Everybody needs a passion in life. Something that absorbs their creative energy, expresses their vision, and lifts them (and maybe others) out of the day to day of life. Mine has always been travel and exploration of the world – from continents to religions to the arts – and expressing and sharing this with others.
When I was young, I would buy postcards, make scrapbooks, and try to record the places I’d been.
When I first got a camera as a teenager, I used it to emulate those postcards, capturing the same standard picture so as to chronicle that I had been there. But this soon led to disappointment. It didn’t capture the essence of a place: what it felt like to be there, where my eyes took me, what the light was like, what touched each sense, what the elements and people expressed about the world beyond the picture, what moments struck me.
So, as an adult, armed with slightly better equipment, I set out to find new modes of expression, through my camera.
Originally from Canada, I spent the first few years after university living in Indonesia and Singapore, exploring the many islands, countries and cultures of the region. By 25, I had moved to France, already having lived and / or worked in 8 different countries. The next years took me back to North America and Asia and now to London.
Throughout these years, I’ve travelled at every opportunity, learning about the local cultures, meeting the people, and taking the time to get off the beaten path: through the islands of Indonesia; to the north of India to the Dalai Lama’s teachings; to the centre of the Sahara for a solar eclipse; down the Irrawaddy from Mandalay to Bagan; across the Drake Passage to experience the stunning beauty of Antarctica and the eerie relics of whaling stations in the Southern Ocean; to Buddhist temples in the Gobi Desert; to Bolivia from Chile, across the altiplano; from Beijing to Moscow on the Trans-Siberian railway; to Samarkand and the Silk Road; across the Pamir Plateau on the world's second highest highway; along the Afghan / Tajik border, exploring the history of the trade routes and the geopolitics of today; to the Euphrates, where civilisation began; to the slums of Nairobi; and to a village destroyed by the Rwandan genocide that is finding the strength and hope to rebuild.
The list never ends. But that is the point.
As anyone who has every caught the wanderlust spirit knows, with each trip, the list of places to explore and visit simply grows. I’ve never tired of (indeed quite the opposite) strapping on the backpack, grabbing my camera and heading out into the world and probably never will.
I am a full member of the Association of Photographers and a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society .
Much of my work is available for license through Photoshot .