and microplastics from any freshwater source. Fill it from a tap, a stream, a hostel sink, or a glacial spring, screw the cap back on, and drink. The filter is rated for about 2,000 liters before replacement, which lasts most people a year or two of normal travel.

It packs flat when empty, costs around $40, and honestly takes an entire category of travel anxiety off your plate.

(Full transparency: I earn a small commission through this link. It helps keep this newsletter free and my coffee mug full. Thanks for supporting!)

That is it for this week. By the time the next edition lands in your inbox, I will be somewhere deep in the Kyrgyzstan mountains.

A genuine thank you to everyone who replied to last week's question about how you handle photos after a big trip. I’m playing catchup on my inbox, but I’ll be replying as soon as I can!

This week's question: What is the number one country you have always wanted to photograph? I am curious what everyone’s top locations are, and what it is about that place specifically that has pulled at you for so long.

See you next week,
Paige

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P.S. Curious how I edit my photos? These are the exact presets I use for almost every travel & landscape shoot (designed for both mobile and desktop).

P.P.S. Some of my most popular travel and landscape shots are available as prints through Big Wall Decor. If you've ever wanted one on your wall, check them out here.