Nairobi wedding

I am currently enjoying some time away in Zanzibar after a busy time shooting a wedding in Karen just outside Nairobi in Kenya. It was an amazing event where I spent my time running around trying to capture everything in the beautiful surroundings, ending with tired feet and sunburned neck!

Next stop to stay with friends in Zanzibar's Stone Town eating the most gorgeous food at their restaurant Archipelago. I also met a lovely lady by the name of Rachel Hermada who has started up an interesting online magazine called Mambo featuring Zanzibar culture, life and travel information written by jouralists living on the island. Worth a look if you are interested in Swahili culture.

The bride's feet covered in henna

Forgotten photographs

Whilst putting together an edit of some burlesque work for my new website I found some old film scans that had been hiding on a hard drive. Note to self - get more organised with hard drive. Lovely to find them again though and I suspect some more to come. PS. Thanks Freya.

The little bear

I've been slow to blog lately as I've been working on a few small multimedia projects to remind myself how it's all done. One of them is a short piece about a good friend of mine who has just become a mum. She's on her own and doing a fantastic job. I've spent some happy times hanging out with her and her gorgeous little girl. I'm hoping to finish the piece in a week or so. In the meantime a coupe of shots I particularly like.

The little bear

Bedtime

The high life, the simple life and the good life.

I've just spent a few days working and visiting around and about. Firstly I was working at the Jacques Cider launch in London, then I went to see my Grandma, back to the launch, and then waiting for me when I got home were some lovely ripe red tomatoes. Yum.

Looking up how to spell tomato (no e, I always get it wrong...) I came across this site for all those who hate the humble fruit/vegetable. Tomatoes confuse people like me, not only with their spelling, but are they a fruit or a vegetable? I've now found out they are considered to be a fruit when raw and a vegetable when used in cooking. Must be true as I looked it up on Wikipedia.

Sophie Ellis-Bextor

Grandma's kitchen window

Ripe tomatoes

The Press Photographers Year 2010

My story Memories of a House is currently showing at the National Theatre (Lyttelton foyer) on the South Bank in London as part of The Press Photographers Year 2010.

"Do or do not, there is no try." - Yoda

Good advice. I watched an interesting webinar hosted byPhotoshelter the other day with photographer Tim Mantoani called Focus on Your Passion: Finding Yourself in Photography. Not all my type of imags but his words were inspiring and it was an interesting hour and a bit. He touched on a few things to think about when trying to find the right story/subject. He discussed the barriers that photographers tend to put infront of themselves - eg. 'If I only had the right camera/lens/lights/subject I could shoot this or that project'. His basic message was if you want to get out and create something, choose a subject you're passionate about and let this shine through, don't wait for it to happen. Start small and work your way up, sooner or later your opportunity will come to gain more commercial work.

His ongoing project Behind Photographs shot on a huge 20x24 Polaroid camera shows the person behind the many iconic images we all know and love.

Mary Ellen Mark

Elliott Erwitt

Glastonbury40

Went to a brilliant exhibition in Somerset last night. If you are heading that way it's well worth a look. Glastonbury40 celebrates 40 years of Glastonbury Festival by seven Somerset based photographers and is on at the Atkinson Gallery in Street just down the road from Glastonbury itself. It's an amazing retrospective with black and white images of the 70's, with beards, horses and motorbikes up to the past few years with mud fights, crowds and crazy outfits. There's also some tents and straw with screens inside showing different elements of the festival. You can sit back in a camping chair and pretend you're back there drinking cider and watching some great music. The legendary Michael and Emily Eavis were in attendance and it was a lovely Somerset night. Smile. A big congratulations to the talented Anna Barclay and Matt Cardy for putting it all together.