Today’s guest is one of the world’s greatest living photographers. So, in this very special season finale, we’re going to look at travel through the lens of the legendary visual storyteller Steve McCurry.

We’ll delve into the story behind the photograph that defined his career: the portrait of a young Afghan girl (Sharbat Gula) with her torn shawl and piercing green eyes that appeared on the cover of National Geographic magazine in June 1985. It’s one of the most iconic images of the twentieth century and easily one of the most recognizable magazine covers ever printed. The portrait is likened to a modern-day Mona Lisa due to her captivating gaze.

Steve McCurry has captured many powerful and poetic photographs over an exceptional career that spans five decades. He’s devoted a lifetime to documenting the essence of humanity with a sharp focus on conflicts, vanishing culture and ancient traditions, as well as scenes from contemporary life.

His long-held fascination with photographing far-off places began when he quit his job at a local newspaper and bought a one-way ticket to India. In this episode, you’ll get a snapshot of Steve’s most memorable travel moments as we hitchhike across the USA, pick fruit on a kibbutz in Israel, swim with sea lions in the Galapagos and accidentally spend the night in a Buddhist monastery in Ladakh.

Of course, some of Steve’s adventures aren’t for the faint-hearted – he’s covered extreme weather events and warzones, survived a plane crash in Slovenia and got his big break as a photojournalist in 1979 after crossing the border into Afghanistan disguised as a mujahideen rebel.

STEVE McCURRY’S CULTURE GUIDE

Monsoon photo-essay in Life Magazine (1961) by Brian Brake

DESTINATION INSPIRATION

Ragusa, Sicily

Philadelphia

South Carolina

London

Stockholm

Amsterdam

Israel

India

Slovenia

Afghanistan

Chitral, Pakistan

Peshawar, Pakistan

The Galápagos Islands

Ladakh, India

Cuba

Mandalay, Myanmar

Iran

For a real visual treat visit stevemccurry.com or look out for Steve’s brand-new book In Search of Elsewhere, which is a unique and brilliant collection of previously unseen images from over forty years of travel. Buy it here.

You might also like to follow @stevemccurryofficial on Instagram.

If you enjoyed this episode, please be sure to subscribe, rate and review so others can discover this podcast as well. If you’re looking for some more travel inspiration, you can find me on Instagram @escape.artist.podcast or visit www.escapeartistpodcast.com

Thanks so much for listening to the podcast over the past few months. See you soon for more wild and whimsical adventures in 2021 for Season Two of The Escape Artist!

Xx Edwina

(Music by the talented Giselle Rosselli)

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today’s guest is British travel journalist and author Sophy Roberts.

It takes a special kind of person to hear the sentence ‘the lost pianos of Siberia’ uttered in casual conversation and have those words ignite an obsession that eventuates in a three-year odyssey across the vast, white wilderness of Siberia in search of a piano.

Sophy’s self-described ‘oddball quest’ is documented in her debut book The Lost Pianos of Siberia, which has been received with critical acclaim.

Sophy Roberts is one of the finest travel writers of our time, having carved out an exceptional career as an editor-at-large for titles such as Condé Nast Traveller and Departures magazine, and a columnist for the Financial Times' How to Spend it.

In recent years she’s felt a call to the wild, trading the glitzy hotels and glamorous getaways for a chance to tell untold stories from remote parts of the world, reporting on wildlife conservation, threats to eco-systems and fragile cultures.

SOPHY ROBERTS’ CULTURE GUIDE

The Road to Oxiana (book) by Robert Byron

As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning (book) by Laurie Lee

In Patagonia (book) by Bruce Chatwin

The Magic Faraway Tree (book) by Enid Blyton

The Story of Doctor Dolittle (book) by Hugh Lofting

The Secret Garden (book) by Frances Hodgson Burnett

Sakhalin Island (book) by Anton Chekhov

The Princess of Siberia (book) by Christine Sutherland

DESTINATION INSPIRATION

West Dorset, England

Andalucía, Spain

Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland

Varanasi, India

Ladakh, India

Dal Lake, Kashmir

Brazzaville, Republic of the Congo

Pamir Mountains, Tajikistan

The Ennedi Desert, Chad

The Happy House, Nepal (See Sophy's review for CNT here)

The Orkhon valley, Mongolia

Siberia (using Anton Chekhov's description: 'The plain of Siberia begins, I think, from Ekaterinburg, and ends goodness knows where’)

Kamchatka, Russia

The Altai Mountains, Mongolia

Lake Baikal, Russia

The Kuril Islands

Taiga, Russia

The Trans-Siberian Railway

Socotra Island, Yemen

Curious to know if Sophy finds the piano she’s been searching for? Visit thelostpianosofsiberia.com or you can buy the book here.

Please support your local bookshop if you can! Independent bookstores are really struggling at the moment, let's keep them in business this Christmas!!

You might also like to follow sophy_roberts on Instagram, she takes spellbinding photographs on her travels.

If you enjoyed this episode, please be sure to subscribe, rate and review so others can discover this podcast as well. If you’re looking for some more travel inspiration, you can find me on Instagram @escape.artist.podcast or visit www.escapeartistpodcast.com

Join me next week for the final episode of The Escape Artist Season 1!

Xx Edwina

(Music by the talented Giselle Rosselli)

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.