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I was working on a story about the plight of women accessing pre-natal care in South Sudan and out of the blue, I saw an expectant mother whose appearance drew my eye. She was sitting on a short wall bordering the clinic’s veranda. She was leaning on a metal pole and her arms were holding on to it, reaching behind as if to provide some relief to her lower back. Her face and skin were glowing without an ounce of make-up. I practically held my breath as I moved in closer in order to frame what I wanted to capture. She didn’t flinch or acknowledge my presence at first, although she had observed me making photographs of the clinic exterior minutes before. I made three very quick frames and moved away in order to minimize any disturbance. My D800 is a formidable tool, however, stealth isn’t its forte..
As a photographer, you know the feeling when you actually "see it" and experience the rush. I'm guessing that's what we're all addicted to...
I started making pictures at the age of 17 with a second or third hand Minolta SLR camera, an all mechanical, brass-bodied, manual, match-needle model. At the time, I had received no formal training. I had just enjoyed the good fortune of working in the Olympic Committee photo lab during the summer Olympics one year. This gave me the opportunity to become familiar with some of the world’s best sports photojournalists while on the job.
Starting out, I wasn’t particularly interested in sports news. At the time, I was just interested in developing as a photographer. I was an amateur in the true sense of the word. I was enamoured with the craft, infinitely curious, hungry and constantly asking for more. These were the heady days of Kodachrome 25 and 64, superb albeit unforgiving reversal (slide) films. I honed my skills through trial and error and learned a great deal technically, as much as I could on my own anyway. I read all types of photo trade/art/technical magazines and books, voraciously. I shot as much as I could.
The choice of slide film was also a strategic one for a student, I didn’t have to pay for prints initially and I was forced to fill the immutable frame of a mounted 2x2 slide, with no cropping or alterations. What you saw was what you got. I had no choice but to improve. Today's digital workflow, while somewhat more forgiving is no less exacting.
I graduated from a top-notch university in Canada with a degree in the respectable fields of Labour Economics and Industrial Relations. It is only after a successful corporate stint as a Director with multinational companies that I went back to school to get my Professional Photography Diploma in Photojournalism with a minor in Portraiture. Apparently, I did well enough in my portfolio presentation and my courses to get the top accolades of my graduating class.
Years later, I taught photojournalism for several years at the undergraduate and graduate levels in the Journalism Department of Concordia University in Montreal, Canada. I can honestly say that, beyond fieldwork, this is where I learned the most and my work benefitted from this immensely.
After some years of lobbying for the creation of a Photojournalism program in the department, the Director and I wrote a successful proposal for a Graduate Diploma in Visual Journalism. This new program will start in June 2015. I am particularly proud of this endeavour as it should make a solid contribution to the profession, at least in Canada, as this will be, at the time of this writing, the only university level Photojournalism/Visual Journalism program, let alone a graduate one, in the country.
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After so many years of telling myself that I had absolutely nothing to say in a blog, I finally relented. I realised that it wasn’t so much that I had nothing to say. It was more of a case that I really didn’t know whom to share it with…
I’m an assignment photographer, in real terms this means I take commissions or assignments from clients. I specialise in humanitarian photojournalism / reportage, documentary essays and travel. I also love doing portraits, environmental portraits, or personality driven portraits. I love connecting with people and cultures. I speak three languages fluently: English, French and Creole. I also speak basic Bahasa Indonesia and while I have an affinity for Spanish and Italian my next language adventure will most likely be Amharic, the national language of Ethiopia.
I have worked in some not so easy places. Among others were Aceh/Indonesia after the tsunami, Haiti in the aftermath of the 2004 insurrection and after the 2010 earthquake, Mauritania, Mali, Niger and South Sudan. I go where people are struggling and striving to make things better. I have worked with organisations such as Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF), the World Food Programme (WFP), Oxfam, the Red Cross, and Action Against Hunger (ACF). I have lived through project cycles, fieldwork, curfews, lockdowns, insurrections, police actions and donor fatigue. I have also dwelled in more time zones than I care to remember...
What I do is advocacy; helping those I meet articulate what their circumstances are all about. I do this through a comprehensive documentary approach. This occurs in the hope of making things a little better by helping to influence stakeholders and decision-makers.
I have worked in Asia, Europe, the Americas and Africa. I do my utmost to always produce compelling visual narratives. I love what I do, be it for an editor/travel magazine or a director of communication of a humanitarian organisation and/or international institution.
Today, photography and travel are interwoven with everything I do in my life. Indeed, I have established some principles about how I approach assignments. I’m a professional member of the NPPA since 2005, which means I adhere to the highest journalistic standards of integrity, independence and absence of bias. I articulate projections and forecasts of planned coverage of events, as required, for each assignment. Furthermore, I always give priority to image content and aesthetic elements, accuracy of captions and speed of delivery to customers.
Should you have a potential assignment you’d like to discuss, you can reach me through the CONTACT section here on this website.
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