Reigate Art Gallery Exhibition a great success

I held my fist exhibition from 2 – 8 August 2010 at the Reigate Art Gallery and it was a great success.  The exhibition attracted an attendance of about 30 people or groups each day, which was not at all bad given the slightly obscure location of the gallery.

The exhibition was of Limited Edition Photographic Prints in three themes:

Cathedral Spaces

A set of 15 images which capture the drama and depth of  English cathedrals.  Each of these amazing buildings has idiosyncrasies which yield unique insights.

Faces of the wild

An arresting set of wildlife images which capture the essence of the animal.  Five of these images reached the semi-final stage of the 2010 Wildlife Photographer of the Year Competition.

African marketplaces

The images capture the colour and vibrancy of African street life in Uganda, Mozambique and Malawi, as well as some of the poverty and hardship.  The set of images displayed was the same portfolio which earned me my Licentiateship Distinction with the Royal Photographic Society in May 2010.

Royal Photographic Society Licentiateship Award

African markets - Mozambique

I would like to announce that the Royal Photographic Society (RPS) awarded me the distinction of Licentiateship on 25 May 2010.  This is the first rung on the ladder of RPS recognition as a photographer.  The award was made on the basis of a portfolio of images which I submitted for accreditation.  The portfolio was a set of images of African markets taken over a couple of years of travel in southern Africa.  The images capture some of the colour and vibrancy of African street life in Uganda, Mozambique and Malawi, as well as some of the poverty and hardship.  The portfolio can be seen on the Royal Photographic Society web site and the Season Images African Travel Gallery.

A ’skulk’ of fox pups – Putting in the time to capture wildlife images

What you looking at ..... ?

In April a ’skulk’ of four fox pups and their parents appeared in a den in woodlands not far from my home on the North Downs in Surrey.  I came across them by accident on a walk with my Labrador pup – there in a field were a frolic of pups playing in the sun who scampered when they saw us but then could not resist peeking back at us.  I took Toffee dog home and returned with my camera to start a series of watches which were each about 3 – 4 hours long – I did eight or nine watches over a period of 2 weeks and captured a great set of images. Continue Reading…

Dealing with demons – Part 1: Development work – the realities of the long haul.

Rural development in sub-Saharan Africa is a vast area of activity embracing one of the most intractable problems of the 20th – 21st centuries.  Much has been done since the end of the colonial era in the 1960s and a great deal has been achieved and yet the problems remain endemic and a real blight on the progress of human achievement.  In almost all countries there remains enormous challenges in all sectors – health, education, agriculture, housing, financial systems, human rights, and basic services such as energy, water supply, transport and communications.  The great irony is that today – March 30, 2010 – whilst millions of people carried dirty water to impoverished homes all over Africa, scientists celebrated the first successful particle collision in the Large Hadron Collider in Cern, Switzerland in the biggest machine ever built costing untold billions of dollars.  Continue Reading…

Dealing with demons – Introduction

The word is mightier than the sword

I am not sure this is very wise – putting it all out there in a blog.  I think that Blogging is somewhat pretentious, the assumption that you have something useful to say to the whole wide world that anybody would be interested in reading.  It reminds me of a radio talk show I listened to in South Africa some years ago – a listener had phoned in and explained in intimate detail her gynecological condition.  When asked by the talk-show host if she had spoken to her doctor she said that she was too embarrassed. . . !   There is a point at which mass anonymity is easier to cope with than one-on-one intimacy.  In a series of articles I will be writing about the experiences of the long-term development worker and depression.  Dealing with demons. Each article will be a work in progress – I will probably go back to each multiple times and edit them substantially over time.

I have decided to do this in the hopes that the exercise may be of help to others if this is not too vain or presumptuous.  It may also be cathartic for me, if this is not too indulgent – boy do we have hangups sufficient to stop anyone from writing anything!

The initial set of topics will be as follows:-

1. Development work – the realities of the long haul.
2. The dark hole – dealing with the demons of depression
3. The myth of “Making a difference”
4. Footprints – the impacts of development
5. Large or small – the dilemma of  scale in development
6. Travel – the Temptress and the Slave Driver

Featuring Cathedrals 2: Canterbury Cathedral

Canterbury Cathedral in Canterbury, England is the Mother Church of the world-wide Anglican Communion and seat of the Archbishop of Canterbury. The Cathedral, dating back to 597, is both a holy place and part of a World Heritage Site. It is the home of a community of people who seek to make the Cathedral a place of welcome, beauty and holiness.  Visit the Cathedral web site for further information on the history and current activities of the Cathedral. Continue Reading…

Getting around in Kinshasa

Congo River - looking from Kinshasa across the river to Brazzaville

If you travel a lot over a long period you will probably have an accumulation of currency which is very colourful but now quite useless.  It will either have been devalued to the point of irrelevance or no longer be in use.  I was looking through my stash the other day and came across a 50,000  Nouveau XZaires note from Zaire before it became the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1997.  I have traveled to DRC several times, both when it was Zaire and as DRC.  I recall going to a small streetside shop to get a sandwich for lunch once and noting that the wad of notes it cost was thicker than the sandwich itself.  On one memorable trip to Kinshasa I learned that it is probably better to have a driver than to drive your self …. Continue Reading…

Getting a boarding pass in Lagos

In all my years of working in Africa I did not personally come across a great deal of corruption  – this particular experience at Lagos International Airport is the exception rather than the rule.

Lagos is a very large city in Nigeria – it is the second largest city in Africa (Cairo is the largest) with an estimated population of 15.5 million. It is an overwhelming city which is full of life but also mostly poor and dilapidated.   I first visited Lagos in the late 1990s on an assignment for UNICEF – the UN Childrens’ agency.  We could only travel in convoy with an armed escort and it was not recommended that you walked around in the city.  I recall very clearly arriving at the hotel I was to stay in with a colleague from the United Nations.  As I checked in the clerk asked me how I was going to pay and I put my credit card on the counter.  My colleague slapped his hand down on the counter covering my card and gave it back to me saying that I must not use it or let it out of my sight anywhere in Lagos – I paid in cash.

My memorable experience of catching a British Airways flight from Lagos to London happened on the same trip as my remarkable flight from Abuja (read about it here) – it was a long day.  Continue Reading…

Photographing markets

Late last year I spent a couple of afternoons at the Borough Market in London.  I have always found markets to be intriguing places.  The traders are usually full of character – self made individualists most of them who are by nature fiercely proud and protective of their independence.  The Borough Market in the South East of London has been there in various forms for hundreds of years.  Today the market as a whole is run by a non-profit organisation (although all the traders are there to make a living).  The market has a wide variety of produce and is well worth a visit.

As with most photography, the objective is not merely to produce a picture of the subject but to capture the essence of the place – to portray the life, texture, colours, personalities etc. which reflect the character of the place.  Continue Reading…

Gorongosa Images

Gorongosa National Park in Central Mozambique provides an excellent opportunity for wildlife photography including a wide range of bird species, animals and insects.

Continue Reading…