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creativity
  • CREATIVITY , Reading & Writing

5 BOOKS EVERY CREATIVE SHOULD READ

October 18, 2017 0 Comment
🇮🇹VERSIONE ITALIANA Since I got serious about writing my book I started feeling all sorts of blocks and fears. Writing …
  • CREATIVITY , Instagram , Photography

HOW I TAKE MY INSTAGRAM PICTURES (solo)

September 29, 2017 1 Comment
One of the questions I get asked the most is “How do you take your instagram pictures when you are …
  • CREATIVITY , THOUGHTS

I FINALLY DID IT! – I’m on Youtube!

September 24, 2017 1 Comment
🇮🇹VERSIONE ITALIANA I don’t remember when exactly I started thinking and feeling I wanted to start a youtube channel, it …
  • INTERVIEWS

ARTIST TALK – DONNA FERRATO

August 13, 2017 2 Comments
🇮🇹ITALIAN VERSION A few weeks ago I went to Cortona for Cortona on the Move with Canon Italia where I Interviewed Donna Ferrato. …
  • THOUGHTS , Tips & Guides , Travel

HOW I CAN AFFORD TO TRAVEL SO MUCH – A no bs guide on what it takes to live on the road

August 06, 2017 6 Comments
 🇮🇹 VERSIONE ITALIANA Since I wrote the hyper discussed “Instagram created a monster” I’ve been in the news pretty much every …
  • CREATIVITY , Reading & Writing

ON MY SHELF THIS MONTH

July 31, 2017 0 Comment
There was a time when i lived in NYC, before I started traveling like a maniac, that I was reading …
  • CREATIVITY , Photography , THOUGHTS

IS PHOTOGRAPHY STOPPING US FROM LIVING IN THE MOMENT?

April 06, 2017 10 Comments
March 6 2017 – Ranthambore, India Today I saw a tiger for the first time. We were on a jeep …
  • EUROPE , GALLERY , Italy , Photography , Travel

MAGICAL LAKES IN THE DOLOMITES

February 23, 2017 3 Comments
I grew up by the Alps and the Dolomites were just a 2 hours drive from my hometown but I …
  • CREATIVITY , Photography , THOUGHTS

BEHIND A PORTRAIT

February 11, 2017 6 Comments
  A few months ago I was sitting at the airport of Addis Ababa, I had spent a few weeks …
  • North America , Travel , United States

ROADTRIPPIN’ – The Great American West

January 21, 2017 2 Comments
  Last month I  partnered up with Avis Usa and I finally got to do something I had been dreaming of doing …
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ABOUT ME

PHOTOGRAPHER, WRITER, STORYTELLER

Hey guys! My name is Sara and I'm the photographer behind QUEST FOR BEAUTY.
I’m an Artist, a former dancer, a writer, a traveler, a Dreamer and I recently left my life in NYC to be on the road full time. Join me on my adventures around the world!

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INSTAGRAM

  • 🇬🇧hey guys! It’s been a while again. I’ve been insanely busy in Japan but I’ll be back in action soon! 
So...this is much different from what I usually post but it’s about time I change things up a bit here! I grew bored of my feed, I like creating my travel fairytales images but it seems everyone else is doing it and since there are so many more unique shades to what I do than that, I think it’s time to be truer to myself; Travel to me goes far beyond fancy hotels and instagrammable places, travel is about life and people and culture. The work that gives me most joy is this: real travel photography that captures the real essence of countries. So from now on I’ll start sharing this kind of pictures too (they will probably tank since unfortunately it seems that most people prefer to see unrealistic images that they already saw a million times before but fuck it, my feed, my rules 😉 )
I shot this pic in a Maasai village in Tanzania while working with @africanimpact ,the jumping dance they are doing is called Adumu, and is performed to represent the ritual passage of a young warrior to manhood (this was right before I drank the goat blood 🙈). I’m writing a blog post about the weekend I spent with the Maasai and there’s a YouTube video dropping soon! Thanks for sticking around even if I’m a bit m.i.a lately 💛
#travelwothmeaning
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🇮🇹hey guys! Scusate l’assenteismo prolungato ma penso questo sia il periodo più busy della mia vita.
Allora, come avrete notato questa foto e’ molto diversa dal lavoro che posto di solito, ma e’ ora di cambiare un po’ le cose qui. Mi sono abbastanza stufata drill mio feed. Anche se mi piace creare le mie immagini fiabesche ormai mi sembrano troppo uguali a quelle di 1000 altre persone e dato che ci sono sfumature molto più uniche del mio lavoro e quello che faccio penso sia ora di essere più vera a me stessa. Viaggiare per me va ben oltre i posti instagrammabili e gli hotel fighi, il viaggio per me e’ fatto di vita, persone e cultura. Il lavoro che mi rende più felice e’ questo, la vera fotografia di viaggio che cattura l’essenza del paese tramite la sua gente. Quindi da oggi vi faccio vedere anche questo (...continua nei commenti)
  • “Rebel child, I urge you, fight the turgid slick of conformity with which they seek to smother your glory”
—Russel Brand
🇬🇧Guys I’m alive (and happy), still in Japan.
 I haven’t showed you much in the stories because I have been crazy busy working, living this country and stuffing my face with ramen 😂 this is the longest I’ve ever went without posting here and to be honest it felt kind of awesome (though I missed you!) Thanks for all the messages asking me if I was ever gonna post again 😂🙈 I will, but only when I feel like doing it!
What did you guys do over the last few weeks?!
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🇮🇹guys sono viva (e felice!), ancora in Giappone. Non vi ho fatto vedere molto nelle stories perché sono stata impegnatissima a gestire il mio  retreat @riseandshine_retreats, a vivere questo paese e a ingozzarmi di ramen come se non ci fosse un domani 😂 Penso che questa sia la pausa più lunga che abbia mai preso nel postare e sinceramente (anche se mi siete mancati 💛) sono stata da Dio! Grazie per tutti i messaggi preoccupatissimi di chi mi ha chiesto se avrei mai più postato 😂🙈 yes sono ancora qui, ma solo quando mi sento di postare. Voi ch avete fatto questa settimana? 
P.S. Un reminder per tutte le ragazze qui: dal 7 al 14 giugno porto 9 di voi in Grecia con me per una settimana di fotografia tra Santorini e Milos, trovate tutte le info nelle stories!
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Shot with canon 5d Mark IV @canonitaliaspa while on Safari with @goshenisafaris
  • 🇬🇧spoken words 📝
Sometimes I wish I was a wild animal 
So I could run free in the jungle or fly high 
above all the flaws of humanity, 
Not giving a shit 
about art and morals and what's wrong and what’s right. 
But I'm not a wild animal, I'm a girl. An artist. 
I make mistakes.
I have emotions and dreams and ethics and hopes and sometime they nearly kill me. 
I try to scream if I see unfairness,
people hear me but not many want to listen. 
I try to change things but In the end I can always only change myself. 
So I'll have to teach myself how not to care, 
how not to let unfairness dim my spark.
I have to teach myself to fly again, 
to let it go, 
move on, 
turn it into art. —S
Little poem/spoken words on how the system and all the fuckers who keep cheating their way up (here and in life generally) make me feel.
As I said in the stories yesterday, I’m writing one last article about IG and then I’m moving on from the topic since it gave me nothing but heartaches. I played my part, I tried to change things, it was useless. I can use my time for better things. But I will never stop making art, you guys are why I’m here and why I stay here 💛
.
🇮🇹📝poesia
Vorrei essere un animale selvaggio
per poter correre libera nella savana o volare sopra I difetti dell'umanita'
sbattendomene altamente
di arte, morali, di cosa e' giusto o di cosa sara'.
.
Ma non sono un animale, sono una donna. 
Un artista.
Ho emozioni e sogni e etiche esperanze, e a volte mi uccidono un po 
lentamente.
.
Cerco di urlare quando vedo ingiustizie
Mi sentono in tanti ma pochi vogliono ascoltare
A volte cerco di cambiare
Camabiare il mondo
Cambiare le cose
Cambiare la percezione di cosa e' bene e cosa e' male
Ma alla fine e’ tutto relativo e io sono l'unica cosa da tramutare.
.
Devo imparare a diventare un alchimista
A non lasciare le ingiustizie farmi venire voglia di scappare e mettermi da parte.
Devo insegare a me stessa a volare,
lasciar andare,
e trasformare tutto in arte.
—S
Poesia/spoken words che ho scritto per esprimere il vomito che sento verso questo sistema e verso tutta la gente che facendo la furba, sta...(continua nei commenti)
  • 🇬🇧“If you ask me what I came to do in this world, I am artist, will answer you: I am here to live out loud.”
—Emile Zola
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Finally showing you some of the work I shot in Tanzania! I’m taking longer and longer breaks from posting, just not feeling the vibes anymore (it’s a common feeling apparently lately). Too many people keep cheating their way up, too much unfairness, too many copies of the same thing over and over again...But fuck it, less time online means more time for art making, more writing, more things I’m putting together for me and for you. Lots of news coming soon ✨
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Special thanks to @serengetiballoonsafaris to help me create this image.
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🇮🇹“Se mi chiedi cosa sono stata messa al mondo per fare, io un artista, ti rispondero’: sono qui per vivere ad alta voce”
—Emile Zola
.
Finalmente vi faccio vedere un po’ di cose dalla Tanzania. Ultimamente sto postando sempre meno, non sento più le good vibes qui. Troppa gente continua ad imbrogliare, troppo poca meritocrazia, troppe copie tutte uguali della stessa cosa...ma che ci vuole te fare 😌 fortunatamente meno tempo online lascia più tempo per fare arte, per scrivere, per creare cose per me e per voi. Ci sono novità’ in arrivo ✨💛
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Shot with canon 5d Mark IV #liveforthestory @canonitaliaspa
  • 🇬🇧“Happiness consists in realizing it is all a great strange dream” ―Jack Kerouac
Over the last few days the line between dream and reality seems blurry. I have very vivid dreams at night and I wake up smiling filled by an inevitable sense of gratitude, and the first word that comes out, out loud, is a huge “Thank You”. There’s no one next to me but I say it anyway.
Nothing changed, nothing new happened, maybe the animals in Africa really did work their magic on me but whatever the reason, for the first time in a very long time I understand how lucky I am to exist. And the more I feel this way the blurrier that line between dream and reality becomes. Practice gratitude guys, so much magic lays in that feeling, so many dreams come true because of that word. Even in the darkest days there’s always one little thing to be grateful for , hang on to that thing and then find another and thank another, and watch the light come back✨ .
🇮🇹”la Felicita consiste nel realizzare e’ tutto un grande, strano sogno”
—Jack Kerouac
In questi giorni la linea tra sogno e realtà’ mi sembra vaga. Faccio dei sogni stranissimi e quando mi sveglio apro gli occhi sorridendo, invasa da un senso di gratitudine enorme, e la prima parola che mi esce di bocca e’ ‘Grazie’. Lo dico a voce alta anche so non c’è nessuno accanto a me a sentirlo. Non e’ successo niente di nuovo, non e’ cambiato niente, forse gli animali in Africa hanno davvero fatto la loro magia su di me, ma qualsiasi sia il motivo, per la prima volta in tanto tanto tempo mi sento davvero riconoscente per il fatto di esistere, e la linea tra sogno e realtà si assottiglia sempre di più...praticate la gratitudine ragazzi, quanta magia sta in quel sentimento, quanti sogni si realizzano grazie a quella parola. Anche nei giorni più bui c’e’ sempre un qualcosa, per quanto piccolo, per cui essere grati. Aggrappatevi a quel qualcosa e poi trovatene un altro, e poi a un altro e vedrete che la luce torna ✨
  • 🇬🇧”you are the last, best hope of Earth. We ask you to protect it. Or we, and all living things we cherish, are history.”
—Leonardo di Caprio
.
Today was an incredible day. I flew on a hot air balloon for the first time in my life (all in the stories of you haven’t seen them yet!)I had dreamt of doing it as long as my memory goes. While I was up there, slowly going towards the blue sky and watching the earth beneath me extend to infinite lengths, it was like seeing her for the first time: Mother Earth. In all her beauty, her splendor, her glory.  I couldn’t talk, I couldn’t think, I was just bewitched by such beauty and possessed by awe. 
Once I got back on the ground i couldn’t snap out of a strange bittersweet feeling. 
The more I travel the more I feel a slight underling sense of dauntingly despair and today it was clearer than ever why. I saw dams being built all over the Mekong in Laos, forests being burned in Indonesia, ungodly amounts of trash scattered all over India... How lucky are we to live on this planet and how stupid are we to hurt it and exploit it (it and it’s people).
We only have one planet and we don’t have much time left to make things right, I urge you all to play your part in protecting our future, our home 💛🌍
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🇮🇹
Oggi e’ stato un giorno incredibile. Ho realizzato un sogno che ho da quando ero piccola, ho volato in mongolfiera. (E’ tutto nelle stories)
Mentre mi alzavo verso il cielo di un azzurro commuovente e vedevo il suolo sotto di me estendersi a lunghezze infinite, e’ stato come vederla per la prima volta: Madre Terra. In tutta la sua bellezza, la sua vita, la sua gloria. Non riuscivo a parlare, non riuscivo a pensare ero stregata da tutto il suo splendore e posseduta da un senso di ‘awe’ (una parola che in italiano non esiste purtroppo). Una volta tornata a terra non riuscivo a scuotermi di dosso un senso di tristezza pero’. Più viaggio più provo un retrogusto di amarezza e oggi mi e’ stato chiaro il perche’. Ho visto innumerevoli dighe in costruzione sul Mekong in Laos,foreste scomparse in Indonesia, spazzatura ovunque in India... quanto siamo (...CONTINUA NEI COMMENTI)
  • 🇬🇧 “All I wanted to do was get back to Africa. We had not left it, yet, but when I would wake in the night I would lie, listening, homesick for it already”
—Ernest Hemingway .
Oh Africa 💛 I can’t even explain how happy I am to be here! The last few weeks have been incredible, my work in Moshi is done and tomorrow I’m finally headed back to the wild. Last time I went on a Safari I was on assignment in Kenya and while watching a giraffe running I caught a glimpse of what life really is and I understood that my life in NYC wasn’t meant for me anymore...who knows what kind of magic the animals will work on me this time! ✨
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🇮🇹“Tutto quello che volevo era tornare in Africa. Non l’avevamo ancora lasciata, ma quando mi svegliavo la notte mi distendevo, ascoltando, e mi mancava già”
—Ernest Hemingway
.
Oh Africa 💛 non riesco a trovare le parole giuste per spiegarvi quanto sia felice di essere qui! Le ultime settimane sono state incredibili e piene di mille tipi di emozione diversi. Il mio lavoro a Moshi e’ finito e domani ritorno finalmente nella Natura selvaggia. L’ultima volta che sono andata in Safari era per un lavoro in Kenya, e mentre guardavo una giraffa correre ho capito per una frazione di secondo cos’era davvero la vita, realizzando che quella che stavo vivendo a NYC non era più fatta per me...chissà’ che magia mi faranno gli animali questa volta! ✨
  • 🇬🇧 “Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Guys I’m too tired to write a proper caption, the last few weeks have been amazing and intense I’ll tell you everything about my time here in Tanzania soon, for now I hope you had an amazing weekend, good day or goodnight wherever you are ✨💛
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🇮🇹“Non seguire dove porta la strada, vai invece dove non c’è ancora un strada e lascia un sentiero”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Guys sono troppo stanca per scrivere una caption decente, le ultime settimane sono state intense e stupende, vi racconterò’ tutto quello che ho visto e provato qui in Tanzania presto, per ora spero avete passato un buon weekend, buona notte a buon giorno ovunque voi siate ✨💛

©Sara Melotti 2017