Earlier in the year I was sent to Freetown, Sierra Leone by Comic Relief along with Eastenders actor Danny Dyer and a small BBC film crew to document some of the projects which Comic Relief Supports in the region. We worked with the local organisations, and met a few of the families and individuals who would be benefiting from the charities work.
Below is a small selection of images taken during a visit to a children's hospital in central Freetown.
Earlier in the year I was sent to Freetown, Sierra Leone by Comic Relief along with Eastenders actor Danny Dyer and a small BBC film crew to document some of the projects which Comic Relief Supports in the region. We worked with the local organisations, and met a few of the families and individuals who would be benefiting from the charities work. These people live in unimaginable conditions day in day out.
Below is one of the many families who live and work on one of the rubbish dumps in Freetown, Sierra Leone. They will sift through the rubbish looking for plastics or other valuable items to sell or recycle.
Previously exclusive to print in the new Positive News magazine, the Yurt for Winter Story is now online for everyone to enjoy! So if you've got a spare few minutes while you sip you're coffee, go have a read of this truly inspiring story! Click the picture or the link below.
Its been a while since i've actually had some time to breath, sit down and have a good look at some content which i could upload to my blog. But thankfully i've had some time this week to do just that.
One feature which i can now share, is a story which I covered for a brilliant new magazine called Positive News. Positive News has just finished a fantastic new rebrand, which has brought it right up alongside other high quality magazines of today, bringing brilliant constructive journalism, but also great photojournalism and other photography too. I was privileged to have worked with them on their first issue.
Positive News started live many years ago as a free newspaper, however after realising that model was no longer a viable option, they took to crowdfunding. After a very successful campaign, they launched with a great news team, their ethos is:
"Positive News is the constructive journalism magazine.
Online and in print, we look at society’s challenges through a lens of progress and possibility.
The longest-established publication for quality reporting that inspires, Positive News is owned and supported by a global community. As a magazine and a movement, we are changing the news for good."
In November, I spent a day with writer Francesca, who has spent the last few months living in a Yurt in the middle of North Wales. She is a truly remarkable woman, doing this to overcome her own demons and fears, but also prove to others that they can overcome their problems too. Its a fantastic feature (written by her) and is well worth a look in their magazine if you get a change, her are a few of the images from it.
Naomie Harris, Bianca Jagger and Mariella Frostrup join thousands of people on the Millennium Bridge as part of action/2015, to mark the eve of the signing of the new Global Goals. They are calling on the UK government to commit to the landmark goals, to end poverty, inequality and tackle climate change.
The Telegraph, ran my one of my Homeless World Cup features a few weeks ago. If you haven't already had a look take a look, check it out here
I'll be uploading some of the images here over the next few days!
While photographing for the Homeless World cup, I was able to work with some brilliant writers producing some fantastic pieces on some of the inspiring players at the tournament telling their stories. This one by Evie Chamberlain @aka_evie
“I have a story for you,” the Zimbabwean team manager says, as he introduces one of his young players.
Online and to his teammates from Youth Achievement Sports for Development(YASD), he’s known as Brave Lifa. “I need to tell you something,” he says, his face serious as he poses for a photo. “I am an activist. If I tell you my story, it may be tough to live in Zimbabwe. But I am not afraid. Life is in the hands of god.” He is passionately determined to change not just his own life, but the lives of others. “We don’t want our little brothers and sisters to go the same way like we go.”
At just 23, Brave has seen his home destroyed three times by his own government. He and his five siblings – both of his parents are dead – live in the Hatcliffe Extension, a community of 18-21,000 people on the outskirts of Harare. The evictions and relocations began in 1992; the largest and most destructive was the infamous Operation Murambatsvina in 2005, which displaced some 700,000 people across the country (Amnesty International). The government claimed the “clean up” was needed to restore order. Instead, it resulted in widespread hardship, and thousands like Brave remain in insecure or substandard housing. “We are a forgotten corner of the world,” he says, reflecting on the lack of attention given to the decades-long crisis in his community.
Hatcliffe Extension has no schools, no paved roads, and no electricity or other municipal services, including medical facilities. The closest official school is a 6km walk. When it rains, the road becomes impassable. Young people too frequently drop out of school. Because there is no electricity, the women from his community must venture out in search of firewood; but there is little available nearby, except from local farms. “The young women exchange sex for nearby firewood from farmers,” he says, his expression pained and for a brief moment distant. “We need electricity.”
Brave and his peers are determined to do something to prevent more young people from suffering the same unimaginable experiences that they did. They’ve founded the Breakthrough Academy, a tutoring and advocacy initiative.
They don’t have classrooms, books, computers, or any traditional classroom facilities, but “we have enthusiasm,” he explains. “We are demanding a school in our community.” They are ready with a group of loyal volunteers who are have pledged their time to help build the school if the group can secure permission from the government to build on the land. If they build without the government’s approval, the structure is likely to be demolished. In the meantime, the initiative runs an informal study group. “I started teaching children in the back of my house.”
Brave himself dropped out briefly in 2005 – when his home was destroyed as part of Operation Murambatsvina – but YASD helped him return and complete his O levels. Brave and his group have two laptops and borrowed syllabi from schools in neighbouring communities and are tutoring younger students, hoping to keep them on track in their schooling. “Our dream is to see many children with enough education,” he says. “Education is the key to success in life. Without it, there are no jobs in Zimbabwe.”
“We need to keep them busy,” he explains, referring both to the football and educational support programmes run by YASD and to his own tutoring sessions. Otherwise, they are “just drinking or doing many activities that are not good for them.”
A group of school children cheered on the Zimbabwean team in their nail-biting penalty loss to Ukraine earlier in the week. The team happily handed out half time high-fives to the enthusiastic youngsters. Brave was particularly struck by their carefree and untroubled attitudes; “The children here learn without many other things to think about. You can’t concentrate at school…if you’re thinking about not having shoes.”
“I have a vision; I have a dream,” he says, consciously echoing the famous words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. “One day, in my community, it will be better. We will be a community of educated young people.”
I had the pleasure this year of working again for the Homeless World Cup organisation, covering their annual street soccer competition, this year being held in Amsterdam. It was brilliant to work with such a talented media team and i'm looking forward to sharing a few images and stories from the tournament over the next few days.
Words by Staff writer HWC©Homeless World Cup,
Few teams were more recognisable or beloved at the Homeless World Cup than Indonesia, with players sporting bright red mohawks and putting on war paint to take the pitch.
The hairstyles – cut and dyed especially for the tournament – were designed to be celebratory, identifiable, and fun. The war paint, donned prior to taking the pitch, gave the players extra courage. The two make the Indonesian players some of the most easily recognizable at the event.
“We wanted something unique from Indonesia,” said Indonesia’s Rokim of the hair and the war paint. “It’s sometimes like this, sometimes like this,” he said, clarifying that the players style their hair differently each day, just for fun.
Their team manager indicated that they entrusted the barber with deciding which styles were best, and they all laughed in agreement: they’d left the final styling decision to the pro.It seems the barber nailed the hairstyles, because the response from other players and the public was incredibly warm: “People like it,” Rokim added. “They say ‘nice cut,’ ‘nice hairstyle.’”
Such skin-deep accoutrements may seem like light icebreakers, but they at least partially have a more serious purpose: one of Rumah Cemara’s primary goals is to raise awareness about and reduce stigma around living with HIV/AIDS. The eye-catching hairstyles help them stand out.
Rokim, who hails from a rural area of Indonesia and whose parents are farmers, contracted HIV through non-sterilized tattoo equipment. He joined Rumah Cemara’s program in 2009 and was selected for the 2015 Homeless World Cup team. “I hope to have less stigma,” he says of his post-tournament aspirations. “I am hoping to have a better life.”
Teammate Kiki Kurnia grew up in a good family, but his parents divorced in high school and he started using drugs to cope. It was during this time that he contracted HIV. “I stopped using drugs and got married to a beautiful girl,” he says, but acknowledges that the HIV remains “the nightmare that is my life.”
“The hardest thing about living with HIV is the lack of acceptance,” he said, adding that the Homeless World Cup is “a tool for me to increase the quality of life and to change the perspectives of other people towards HIV.”
For him, Rumah Cemara offers a “comfortable place” that is safe.
So too does the Homeless World Cup. The best part of it, Kurnia says, is: “I can meet some people from other countries with different cultures, with different languages. Together we are one.”
The team came to the Homeless World Cup via Rumah Cemara, a community-based organisation that helps people experiencing drug and alcohol addiction, who are homeless or marginalised, or who are living with HIV/AIDS.
The summer was pretty non stop this year, bouncing between assignments both in the UK and abroad, but I finally had some time off in August where I took a trip to Iceland with a long time friend from the US. We decided very early on in the year that we wanted to cycle around the country, so had planned the 23 day trip for a few months, looking at weather, routing, contingency plans, as well as conditioning ourselves for cycling for this period of time.
Iceland has to be one of the most beautiful countries I have ever visited. The landscape is at points overwhelming, with vast black sand beaches, vertical cliff faces, or vast glacial lagoons, not to mention a waterfall around every turn, its a photographers dream.
I've not had a chance to post any of my images so far as its been non-stop work since i got back, but here are some of the highlights from the adventure.
Today was one of the most difficult days of the assignment, both physically but also mentally. We set out to walk a section of the route guided by two survivors who took the exact same cross country path 20 years ago almost to the day. After Srebrenica fell Men of all ages as well as military personal ARBiH's 28th Division took to the woods to form a column and attempt a breakthrough towards Bosnian government-held territory in the north.
After a 2 hour walk, in 42 degree through heavily wooded areas, neck deep fern bushes, and mountainous inclines, we reached the area which the two gentlemen recall most, Kamenica Hill.
During the night, poor visibility, fear of mines and panic induced by artillery fire split the column in two.
On the afternoon of 12 July, the front section emerged from the woods and crossed the asphalt road from Konjevic Polje and Nova Kasaba. Around 18.00 hours, the RS Army located the main part of the column still in the hilly area around Kamenica. Around 20.00 hours this part of the column, led by the municipal authorities and the wounded, started descending Kamenica Hill towards the road. After a few dozen men had crossed, soldiers of the RS Army arrived from the direction of Kravica in trucks and armored vehicles including a white vehicle with UNPROFOR symbols, calling out for Bosniaks over the loudspeaker to surrender.
It was around this time that yellow smoke was observed, followed by observations of strange behaviour, including suicides, hallucinations and members of the column attacking one another. Numerous survivors interviewed by Human Rights Watch claimed they were attacked with a chemical agent that caused hallucinations and disorientation. (Gen. Zdravko Tolimir was an advocate of the use of chemical weapons against the ArBiH.
Heavy shooting and shelling began, which continued into the night. The armed members of the column returned fire and all scattered. Survivors describe a group of at least 1000 engaged at close range by small arms. Hundreds appear to have been killed as they fled the open area and some were said to have killed themselves to escape capture.
RS Army and Ministry of Interior persuaded members of the column to surrender by promising them protection and safe transportation towards Tuzla under UNPROFOR and Red Cross supervision. Appropriated UN and Red Cross equipment was used to deceive the refugees into believing the promises. Surrendering prisoners' personal belongings were confiscated and some were executed on the spot.
The rear of the column lost contact with the front and panic broke out. Many people remained in the Kamenica Hill area for a number of days, unable to move on with the escape route blocked by Serb forces. Thousands of Bosniaks surrendered or were captured. Some prisoners were ordered to summon friends and family members from the woods. There were reports of Serb forces using megaphones to call on the marchers to surrender, telling them that they would be exchanged for Serb soldiers held captive by Bosniak forces. It was at Kamenica that VRS personnel in civilian dress were reported to have infiltrated the column. Wikipedia: Source
The two men, who work closely with relatives of people still missing, as well as the organisations in the area who now use advanced DNA testing to identify remains, spent 15 mins scouring the area. What they came back with in this short amount of time was truly shocking. 49 bullets, most of which were spent rounds, as well as a few live. Various pieces of bone, including spine and skull, and a house key. The surrounding area is still scattered with remains after the shelling and indiscriminate killing and it is very honourable of these two men, who experienced this atrocity first hand to return from time to time to the location in order to look for bones and other features in the hope to identify more victims.
The site of the Dutchbat (Dutch battalion) military base in Potočari a few miles down the road from Srebrenica. The base itself was a car battery factory, so had a vast amount of space, as well as large factory floors for logistics and vehicle stores.
The base is mostly remembered for the events which took place the days following when "Mladić's soldiers took the town of Srebrenica on 11 July 1995, causing the displacement of many of the city's inhabitants. About 15,000 displaced persons undertook the flight towards Tuzla on foot, but the majority looked for protection from the UN in Potočari.
Mladić met with Lt. Col. Karremans and there it was agreed that the enclaves would be handed over to the VRS. Under the pretext of evacuating the Bosniak population to a sheltered city, most of the women and children were transferred by bus to a zone under Bosnian Serb control. The Serbs assured Karremans that the men would be transferred later. But instead, the Serbs proceeded to massacre Srebrenica's male population of approximately 8,000 Bosniak men of different ages. On the 21 July, with the entire zone already under the control of the VRS, the Dutch battalion left the enclave."
Part sourced Wikipedia
On my recent assignment in Bosnia, after working in Visegrad for a few days, we made out way to Srebrenica for the next part of the project.
Before my visit, I told a charity who I work alongside, The Homeless World Cup, I would be visiting the area and by complete chance, the Bosnian team happened to be training in the next village along. Only two of the players were training that day, along with the coaches, however we took the opportunity to produce a Pre-tournament feature, and take a few portraits, which turned out extremely well considering the gear we had available for our documentary assignment.
Such inspiring and strong individuals and I can't wait to meet them again and see them play in Amsterdam
Bosnia Homeless World Cup team Training Srebrenica
After travelling around Kosovo for a couple of weeks, the assignment took us to Bosnia.
Travelling to Bosnia from Kosovo is not as easy as it might first seem. Due to the current political relationship between Kosovo and Serbia, with Serbia not recognising Kosovo's independence and still regarding it as part of its own territory, its not possible to enter Serbia from Kosovo without having already been in Serbia for your specific trip. (confusing right!)
This meant that a simple 7 hour journey turned into a 26 hour journey travelling through what seemed like every neighbourhood in Montenegro using two busses and a 5 hour taxi ride before we finally arrived in Sarajevo.
After finally renting another car and driving to Visegrád. We were able to start focusing on what we originally came for, but it was nothing like we expected.
Most parts of Bosnia still have many scars from the conflict in the region which was to be expected, however unlike Kosovo not much effort being made to hide it. Bullet, grenade and shell holes are still visible in the many of the buildings but when we arrived in Visegrád what immediately stunned us, was the overwhelming beauty of the area, which seemed to completely take the attention away from the scarred landscape. Unlike Kosovo, with its flat open landscape, Bosnia so far showed us gigantic ravines, bright blue still river water, and towering hills. It was quite hard to picture the town being the victim of some of the worst war crimes since the holocaust.
More information will be available regarding the story in the near future, it is currently a work in progress. However in the meantime, below are some images from Visegrád.
Its been a while since I've had enough time, let alone a consistent enough internet connection to write a blog post.
Recently I was taken back to Kosovo, working on a new project with a good friend and colleague Steve Beddoes. The assignment required us to travel all around Kosovo, sometimes to some of the most remote areas in the country. Working around the very sensitive topic surrounding the recent conflicts in the region (1999) and the legacy it has left behind on both the people but also how it has shaped the landscape.
Below are images from some of the locations we visited, not all are directly related with the assignment, however they do show the beauty and tranquility of this region, which is all to often not realised, due to the shadow of war and conflict which still hangs over the country.
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I've been a little busy recently to update the blog. However i have been away shooting some exciting stuff, some of which I can now share with you!
For the last week, i've been shooting the J Class Regatta in Falmouth, Cornwall. A bit of background on J Class: "A J-Class Yacht is a single masted racing sailboat around 40Meters in length built to the specifications of Nathanael Herreshoff's Universal Rule, The J-Class are considered the peak racers of the era when the universal rule determined the eligibility in the americas cup.
Today, J-Class yachts are few and far between, with there only being 7 yachts of the type in the world, however there are more new builds under construction with the original spec.
Below are images of Lionheart (J H1) - "The J Class has its roots in the oldest sporting race in the world, The America’s Cup. Lionheart was build to the lines originally drawn by Starling Burgess and Olin Stephens for Harold Vanderbilt’s ‘Ranger’ syndicate." http://www.sailing-yacht-lionheart.nl
J Class Yacht Lionheart racing against Ranger and Velsheda in the 2015 Falmouth J Class Regatta
J Class Yacht Lionheart racing against Ranger and Velsheda in the 2015 Falmouth J Class Regatta
J Class Yacht Lionheart racing against Ranger and Velsheda in the 2015 Falmouth J Class Regatta
J Class Yachts Lionheart, Ranger and Velsheda rancing agianst either other in the 2015 Falmouth J Class regatta.
A few weeks ago on a private commision I was asked to photograph two stunning multi prize winning Dressage horses. It was a brilliant opportunity to work with these beautiful animals but was a lot more challenging than i'd first anticipated it to be.
We decided that we were going to photograph the animals over the course of an afternoon, using 3 different locations on their land to provide scenic backdrops and in order to avoid stressing the animals out, we spaced these session each an hour apart. We wanted to take some location lighting, however after talking to the handler before the shoot and learning that the horese could be easily freaked out with large objects (i.e large soft boxes) we opted for Canon 600Ex Speedlights as opposed to taking the full Profoto pack.
After doing this shoot, I now have ultimate respect for the immaculate horse photos that are floating around on Pintrest. The amount of detail and precision it takes to make a horse look stunning (to a horse owner) is not to be underestimated! From the way the hair is brushed, nostrils and eyes being clean, but to the most important aspects I learned, the posture and position of the head and neck and direction of the ears. We took hundreds of frames, waiting for the myriad features to be correct, however when they were the results were fantastic.
Overall, the client was extremely happy with the results. Below is one of locations picked. Instead of using a stand, My assistant Steve was holding two 600EX's firing them through a shoot through diffuser on a reflector just to add a little fill to the lower face and the chest, but not to spill too much onto the ground. Due to the great expense of the animals the handler had to keep hold throughout, so we removed the lead rope in Post.
A long term client of mine, Joseph kennedy, who's beautiful furniture I have photographed for some time, has been shortlisted in the New Design Britain Award 2015, for designing and making these stunning Vases. On his website, Joe describes them as "These strong vases bring the architecture of Italy to your home. Made of both beautiful clean white Carrera marble and the rustic green oak these vases bring modern clean lines to any environment."
I'm very proud to have worked alongside Joe, and wish him all the best with the award on the 18th May. It is always exciting thinking unique, unusual but stunning locations around the UK to place and photograph his versatile products.
Joe's website can be found here, where you can view more of is designs: http://www.josephkennedy.org
Being part situated in Falmouth, Cornwall has given me a great opportunity to work within many of the boating communities, and for a vast range of clients. As the sun starts to shine, and the cornish coast begins to come into its element with its gloriously hot summers, I'm looking forward to carrying on working with these clients on their new adventures and produce even more exciting content!
Falmouth Harbour - FOR USE BY SOUTHWEST POWERBOATING ONLY - NOT TO BE RE-SOLD OR PUBLISHED.
Last year I had the privilege to photograph the Belarus Free Theatre for a client in cornwall.
Forced to flee from persecution in Belarus in 2011 they got political asylum in the UK and created a new part of the company in London, they continue their work with the permanent members who are still performing underground in Minsk.
Another brilliant but crazy event by the wonderful people at Comic Relief that I shot a few weeks ago. Over 2,000 fundraisers danced non-stop for 6 hours with the dance style and teacher changing every 30 minutes or so. The fundraisers and celebrities rocked out to 70’s disco, 80’s anthems, diva, street dance, Latin, Swag, Pop and West End Musicals.
