It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it [...]

Poised on the pin hinging this millennium to the last, perhaps a little before, perhaps a little after, I began to photograph the city where I have spent most of my life. For most of us, the place where we live becomes as familiar as the back of our hand…and as foreign. It becomes comfortable [...]

So many people dislike themselves so thoroughly that they never see any reproduction of themselves that suits. None of us is born with the right face. It’s a tough job being a portrait photographer. – Imogen Cunningham A portrait! What could be more simple and more complex, more obvious and more profound. – Charles Baudelaire [...]

For in the true nature of things, if we rightly consider, every green tree is far more glorious than if it were made of gold and silver.  ~Martin Luther Trees are poems that earth writes upon the sky, We fell them down and turn them into paper, That we may record our emptiness. ~Kahlil Gibran [...]

The air is sacred. Our DNA is made of the same DNA as the tree. The tree breathes what we exhale; when the tree exhales, we need what the tree exhales. So we have a common destiny with the tree. -Red Crow When the sand in the hourglass of autumn is running low, go outside. [...]

The phone went around 10pm last Tuesday night. It was a picture agency based in London, wanting to hire me to cover the earthquake. I did not hear it until Friday. And I am glad. I was far too busy and anxious, working my way through the concentric circles of my own network. Firstly my [...]

“It is occasionally possible, just for brief moments, to find the words that will unlock the doors of all those many mansions in the head and express something – perhaps not much, just something – of the crush of information that presses in on us from the way a crow flies over and the way [...]

…So now I’m praying for the end of time To hurry up and arrive ‘Cause if I gotta spend another minute (with you) I don’t think that I can really survive… -Meatloaf (Paradise by the Dashboard Light) I really feel for Tom Hanks in The Terminal. I  really do. If there is a hell, for [...]

Of all the traits which I think are vital to being a documentary photographer, I think an unhealthy curiosity or, simply put, sheer nosiness, is core critical and fundamental. Shyness isn’t necessarily desirable either. And you can only do fly-on-the wall for so long. In the end you simply have to poke your nose in. [...]

It was during those long and lonely years that my hunger for the freedom of my own people became a hunger for the freedom of all people, white and black. I knew as well as I knew anything that the oppressor must be liberated just as surely as the oppressed. A man who takes away [...]

The first winds of winter Then let my name be called Traveller -Basho From time to time I think about those people who, having found the photographic path that works for them, and fascinated by it, compelled to follow it, do so happily for the rest of their careers. Lucky them. The remaining few of [...]

Kia ora tatou: Sometimes the stories around here are massive and mind-boggling, tributes to big money and breathtaking ineptitude, sometimes they  are small stories about stubborn determination. Welcome to Africa. I was driving south from Port Alfred, heading to Port Elizabeth and thence to Tsitsikammer for the night, when I hit the motorway, about 20 [...]

A ghost town, a town of ghosts “Heaven wheels above you, displaying to you her eternal glories, and still your eyes are on the ground” -Dante Alighieri I said ‘mama I come to the valley of the rich Myself to sell’ She said ‘son this is the road to hell’ -Chris Rea Somewhere back in [...]

Weave me a rope that will pull me through these impossible times. Tim Finn None of us knows what will happen each morning when we step out the door. The wind may be bringing us good fortune. Or it may not. So there is an excitement in every day, anticipation, a hope. It is the [...]

Seagulls pivot and pinion on the edge of the wind Draw quivering wingtips through the air Soft fingers through Tawhiri’s hair stitch sky to land and brand the morning light with blue and golden promise. Messengers all, envoys, bearing Rangi and Papa’s pledges To each other.