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 “Getting a boarding pass in Lagos”

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 “Photographing markets”

Gorongosa – Eden restored

Eden restored - Gorongosa Mozambique

“The rehabilitation of Gorongosa National Park in Central Mozambique represents one of the great conservation opportunities in the world today.” Goroongosa.net web site.  I have been fortunate during the past couple of years to be able to visit the Gorongosa National Park in central Mozambique, during development missions for the World Bank.  We were looking at assisting a local town to provide a sustainable source of water.  The National Park is very large and brought to mind a vision of Eden in its tranquility and wealth of diverse species of flora and fauna.  The park was all but destroyed during the long and brutal Mozambican civil war but a programme of the government and the US Carr Foundation was begun in 2006 to restore the park.  Continue reading “Gorongosa – Eden restored”

Featuring Cathedrals 1: Wells Cathedral

This post is the first in a series on Cathedrals and churches in the United Kingdom.  In cities, towns and villages all over Britain you will find beautiful old buildings which are often somewhat sad and sombre relics of a vanished era of faith, power and excess.  They are largely forgotten now, in many instances surrounded by the gravestones of a larger departed congregation than the living faithful and yet they represent a vast heritage of art, architecture and history which is there to be explored and perhaps rediscovered.  I have begun a personal exercise of photographing churches and cathedrals in the United Kingdom and have been struck by their wealth.  Most have been built over centuries and all are full of drama.  Most hold their ages within them and speak of bygone eras but some seem very modern even though they were constructed centuries ago. Continue reading “Featuring Cathedrals 1: Wells Cathedral”