Photostories for Publications

Here you can download and preview photostories ready for publications. Every story can be tailored to specific magazine needs. In pdf examples we show how it could look.
Every story includes additional images which also can be used .

Zimnik – The Ice road

There are two of us—two men alone in a boat, rowing to escape civilization and its rules. It’s easy to lose track of time under these white polar nights—in amongst wild nature and the all-embracing flow of the lake, with a wolf gazing from one shore, an elk—from another. A few more miles and a herd of reindeer emerge. Hundreds of kilometres behind us and hundreds more ahead… It has been raining for a week, the cold needles at tired bones. Diupkun Lake is a place where “civilized“ humans would find it hard to survive. That’s why the few dogs that run alongside the boat on the shore, and the modest hut that looms, fairytale-like behind them seems like such a vision.

It’s 3 o’clock in the morning, and the owner of the hut, Oleg Timofejevich Odnolko, emerges to invite the strangers inside. “It’s too small for all of us, so I’ll leave earlier today. You can take my place. Warm up and get some rest“,—he says without any questions or surprise, as if he has been expecting guests. “By the way, it’s my 57^th birthday today“,—adds Oleg, a bearded hunter with weather-beaten cheeks, perky eyes and a frost-bitten nose which protrudes from his warm fur hat. In that moment, under a buzzing cloud of a thousand mosquitoes, a new friendship is born.

Download full story in pdf: Zimnik – the Ice road v.01
Alternative layout: Zimnik – the Ice road v.02
Additional photos: Zimnik – the Ice road

The flying Hunter

The steppe surrounded us with darkness and cold, urging us to seek shelter for the night. In the northwestern reaches of the Mongolian wilderness, it’s unlikely you’ll meet more than a few people in several weeks of travel. Therefore a yurt in the horizon was a sign that we should settle.
The yurt owner came out, frantically waving at us, seemingly objecting to our decision to stay here. We were confused – were we bothering him? In a few moments, it became clear that he was insisting we spend the night in the yurt, while he and his wife would be sleeping in an unheated shed next to it. “You Europeans have no clue what the cold of the steppes is really like”, he said, ignoring each of our attempts to politely decline his offer. This was our introduction to the boundless hospitality of the territorial nomads, right at the beginning of our expedition. The temperature in Mongolia can drop to -40ºC at night, being hospitable is not only a custom or a norm in the steppes – it’s a crucial part of the wanderer’s way of life and one of the ways to survive in this demanding environment.

Download full story in pdf: The flying Hunter
Additional photos: The flying Hunter

The land of the Tölting Horse

A strange sound approaches us from afar, like the insistent tapping of hammer on ice. As we listen, rapt, all at once we are faced by the image of a man on a horse, and as he passes by we find our eyes fixed on a peculiar sight. The gait of the horse is unlike any we have ever seen. If this was a trot, it was unlike any trot we knew of. Shortly after, we come across a band of horses being led by a quad ¬ which the beasts obediently follow. It becomes clear that we are approaching the Icelandic stables. We are surprised, soon after, to learn that it is training on ice that is used to perfect the animal’s gait, and even more surprised when we discover that local horsemen mount their horses from both sides. As one of the horsemen mounts his horse from its left side (usual for us), his friend smiles: “We are not influenced by your old military riding schools, we never carried swords so nothing held us back from mounting a horse from its right side…” This he soon demonstrates by deftly mounting one of the short shaggy creatures from the right… As we busied ourselves trying to reconcile the origins of this strange gait with the smooth hammering of the horse’s hooves, the local horse trainer Helle Laks lightened our load by giving us an exhaustive explana- tion of the diversity of gaits on show from local hors- es, comparing them jokingly to the gearbox of a car.

Download full story in pdf: The land of the Tölting Horse
Additional photos: The land of the Tölting Horse

A Conversation with Happiness

Asking a Bhutanese how happy he is does not show a lack of tact, but rather is an utterly normal practice. It is a different matter that presently there are two possible answers to that question: a scientific and a non-scientific one. Having identified “gross national happiness” as the principal macroeconomic indicator, Bhutan has developed, with help from Western economists, a mathematical method for estimating the level of its citizens’ happiness, based on nine spheres, 33 indicators, and 124 variables.

Download full story in pdf: A Conversation with Happiness