Discover Belmond’s Photobooks

Photography has always been a mainstay of Belmond’s cultural passions, allowing us to work closely with talented imagemakers from around the world to bring our properties, destinations and communities to life.

We invited some of the most talented and distinctive photographers to travel to Belmond destinations around the world as part of our Belmond Legends advertising campaign – from Brazil to South Africa to the Caribbean. These commissions created a unique body of photographic work that form a bold partnership with renowned Parisian publisher RVB.

This collection of ‘As Seen By’ photobooks expand on the photographers’ original take on their chosen destination, giving a more in-depth and intimate experience of each place. Printed in Venice and bound with a cloth cover that graphically interprets each destination, the books are the start of an ongoing collectible series. These five books have been created in collaboration with photographers Coco Capitán, Rosie Marks, Letizia Le Fur, Thomas Rousset and Stefanie Moshammer – discover more below.

Stefanie Moshammer captured the beauty of the unique Eastern & Oriental Express as it wound through breathtaking Malaysian landscapes. Her work explores stereotypes and cultural myths, offering nuanced and personal perspectives on different places and subjects. Combining fictional and subjective narratives with a research-led approach, her projects reveal themes of social dynamics and human relationships, each time reflecting a fresh, personal approach that is original and unexpected. She combines a variety of visual elements such as stills from short films shot with an iPhone and screenshots of found images that are then cropped, blurred or pixelated to create a dreamlike quality and a sense of timelessness.

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Thomas Rousset’s irreverent approach made him the perfect choice to showcase the extraordinary stories that lie behind Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons, our country manor in Oxfordshire. Firstly, he drew on his own imagination of the luxurious lifestyle of the English aristocracy. Secondly, he was influenced “by the unreal, fantastical aspect” of the countryside lifestyle as depicted in old British films. By placing ordinary objects and figures in bizarre, dreamlike contexts, he disrupts the viewers’ sense of reality, prompting them to reflect on what they are seeing.

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Known for her playful eye and hand-scrawled musings, Capitán tapped into a life-long love of trains for her project aboard the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express . Having been obsessed with the golden age of travel since childhood – harking back to a time when people roamed the world by sea and rail rather than jet engine – Capitán set about showing these hallowed 1920s carriages in a new light. Inviting a group of close friends on the journey with her, as well as embracing the staff and stewards of the train itself, the result is a riotous melee that blurs the boundaries between fact and fiction.

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Marks’ signature style of bold colours and even bolder characters was a perfect fit for ‘The Nellie’, as Mount Nelson is affectionately known by Cape Town locals. Immediately honing in on the hotel staff as her heroes and heroines, Marks joined them in their daily rituals – from morning prayer circles to evening turn downs – resulting in a body of work that celebrates the people who make Mount Nelson tick. The backdrop to this human story is the blush pink of The Nellie herself, all framed by the towering majesty of cloud-caped Table Mountain.

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LeFur’s colour palette of hyper-saturated hues and densely collaged vistas brought out a side of the Amalfi Coast rarely seen in print. Her work seems to hover somewhere between Renaissance painting and futuristic hologram, managing to effortless bridge the timeless and modern in a single composition. This is only appropriate for Caruso – a millennia old palace perched improbably between sky and sea on the clifftops of Ravello.

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