Somewhere in Venice, a bustling restaurant is completely booked, even though it’s submerged in a flood. Somewhere in Hanoi, a mother cautiously pushes a stroller into a swarm of honking cars, mopeds and bicycles who instinctively veer around her. And somewhere in Havana, a former nursery school teacher who has always dreamed of leaving Cuba to sing on a stage slips on a dress, heads to Obispo Street, and belts out an angelic call for anyone and everyone to come buy the peanuts she’s selling.
For the past six years, photographer and filmmaker Sam Youkilis has been wandering the globe with an iPhone, finding the poetic in the mundane, and documenting it on his Instagram page for his more-than half a million followers. In an age when so much travel photography blurs together on social media, Youkilis has seemingly pioneered a new form of narrative storytelling.
Instead of Photoshopped landscapes and perfectly plated meals, Youkilis’ short, vertical videos – which highlight everything from mochi-making in Nara to the harvesting of olive oil in Umbria to a montage of stray cats of Greece – celebrate the time-honoured customs and gentle rites that make the world so wondrously diverse while capturing the essence of a place.
“Beautiful things are happening around us all of the time, and my work is often the result of trying to pay attention to these things or waiting for them to happen,” Youkilis said.
To do that, Youkilis says he will often walk up to 15 miles a day, observing people, noticing details that interest him and generally absorbing a place as a flaner. Then, once things happen within frames that catch his eye, he’ll start recording. The result is a study of humanity that blurs the line between travel photography, voyeurism and anthropology, with each video revealing a fleeting glimpse of a place and time.
Now, much of Youkilis’ digital work from 2017 to 2023 is being compiled into his first book of stills called – rather appropriately – Somewhere. The 528-page monograph loosely traces the arc of a day across the planet, opening as dawn breaks across the canals of Xochimilco in Mexico City and ending with the last gasps of light in Essaouira, Morocco.
“I try to travel without expectations, but I also travel to be surprised,” Youkilis said. “A response to the unfamiliar is how a lot of my work is generated.”
Youkilis was raised in Lower Manhattan and now mainly splits his time between Italy and Mexico, but the peripatetic photographer didn’t initially set out to shoot the world. “I started taking pictures as a teenager growing up in New York City. I was gifted a camera and carried it with me everywhere I went,” he said. After years of shooting things like subway graffiti with his friends, Youkilis studied photography in college and bartended to save up enough money to rent a car so he could drive as far as possible off campus with his camera to find inspiration.
Around the same time Youkilis graduated in 2016, Instagram added its Stories feature and the photographer realised he could use the new feature to add narrative depth to his storytelling – be it when showcasing the step-by-step production of unique cultural practice or a collection of thematic videos set in a specific place.
“In my work, narrative is often built through repetition and sequencing,” Youkilis said. “Often the carousel or slides helps me present a linear story of the process behind how something is made, or the beginning to end of a trip – each slide can show a step in the process. It also has become a vehicle to share my more serial work where there are themes, actions or ideas that I photograph continuously.”
Youkilis saved the money he had earned waiting tables back in Manhattan to move to Mexico in 2017. He then got a grant to travel through South America by bus from Colombia to Argentina, and the rest is history.
I recently caught up with Youkilis to ask him a bit more about some of his favourite images in Somewhere and how they came together.
(Credit: Sam Youkilis 2023 courtesy Loose Joints)
A man and his dog in a canoe at sunrise in Xochimilco
Xochimilco is a network of canals in the southernmost part of Mexico City and the last remnants of a vast water transport system built by the Aztecs. Xochimilco is made up of chinampas – basically farms that are part of an ancient agricultural system coming from the Aztecs – where the crops are irrigated by water from the canals. I was there visiting friends who have several of these chinampas called Arca Tierra.
(Credit: Sam Youkilis 2023 courtesy Loose Joints)
A man and his horse in Viñales, Cuba
This was located in the countryside a couple of hours from Havana on a tobacco farm. Viñales is a village of colourful painted wooden houses in a valley surrounded by mountains that feels suspended in time.
(Credit: Sam Youkilis 2023 courtesy Loose Joints)
A flower vendor pushing his cart through the streets of Old Havana
I was in Cuba shooting a fashion story but also had time to make some personal work. I wandered around downtown Havana for a few days scouting and I saw vendors pushing carts of fruit and flowers everywhere. I started to walk with them and photograph them as they were making their rounds.
(Credit: Sam Youkilis 2023 courtesy Loose Joints)
Spaghetti lunghi at Rustichella D’Abruzzo
This is spaghetti [at Rustichella D’Abruzzo] made from durum wheat at the final stage of the extruding process where it leaves the machine and is being flash dried. I’ve always been drawn to food, I travel for food – it’s my favourite insight into cultures and places I don’t know. I also particularly am interested in the processing of food, sometimes artisanally, but also industrially. It’s a medium through which I can express curiosity and interest even when I don’t speak the language.
(Credit: Sam Youkilis 2023 courtesy Loose Joints)
A man walking with his camel in Sidi Kaouki
[Sidi Kaouki is] a sleepy and windy fishing village a short bus ride from Essaouira in Morocco. The main village of Sidi Kaouki runs along a semi-deserted beach with some surfers, some camels and some fishermen. I’ve been to Essaouira a few times now, and every visit I make sure to stop in Sidi Kaouki as well.
(Credit: Sam Youkilis 2023 courtesy Loose Joints)
Fabien and Andres in Guadalajara, Mexico
I was in Guadalajara on assignment shooting with Fabien Cappello who is a very talented industrial designer. The project I was shooting was a series of unique plates he was making for a Swedish furniture company called Hem. Each of the plates was made with scraps and offcuts of glass that he was recycling from other projects. After we wrapped shooting one night, Fabien and his partner Andres brought me to an opening in downtown Guadalajara where this video was made.
(Credit: Sam Youkilis 2023 courtesy Loose Joints)
Men play chess in the pool in Széchenyi Thermal Bath
[Széchenyi Thermal Bath is] one of Europe’s largest health baths and spas located in Budapest’s City Park, not far from the city centre. I’ve been twice in my life to the baths and there are always groups of people around one of the pool entrances playing chess together. It feels more like a vehicle for conviviality and catching up than an atmosphere of competition.
(Credit: Sam Youkilis 2023 courtesy Loose Joints)
Sunset in Essaouira at the fish market
The fish market is just outside the medina in Essaouira and open from early in the morning. Dozens of vendors are selling fish fresh off the boat: some are shucking oysters, cutting open sea urchins – others selling tea. Once you buy your fish, you can bring it to one of several restaurants dotting the port and pay a fee to have them prepare the fish for you. This video was made at the end of the day in a quiet moment at the market once almost all of the fishermen had finished and left.
(Credit: Sam Youkilis 2023 courtesy Loose Joints)
A man riding a horse from New Mexico to New York City
I photographed this at an intersection in Tribeca on West Broadway from the loading dock of the apartment I grew up in. I raced downstairs and proceeded to follow him around downtown Manhattan.
(Credit: Sam Youkilis 2023 courtesy Loose Joints)
The harvest of cempasúchil in Oaxaca
The harvest of cempasúchil in a village outside of Oaxaca that will make its way to the Central de Abastos – the centralised produce market in Oaxaca city. This was shot on October 30th. Every year in anticipation of Day of the Dead (cempasúchil) a variety of marigold is used to decorate alters to remember the dead.
Somewhere by Sam Youkilis is published by Loose Joints.
BBC Travel’s In Pictures is a series that highlights stunning images from around the globe.
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