Jacob Wallwork TRANS-MONGOLIAN

Jacob Wallwork, who was born in Perth, Australia, had long dreamed of taking his camera, and using it to photograph people and places along the Trans-Mongolian Railway route from Beijing to St. Petersburg. But a trip of this magnitude takes significant planning; not only did Wallwork have to apply for three separate visas—to China, Mongolia and Russia—but he also had to save up money to personally fund the expedition. In the summer of 2017, with everything finally in place, he set off on a two-month expedition that covered 4,660 miles of track on ten different trains. He returned with a portfolio of images that show a diverse world at times flush with bodies, and at other times gorgeously sparse. The rhythm of scenery changing through a train window is apparent in his photographs.

Wallwork studied communications with a major in photo media at Edith Cowan University in Perth, but had not pitched his travels to any publication. Instead, he let his own instincts guide his camera. “I was just shooting as I went, and seeing what I saw, and documenting what was interesting or funny,” he says. Always, he shot with film. “It slows me down a lot,” he explains. Rather than ask permission from his subjects, he inserted himself into scenes as unobtrusively as possible. “I found most people to be quite open to it.”

Wallwork is currently living in Melbourne, working for a company that digitizes old photographs and other documents. Eventually, he would like to retrace his steps across Asia, this time in winter, with the intention of publishing a book of his photographs.

—Brienne Walsh

Photos @ Jacob Wallwork jacobwallwork.com

Jacob Wallwork — “Trans-Mongolian"