Bac Giang, Vietnam

Jordan Hammond didn’t plan on becoming a photographer. Like many of us, “normally I just walked through a space without paying much attention to it,” he says. After moving to China to teach English, he thought photography would be a good way to document it. Photography also helped Hammond distance himself from something he wasn’t prepared for—finding living there overwhelming to start with.

That was just a decade ago. Since 2015, Hammond has become one of the most distinctive travel photographers around: from posting on Instagram—through which he won his first paying jobs, for airlines, hotels, and tourist boards—to teaching travel photography, he is recognized for the big, widescreen quality of his shots.

While he concedes that travel photography comes with a built-in exotic allure, nonetheless few images are as likely to make you want to pack a bag as his. From India’s Golden Triangle and Coron Island in the Philippines to the paddy fields of Vietnam and cherry blossoms in Japan, his work focuses on the Southeast Asia and the Asia-Pacific regions.

Dutta Cabin, Kolkata, India

Mu Cang Chai, Vietnam

Tegalalang, Bali, Indonesia

Pering Sari, Bali, Indonesia

“I think my early photography was led by the travel. I found that travel gives me the most opportunity for the kind of images I like to take. But that’s not to say I haven’t become obsessed with taking photos,” says Hammond, who shoots six days a week—resting recently only during a visit to his family in Dover, in southeast England, before he returns to Bali, his photographic heaven.

“I love to be able to capture the experience of new places. And having a camera with me has always seemed to open doors,” he says. “You’re walking along, and next thing you’re being invited to someone’s wedding, and then the priest tells you about some ceremony you might want to attend. You have to be open to things like that.”

Serendipity doesn’t, he says, guarantee great images, “though you get to enjoy the travel anyway.” And he is refreshingly open about the hours of editing that follow the pressing of the shutter button: “The pictures don’t just come straight out of the camera.” But, he stresses, the greatest challenge is finding something different to shoot. “Creating unique images is difficult when we’ve become so swamped by images now, so you really need to learn to follow your nose,” he says. Instagram, he adds, has given him a career he might not have had without it while also creating a culture “that pushes too many people to create for the algorithms rather than for themselves or for creativity’s sake.”

Yamuna Ghat, New Delhi, India

Quriyat Salt Pans, Muscat, Oman

Sharqiyah Sands, Oman

Kelingking Beach, Bali, Indonesia

Not that his own creativity isn’t in flux. His own photos are beautifully composed: balanced, with an emphasis on pattern, contrast, and spacing. One might call them cinematic, although he’s never been much of a film buff—“I just seem to watch comedies on repeat,” he says with a laugh—and if anything, he reckons his feeling for tepic scale, and maybe even the desire to explore, stems more from a lifetime of open-world gaming.

When he shoots now, “there’s not much going on in my brain,” he says. “It’s a pretty instinctual approach. I don’t overthink the settings. I used to be hyper-obsessed with composition to the point where I found myself following what I took to be the ‘rules.’ I’m really trying to let go of those habits and experiment with more of a street-style photography approach. But it’s tough. Now I like to just react to what’s in front of me. It’s more about sticking around and seeing what happens, with some anticipation of what might happen.”

It’s a message he tries to impart to the students in his periodic photography workshops. “I try to get them to just slow down a little,” he says, “because there’s this fear of missing the shot. But you have to get comfortable with that idea. Take your eye away from the viewfinder. Soak up the details of the environment you’re in.”

Cepaka, Bali, Indonesia

Pererenan, Bali, Indonesia

To more of Jord Hammond’s work, check out @jordhammond.

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