We start our trip with a three-day boat journey along the Mahakam River. Borneo is one of the greenest islands in the world and home to Asia’s largest tropical rainforest. But we quickly discover why the area isn’t touristy: the riverbanks are lined with coal mines, massive tugboats loaded with coal pass by endlessly, and the rainforest is being flattened at an alarming pace. The journey is pleasant, but not photogenic in the slightest.

Our second attempt at finding an original backdrop is Nusantara, Indonesia’s future capital. Jakarta sinks twenty centimetres into the sea each year, so a new capital is being built from scratch in the middle of the Bornean jungle. We hope for surreal scenes of half-constructed buildings in the wilderness, but instead it feels mostly like a suburban development area. A nice place for a stroll, but not for photos.

By now we’ve been travelling for four days and still haven’t captured a single decent photo. Luckily, we have a few more

locations ahead, recommended by the travel agency. First stop: Djawatan Forest in East Java. On social media it looks like a mystical fairytale forest, but in reality it’s a tourist churn machine full of food stalls and selfie spots. Since we can’t return home empty-handed, we do what we normally avoid: squeezing in a moment between the crowds, finding a small corner for ourselves, holding people back, and shooting.

Next up: Muncar, Java’s oldest fishing port. Hundreds of colourful boats, promising from a distance. Up close, however, it turns out to be a filthy, heavily polluted, foul-smelling mess. As if we suddenly ended up in India. No matter how we try, we can’t take a single usable photo here.

Our last hope is the Ijen volcano, famous for its crater with the bright blue sulphur lake. We leave at 4:00 in the morning. At the foot of the volcano we’re slightly shocked: we’re dropped off at what looks like the parking lot of an amusement park on a busy holiday. After an hour-long hike we reach the crater rim. The crater is wrapped in thick fog, the blue lake is completely invisible. What is clearly visible are the hundreds of noodle-slurping tourists, right around us. Eventually, we find a quiet spot on the crater wall, slightly away from the crowd. During the two hours we stay there, we get maybe two minutes of visibility through the mist. For the second time this week, we’re shooting photos inside a tourist trap.

Sometimes things work out, sometimes they don’t. This trip was hard work in terms of finding good locations. That’s the consequence of our approach. We prepare as thoroughly as possible, but after that we leave it to the weather and to fate. Usually, that leads to surprising images we could never have planned, but sometimes it doesn’t. We still have just enough material to get through the summer. But if you see a beautiful photo from this Indonesia shoot somewhere, just know: right outside the frame, there’s definitely a tourist eating fries.