Papalaya Surf Camp Bali
Retreat and Travel ☼ Case Study
What is Papalaya?
Immersive, exclusive, surf trip experience connecting culture and creating community while exploring the world's best surf spots. Papalaya offers surf and mobility training with the goal that their guests will see surf profession during their 9 days at the retreat. Two other highlights of their trip is yoga and thoughtfully crafted homemade, fresh and delicious meals to nourish your soul and your body.
I felt the pull to go to Bali for a year after I had “seriously” started to learn how to surf.
Who wouldn’t? It’s a tropical surf mecca!
Once an idea is in my head I don’t stop until I actualise it!
I started pitching for Surf camps and projects in Bali in December 2023. With wild ambition.
I used the content from my previous stint at a Portuguese surf camp, tourism projects in the Netherlands, as well as my personal travel shots to create my pitch deck.
I wanted to showcase my ability to capture people enjoying an active, surf centric life through both photo and video. There are so many key elements to shooting a camp, travel experience or hotel. As such, I showcased my desire to create wildly stunning content in regards to: surf (naturally!), food, lifestyle images of downtime in the group and cultural experiences.
I bring my camera… and so much more to a group!
Being a photographer on a trip or retreat is so much more than taking photos. It’s assisting with task such as transportation, thoughtful, emotional management of the group and whatever else may come up. This was certainly true of the Bali trip!
Goals
For this shoot Maria and Pablo were very open about the kind of content that we would shoot. We did not create a moodboard but instead a shot list of things we wanted to capture including:
Food
Surf shots of all participants
Accomodation
Cultural outings and expeditions
Testimonials from guests
How did it flow?
Maria was hosting the retreat so her and I were in constant contact about the progression of content. We worked together to take the overall moral of the group + weather/surf conditions into consideration in order to get the most epic content possible.
I did several content dumps via airdrop so that Maria could post high quality stories throughout the retreat. The goal of this was booking out their following retreat which was in the peak phase of sales as we were shooting. Talk about BUSY! Maria and Pablo were freaking graceful and attentive throughout the whole process.
On the last day of the retreat the majority of the photos were edited so I transferred them to Maria before we parted. Additionally, when I got home I uploaded the full edited gallery to a drive and sent it to Maria.
Deliverables: 242 edited photos
HD, mic’ed video testimonials from guests
Kind words:
What was lindsays job at your retreat?
Lindsay was our content manager, she created amazing photos from all the moments we shared during the retreat.
What was your experience with Lindsay as your photographer during your retreat?
She was always proactive and professional, she helped us to build our brand image.
Can you sum up Lindsay as a creator in 3 words according to your time together?
Proactive, positive and problem solving.
What did Lindsay add to the retreat?
She was an essential part of our team during the retreat. She connected with all the guest and help us to bond together
What would you say to people thinking about inviting Lindsay to a retreat/adventure with them?
She will bring so many positive things and energy into your retreat as well as create the most beautiful atmosphere and pictures of the experiences you offer.
