The Work I Do When I Leave
It’s always lived just under my skin, that pull toward adventure and the urge to place myself in a different landscape and let it work on me for a while.
Traveling began as a way to plant my feet somewhere unfamiliar and breathe different air.
To meet new humans. To immerse myself in the food, the pace, and the spirit of a place that didn’t know me yet.
Blog by Jama Finney. Portraits shot on my Canon 5D Mark IV and digital medium format - #fujigfx100ii
Over Time, I Realized
Over time, I realized it’s much less about the actual location and much more about the experience of travel itself. The challenge and the delight of relying on yourself. Learning how to communicate when familiar tools fall away. Discovering what you unexpectedly love and what you know you’ll say no to next time. The hidden, unplanned moments that never make it into an itinerary. The people who slip under your skin and stay there long after you’ve returned home.
I’m often most confident when I’m away from what’s familiar. There’s no performance required and no role to maintain. Just myself to lean on, and space to pay attention. I notice everything, light, texture, tone, energy, soaking it all in like a sponge.
Over time, I’ve learned how to carry that awareness back with me. A four-dimensional sensory memory I tap into daily, in my art, in my personal work, and in the way I connect with others. Leaving familiarity reminds me how I see.
Why I Travel (Not Where I Go)
People often ask me where I’m heading next, but the answer has never mattered as much as why I go at all. Travel has never been about checking items off a list or chasing cookie-cutter, curated hotspots. It’s about stepping into adventure with intention, being thoughtful about who I share it with, and staying wholeheartedly curious.
I want to feel changed every time I return home. Forever altered in small but meaningful ways. That kind of transformation is difficult to access when everything around you is predictable.
When I travel, I breathe differently. I feel the space. I’ve learned to move more slowly and to truly inhabit the moments as they unfold. I allow places to reveal themselves to me, rather than assigning them a meaning before I’ve fully experienced them.
How Travel Changes the Way I See
Travel has changed me on a cellular level. My perception has sharpened, and I’ve found a patience I never expected. I step back and watch how light unfolds. I notice the beauty of negative space. I’ve developed a deeper understanding of how scale impacts me emotionally, not just visually.
When you’re somewhere unfamiliar, it’s easier to release the urge to hyperfocus or control. You take it all in. You allow yourself to occupy space. That shift has translated directly into how I work with people.
I no longer over-direct. I don’t force moments. I let inspiration lead and allow images to arrive naturally. This way of working took years of practice and trust to develop, and it continues to shape the way I photograph people, brands, and stories.
Favorite Images, Chosen for Feeling
The images I’m sharing here aren’t the most traditionally printable or classically expected travel photographs in my portfolio. They’re the ones I return to. The ones that refuel me until I see them again.
They aren’t connected by place, timeline, or even style. They’re connected by feeling. A sense of lightness. A sense of what happened just before and just after the shutter clicked.
These are the images that stay with me.
Travel as a Creative Reset
Travel is a complete creative and nervous system reset. It reminds me that an entire planet is living while I’m focused on the small dot of a computer monitor in my day-to-day life. Travel isn’t a luxury for me. It’s a necessity. Something I stay available for.
A true choose-your-own-adventure. And yes, I loved those books growing up.
I used to come home restless, unsettled, and immediately searching for what was next. Now, I feel something different. I carry the experience with me. I release it through my photographs and share the stories because keeping them alive in my body matters.
That energy shows up in the studio when I’m photographing people, brands, and the moments in between. It lingers. It informs everything.
What Comes Home with Me
Namibia keeps me warm and laughing on freezing days. Scotland lives in my bones as my first true love. Bora Bora felt like stepping onto another planet, lush greens and endless blues. Iceland taught me the meaning of Hygge and reintroduced me to the beauty of traveling in community.
And on and on.
These images live far beyond a screen. They are a homecoming. I live with them. I print them and hang them on my walls so I can physically reach out and touch them again and again.
As I move into this next chapter of my work, I’m paying closer attention to the images that linger and pull. The ones that hold a tangible temperature along with the memory. The ones I feel I could crawl back into at any time.
Every time I travel, I come back a little more myself. And that way of seeing is what I bring into everything I create.
Creative Credits
Locations: Namibia, Scotland, Iceland, St. Regis Bora Bora, The Brando - Tetiaroa
Photography: @jamafinneybrandphoto @bigbravenomad (black and white portrait of myself in front of the Three Sisters in the Highlands)
