Shooting the world, one country at a time

I’m Adrian Seah, photographer, advertising creative director, avid traveller and all round camera geek. I travel the world with my camera, trying to capture a fraction of the weird and the wondrous people and places I come across and share them on Handcarry Only.

I’m fascinated by everything and inspired by everything. My first trip abroad was when I was 3, and I’ve pretty much not stopped travelling since.

I strongly believe that travel is the best education anyone can have.

I try to sneak away to somewhere new and exciting every chance I get, the world is just simply too big and diverse not to explore.

It’s such a zen thing, the more you know, the more you know you don’t know. Travel puts me in my place, it reminds me of how big and spectacular the world we live in really is, of how colourful and diverse people are, but yet how similar and intrinsically linked we all are as well.

I was from Singapore, lived in London and now based in Hong Kong, where I run a creative video production agency Propagandeur. I make commercials and content for brands and a wide range of tourism boards and I never forget how fortunate I am to be doing what I’m doing. I also contribute to CNN Travel and awesome stock photo agency Stocksy.

What’s Handcarry Only all about?

Part photo diary, part travelogue, I started Handcarry Only in December 2011 with the intention of using it as a platform to share my travel photography and thoughts with fellow wanderlusters and shutter-happy nomads out there, with some occasional camera geekery thrown in for good measure.

Handcarry Only is not about restaurant recommendations, top 10 lists or 5 must-see attractions. There’s always TripAdvisor for that. Handcarry Only is about slow travel, irreverent musings, interesting observations and crazy detours of the mind, and most of all, photography. All the beautiful things about travel.

Photography + Travel = Match made in heaven

I have it easy really, travel always puts me outside of my comfort zone, confronting me with all manner of unfamiliar situations, languages, strange food, mind boggling scenery and precious opportunities to interact with all sorts of weird and wonderful people from around the world. All I have to do is point the camera and click. I do not take much credit for my photos, I am merely the operator of the mechanical eye.

I shoot the mundane, the routine, the everyday miracles that many of us stopped noticing a while ago and find great beauty in them.

I shoot a lot with my Fuji X-Pro1, sometimes with my Canon 5D mk III and sometimes with my Samsung Note 4 camera and whatever other cameras I might have on me. It doesn’t really matter that much to me, but my back thanks me each time I choose to bring my Fuji X-Pro1 instead of my Canon brick.

Thank you for reading this far, see you on the road!

Join me on my adventures by following Handcarry Only!

 

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