When you think of a beach what do you see? A rare condition means this photographer sees absolutely nothing, but just look at his amazing travel pics!

One of the most popular genres in photography is travel – indeed, many of us don’t consider it a real trip unless we’ve got images to look back on.

But for photographer Nico Trinkhaus, that goes far beyond “pics or it didn’t happen” and it’s not just about showing off to his friends and family back home via his Instagram account (although I’m sure they all love to see what he’s up to).

Trinkhaus has a condition called congenital aphantasia, something which he refers to as mind blindness. Put simply, it means he can’t picture something in his “mind’s eye”, it simply doesn’t exist.

A rare condition said to affect less than 2% of the population, it hasn’t stopped Trinkhaus pursuing his dream of travel photography, and indeed, in many ways it has helped shape it.

I asked him to talk to us…