EXPEDIA TAPS JOÃO CANZIANI FOR CAMPAIGNS CELEBRATING THE THRILL OF TRAVEL

For an ongoing campaign, Expedia sent João to capture the feel of being immersed in New York City, Greece, Japan, and South Africa. Here, he takes us behind the scenes…

"The challenge for this campaign was to create work that didn’t feel like pretty postcards, or pictures of models passively posing in front of some famous landmark. Rather, I needed to create sincere images that felt emotional and caught in the moment.

My approach was to catch a little slice of a larger narrative. We recruited real models and actors to be characters in made-up stories and threw them into interesting situations. That way, their behaviors and reactions would feel real.

It felt a bit like shooting a movie, I suppose, with a sense of narrative in every frame. The goal was not to get a great landscape or portrait (although I welcomed that too), but to capture an immersive experience.

For me, travel is emotional. There is a reason why time goes by more slowly when you travel—because everything feels new and exciting, and all your senses are in high gear.

There’s nothing more beautiful to me than looking out the airplane window while flying back home, listening to music on my headphones as I remember the moments I just experienced. Some people collect souvenirs when they travel. I collect memories, and the pictures to remember them by."