Jesse Marlow’s anti-Instagram travel photography: Why getting lost beats planning

“I love the fact that I don’t know what I’m going to shoot — especially when I land somewhere. I don’t want to know too much about a place, I just want to wander and get lost and discover with my own eyes.”

Internationally renowned and award-winning Melbourne photographer Jesse Marlow travels often. But what he sees and what he captures sit far removed from the glossy, and over curated results synonymous with the segment.

The 47 year-old’s work ensnares the moments in between. Finding focus in the gaps that run across any given day. Presenting a raw and authentic sense of place, a presence, a location.

“There’s always beauty to be found. And travelling the world as I’m lucky to do, it takes me back to when I started out shooting on the streets of Melbourne — because when you land somewhere you don’t know, everything’s new and exciting and inspiring,” Marlow says.

Marlow landed as a photographer early in life — a camera strapped to his frame from the age of eight, inspired by Martha Cooper and Henry Chalfant’s 1984 book on New York graffiti, Subway Art.

Read the first edition of ROAM by The Nightly here.

“It triggered me to get out on the street and those first 10 years were me shooting graffiti in and around Melbourne. I was super lucky to have really supportive parents who would drive me around the place on weekends and really encourage me to pursue my photography,” he says.

Maturation and progression came on the back of a first overseas trip to London — part of a school cricket tour.

“The characters in and around Piccadilly Circus and the crowds of Trafalgar Square — I’m there with my camera shooting and being drawn to them and what really was the start of the next phase of my work, which was documenting real life and what I see in front of me,” Marlow says.

Cut to today and Marlow is a globally recognised ‘street photographer’ with five books to his name and another — (De)compositions — due this November via Perimter Editions. A global Leica ambassador, he also oversees the Leica Akademie Australia.

“I shoot when I can and when I want. I mean I’ve always got a camera with me, that’s the process — you never know where or when something might arise. And I find a real sense of freedom in the way that I work — it took a while but it’s about accepting that there are going to be quiet periods, you’re not always going to get the sort of pictures you want,” Marlow says.

“But that’s a thrill to me and to not be governed about the way you do things, that’s incredibly freeing.”

jessemarlow.com