BBC Travel has just published a photo essay of mine from a photographic trip to Unalaska Island, part of Alaska’s lengthy Aleutian archipelago. This remotest corner of the United States sits where the North Pacific Ocean meets the Bering Sea. It’s a place marked by rugged volcanic peaks like Makushin Volcano, extreme and dramatic weather, and a deep history that includes early Russian colonial expeditions and some seldom known strategic battles during World War Two.

I’m fascinated with and drawn to remote places, especially those with complex layers of history, politics and culture. What drew me to Unalaska wasn’t just its stark and otherworldly geography—it was also the way that the landscape collides with the human aspect. Long before Western contact, the indigenous Unangax people lived here, developing subsistence traditions finely attuned to the landscape and elements. During World War Two, the island became one of the few parts of continental U.S. territory to see direct military engagement, leaving echoes of those encounters in both the landscape and local memory.

Unalaska is also a large deep sea fishing hub with a large seafood processing industry that employs many people on the island as well as many migrant workers who make the long and difficult trip to the island (the long running American reality TV series, Deadliest Catch, is often filmed here).

My photo essay was an attempt to capture that sense of place. You can view the article here on BBC Travel.

UPDATE (2026): You can also view my original photo essay and complete set of images and captions on my main website, as BBC Travel recently shortened the photo essay on their page and converted it into an article.