Freelance professional photographer based in Istanbul.
Specializing in images of the Middle East & Balkans;
For ten years I lived in Damascus, Syria where I watched a beautiful country slip into a vile war.
“I deciphered the occasional splash of graffiti: alongside youthful declarations of love and football were vague revolutionary slogans: “Freedom is a Right”, “Liberty”, and “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.”
“I sit on the wall and watch a fisherman wrangle his net; the sea is dark and a little choppy, and I feel an overwhelming sense of sadness.”
I was in the partial state of not knowing if I was awake or still dreaming; it had been another fitful uncomfortable night, mostly involving a donkey braying and the snores and […]
The idea, a loose brief, of following the Nile to Aswan, close to where the river enters Egypt from Sudan, I would talk to farmers and fishermen and those whose livelihood depends on the seemingly eternal flow of the longest river in Africa. I wanted to learn of the potential risks posed by climate change on rural Egypt. I also wanted a photo or two, and, an anecdote would be good.
I am now forever connected to that city but not because of the house, because of the people and relationships that were forged over that time.
In the course of my travels I have had many unforgettable conversations, many from dusk to till dawn, entire train and plane rides, fascinating people with incredible stories or theories on the point of our existence, and yet, more often than not, it’s the conversations in silence I remember most fondly.
There really is no explanation for the creative process, I can only say that from time to time I find myself crawling around graveyards…
The Leaves of Poets had been a title jangling around my head for a while and this first attempt has been made with leaves found on the grave of JRR Tolkien.
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