With Jacob Balzani Lööv AKU opens up a new kind of collaboration. Jacob is an Italian-Swedish photographer obsessed with stories of people intimately connected to a particular place: from a disputed territory to a tropical jungle. Although passionate about the outdoors Jacob’s main focus is on documentary photography. This work takes him to different environments, not only natural, but often to those theatres of conflict where human events of global significance are taking place.

His approach is on foot: he believes that to be connected to a place you have to walk inside it. Jacob lives between Milan and Monte Rosa, on Lake Maggiore – Italy – when he is not travelling the world trying to rappresent it through writing and photography. Curious about the multiple relationships between man and the environment, Jacob has recently rediscovered his father’s places in the Swedish highlands and has learnt to feel a little at home there too. These are his starting points for exploring his personal connection to the landscape.

The AKU partnership was born when our ambassador was looking for comfortable footwear that he could use all day, in all conditions and situations: from a run in Palestine to a hike in Wales or for a relaxing afternoon in Venice.
So Jacob discovered the Bellamont III NBK GTX, inspired by the best mountain footwear but with a stylish, trendy look.