When my Mum and I travel together it’s usually to the shops.

Nisa and Ulli Maier take things a little further – traversing sights, cities and scenes from almost every continent, in an all-woman, all-action dynamic duo – all in the time it takes me and Mum to decide…Maxibon or Gaytime?

What’s more, their work is full of compassion, genuine interest and enthusiasm in broadening not only their own experience of ‘real life’ but ours.

AHB: Hi Nisa and Ulli! Can you introduce yourselves a little, just basic stuff, and tell us where you are right now?

Nisa & Ulli: We’re a mother-daughter travel photography team from Austria, passionate about travelling to foreign countries and documenting our adventures through our cameras. Together, we’ve travelled to over 96 countries, visited all continents except Antarctica (one day) and speak 5 languages.

At the moment we’re sitting at home in front of the computer, studying your questions. We just had yummy self-cooked Asian dinner and are getting ready to go to Salzburg early in the morning on a business trip.

How long have you been working together as a mother-daughter photography team? Do you always or often travel together? Why does this dynamic work so damn well?

Well, we’ve been “working together” right from the start. We started off on an adventure trip through Africa straight out of the maternity ward, which ended up lasting about one and a half years. We try to travel together at least once or twice every year, but naturally that’s not always possible. Either because we fancy different destinations, or work interferes…

We work so well, because not only do we know each other, but we’ve found the perfect travel buddy in each other. Finding a good travel companion is hard and should not be taken for granted!

What has been a travel or work highlight for each of you? If you can’t decide – what was the last project you were, or currently are, working on?

We’ve had so many wonderful experiences throughout our travels and we’re very grateful for that. We know that this is nothing ordinary and many people don’t get the chance to do what we do.

Definitely one of the best experience was back in 1999, when we travelled through Indonesia for 6 months. We came across the town Tilamuta by incidence (our boat captain lost his way from Togean Islands to the mainland) and it turned out that we were the first white people to set foot there. That was quite something. You can read all about it in detail here.

I wonder, you’ve travelled extensively, and crossed off the map almost all the different continents. How do you decide where to go next? Coin toss? Or something more considered…

We try to travel off the beaten path. That’s about the only things that’s important to us. But off the beaten path doesn’t mean crossing out capital cities, but experiencing these places in a different way – the local way, or the out-of-the-ordinary way.

Come to think of it, coin tossing is actually a good idea that we’ll keep in mind for next time, haha.

What kinds of things do you find yourself drawn to as photographers when you visit a new place – is it the same for both of you? Do you have similar styles when you shoot?

Well, our styles aren’t too different, yet the subject and focus is. Ulli’s focus lies on travel documentary (working conditions, living situations, etc.) and people in general. I rather focus on landscape and architecture photography – although I’m getting into people shooting as well. I think this is an age factor as well. I still feel a bit reserved about photographing people up close, but documenting the daily life has also become one of my favourite photo subjects.

We usually visit the local markets for a real hands-on experience. This is something we do in every new (and already known) place we visit, because it gives you an insight on the daily life and you get to catch up with the local community.

When I look at your portfolio, I’m overwhelmed by colour and texture, the way I might be if I looked at a tiny, very detailed model of something, or a Bonsai Tree! I think with a photograph, that is small, we then train ourselves to see detail, which is so important in life… But that’s just me. What do you hope people – and clients – get from viewing your work?

First of all thanks for the lovely words. Positive feedback is something we really appreciate!

Our main goal is to show the world around us as it is. This can mean capturing the stunningly beautiful landscape of New Zealand, or a bustling night shot of busy Hong Kong or a documentary shot of hard working people in Bangladesh.

We want to make people aware about how difficult the living and working conditions in certain parts of the world can be, the fact that not everybody was born into the bright side of life but also that travelling to far away places is possible – through photographs. One lifetime is not enough to see it all, and through our photos, we’d love to give our readers and clients a sense of what the world looks like outside the box.

I like your line “Through our lens you’ll only get to see real life”. How did you arrive at that statement to sum up your practice?

Very often you find brilliant photographs in a magazine or on the internet, yet their origination process is staged. A little bit of Photoshop here (we’re not talking about colour corrections), a little payment there. In our eyes, this doesn’t make a photograph real. Therefore all our photos have been taken under real circumstances, with real people and real effort.

Some of the trips you do, to war-torn countries, through Africa with Nisa as a baby… Do you ever feel apprehensive about the trip in front of you?

Of course, there are places that we’d really love to travel to (for example Yemen), but sometimes you have to postpone ideas and trip. Even if most likely nothing would happen, the entire trip can be ruined with an eerie feeling right from the start “You can’t go there, you shouldn’t do this, be careful when doing that”. Still, we try to do our best by also visiting these places, because very often the media influence is far greater than it should be and missing out on fantastic travel opportunities is something we’d definitely regret some day…

On that topic, how do you plan for where you’re about to go?

We have many destinations on our bucket list: Currently Southern Sudan, Pakistan and Tajikistan, or travelling the Karakorum Highway from China to Pakistan or vice versa. Time will tell us when we can do this.

We usually come to our destinations through browsing our old-school paper Atlas, or reading through magazines. We start a journey by booking the flight and then we take it from there. There’s really not that much planning involved, unless totally necessary.

So I get Maier and Maier, but what does ‘Cookiesound’ mean?

Cookiesound is the sound of nature, and our parrot’s name is Cookie. We’ve always had parrots as pets because we love the sound they make – sort of like in a far away place when we’re on one of our adventures…

Years ago Cookie must have escaped from somewhere and found his way into our garden (he must have known that we’re animals lovers). It seemed like he waited to get caught by us, which in the end took us over three hours!

And that’s how Cookiesound became the name of our blog.

In terms of Cookiesound and the travel blog, does travelling for the process of documentation make the trip all business? Do you go where the wind takes you when you touch down in a new place – or are you seeking specific experiences?

We seek specific experiences, like for example staying in family-owned hotels or guesthouses, eating in family-run restaurants. To put it simple: we try to spend our money where it reaches a person or family directly. Of course a 5 star hotel can be a great treat, but the money just disappears somewhere and the benefit doesn’t reach the ones in need. We visit markets, listen what locals advise and try to joke with kids on the streets, we try to collect optical glasses during the year and bring them with us to places where no opticians are on site. We try to give back something. Therefore business is only a minor part during our adventures. We see the end product and take the business from there – of course we try to visit places where a story can be written, but if you ask us, this is the case anywhere you go. There is no such thing as a boring destination.

Cookiesound is a personal blog on which we share experiences, it’s suited for passionate travellers with an emphasis on photography, adventures, individuality, culture and inspirations. Luckily we’re in a position, where we don’t need (or want) to sell our souls for something that we can’t agree with 100%.

Where to next – yourselves and your projects?

Projects and ideas are abundant; next on our agenda is Slovenia followed by Italy – after all, we don’t want to neglect our near neighbouring countries haha. In July/August, Kashmir and central India are on our travel list and then most probably Philippines. Then it’s a bit of a wait for our next journey. In December/January, we booked tickets to Australia and New Zealand. For now, that’s about it, although we’re pretty sure that some other destination will pop up before that as well…

Interview by Emilia, Images by Nisa and Ulli Maier