A great image serves as a passport, allowing you to transport to a place and experience its unique essence, distinct textures, colors and light. With their exceptional skill and extensive experience, travel photographer Teal Thomsen and cinematographer David Markun have mastered this art of capturing people and landscapes with their lenses.
You might have seen the married couple’s work with Belmond and Four Seasons hotels, on Netflix’s Dancing for the Devil and in the 2021 Oscar-winning short film Two Distant Strangers. Forbes Travel Guide caught up with the talented twosome during a recent visit to Cognac’s Le Logis (home to Forbes Travel Guide’s L’Académie corporate retreat), where they photographed the 16th-century chateau and surrounding vineyards, to get a snapshot of the duo’s creative process, find out their bucket-list destinations and gather some tips for aspiring photographers.
What was your impression of Le Logis?
Thomsen: It’s truly a fairytale, a storybook chateau surrounded by vineyards perched on a hill. The hospitality is just absolutely next level. The staff was so kind and welcoming, and the food was spectacular.
Markun: They curate such amazing, unique experiences. We ate dinner in different places every night. We had cocktail hour in different locations each time, lunch was in different settings, and they were able to create these beautiful, unique little experiences.
Do you have any favorite photographs or images from your visit?
Thomsen: Definitely not a single favorite. There are terabytes of stills and footage from Le Logis, so it would be hard to narrow it down to one. But the images that stick out in my mind would be the interior photos I shot in the mornings and the exteriors at golden hour and sunset. The chateau gets stunning, strong morning light that beams through the windows. And then in the evening, the last golden rays shine on the little town of Juillac-le-Coq that is just beyond the medieval walls of the chateau. Shooting outside during golden hour, David and I ran around like chickens with their heads off. At every angle, the light was just magic.
There’s nothing better than natural light.
Markun: Totally. That dictated a lot of our shoot, and I got to give a lot of credit to Robert [Louey], our creative director, who was adamant that we soak in the light and see it. Teal and I are so used to hitting the ground running. Whatever location, whatever place in the world we go to, we pull out our cameras, and we’re ready to go. Robert’s like, “Sit and watch the light for a bit when you get to Le Logis.” It sounded hilarious, but truthfully, it dictated a lot of our shoot.
Staying there for a few days allowed us to study the light. In the same way, they curated these different experiences, we were able to curate different light patterns and say, “Oh, the pool actually will be better at 4 o’clock, a little bit before sunset.” It was cool to let that be the process that naturally dictated how the photographs came to life.
France is beautiful, and it holds so much magic for people. Is there something that stands out that visually defines it for you?
Thomsen: For me, a lot of it is the light. I did a shoot in Saint-Tropez a few years ago, and I remember the light bouncing off all the warm-colored buildings, making everything and everyone look like they were glowing. France also has a certain magic because of the rich history in all of the architecture. There are so many stories that it lends itself nicely to nostalgic and romantic visual storytelling. Walking around France is so different from walking around where we live in L.A. Everything is old and storied in France. Just imagine if these walls could talk.
How would you describe your work’s styles and influences?
Thomsen: My goal is to make transportive images that make you feel as if you were there and to inspire you to dream of your next trip. I lean towards warmth and natural light in every frame. I’m capturing an experience, not just a place, so I’m not usually shooting wide frames of a landscape or a room. For example, you might see the edge of a desk with a coffee on it, the open window with the drapes blowing in the wind and the view out the window — never just the view. I’m influenced always by natural light and also the relationship between design and the surrounding environment.
Markun: My style of filming is mainly documentary-based. I shoot series and films, travel the world and do different stories. I always like the idea you’re in service of your subject, trying to tell the story through the subject’s eyes.
As a documentarian, your job is to feel the lens, the perspective, feel you’re there, but you’re also trying to do so through your subject. I also pride myself in bringing a sense of elevated cinema to documentaries, utilizing technology we have today to bring the best visuals to real life stories. That’s something you couldn’t have done in the Handycam days.
Is there a place where you felt photos couldn’t do it justice?
Thomsen: Definitely. Namibia is a good example. There was no way to fully capture the vastness of the landscapes and how tiny you felt in the massive sand dunes. I tried to use humans in the frame for scale, but it doesn’t do it justice.
Markun: Steepness is difficult to capture. I’ve shot motorcycle commercials in the Himalayas and Ladakh, India. And I’m like, “We’re up at 15,000 feet. How do you make it seem like we’re at 15,000 feet?” And you’re riding on a crazy, single-track road with a gigantic steep drop-off. It isn’t easy to get the perspective to show the sheer intensity of the natural landscape.
Any bucket-list destinations?
Thomsen: My bucket list is never-ending, but Bhutan and Antarctica are at the top of my list.
Markun: Somewhere extreme because I love seeing how people adapt. Whether it’s people living 14,000 feet up in Ladakh, India, or people in Alaska riding their mountain bikes in zero-degree weather, or people in Quito, Ecuador, living at the top of a crater, it’s fascinating to tell those stories of people in extreme environments because it gives you another appreciation and respect for humanity.
Do you have any advice for amateurs looking for a good travel photo?
Thomsen: Think about foreground, middleground and background. Don’t just shoot the view. Shoot what it looks like from where you are. Include a little bit of the window frame or curtain.
Markun: Follow the light. Everyone always wants to take a photo in front of the sunset. If you have a really good camera, a backlight and maybe a bounce card, it could look good, but otherwise, it will just be like a silhouette. We take the phone and then say, “Maybe face this way for a second.” And everyone’s like, “Why would I face that way?” But get the good light to hit you for a second, and then boom, this is the better photo. Just trust the light.
Thomsen: When you’re just shooting the view or the sunset, everyone will have that picture. Shoot from your perspective; it’s going to be different.
