Play-by-Play Photography Adventure for Panerai from China

Whoa. Pinch myself. I’m today en route to China on an epic assignment for the luxury watch brand Panerai, sailing this here 105 foot sailboat through the South China Sea from Shanghai to Hong Kong, and across to Taiwan in a mere 8 days. And I was just recently given this cool news: I can share with you the adventures of this campaign along the way.

Assuming I can get satellite uploads from the middle of nowhere, I’ll be able to keep in touch with daily images, words and occasional posts here to the blog, my Facebook page, and via Twitter. I hope you follow along. This is unlike any assignment I’ve ever done, really. It’s just me and my manager Jerard. No assistants, no “crew”. We have hand (carry on) luggage only, just two cameras (D3s and D7000) and a handful of lenses. I’m told by my photojournalist buddies that this “builds character”, well…, we’ll see about that.

My mission is to come back with some amazing images and video for Panerai of renowned explorer Mike Horn. Mike is an amazing man. He’s circumnavigated the earth at the equator without any motorized power via foot, bicycle, canoe and sailboat. He’s traversed South America on foot to the source of the Amazon and then swam the length of the river. And he’s also the first man in the world to solo circumnavigated the 20,000km Article Circle without motorized power, using only foot, ski kite, and kayak. Suffice to say, he’s legendary – one of the world’s greatest modern adventurers. I will meet him for the first time in just 24 hours. I can hardly wait.

As I mentioned above, the client side of this epic assignment is the luxury watch brand Panerai. Italian-based and Swiss made, this badass brand was founded in 1860 and has been keeping time and looking good while doing so for more than a century. As someone whose never sported a luxury watch before, there are definite perks to picking up a fresh new client. Ahem…check out the photo below (is this real life?). My bicep is already larger on my left hand after wearing it for just 2 days.

Literally running to my gate here at the airport as soon as I hit ‘post’. Gear details, travel details, behind-the-scenes stuff and general debauchery as much as I can muster from the road. Wish me luck.