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'PORTRAITS'
Faces fascinate me;
always have.
I can’t resist.
The camera draws me to them like a magnet.
No face is equal to another: not unlike a snowflake, unique, impossible to repeat.
This is my collection of the faces (and their owners) I have had the good fortune to meet while travelling the world.
I remember them all; when and where we met, chatting together, often not understanding what the other was saying and where, by necessity, the language we used was provided by my camera.
They are all to be found within this book; 229 photographs which I hope you enjoy as much as I still do.
CALIGIANA COLOURS
Springtime in the rocky hills of Caligiana brings a coloured tapestry of wild flowers struggling to eke out an existence in the rough, stony Umbrian soil.
This book is tesimony to their fragile beauty.
All that is missing are their subtle perfumes which fill the brittle air but not, alas, the pages of this book.
'GLIMPSES of GHANA'
It was a ten day journey that initially had had nothing to do with photography.
The brief required that I film the Cocoa Bean and Shea Nut plantations in Ghana for the EXPO exhibition in Milan scheduled for the spring of 2015.
Ten days were insufficient to accomplish everything and, from necessity, the Land Cruiser travelled fast while flashes of Ghana passed, one after the after, before my eyes.
Practically all the following photographs are tantalising glimpses taken from the Land Cruiser’s window at a 640th. of a second with the ISO setting set on automatic.
Whenever it was possible to stretch my legs I was greeted by people with hospitable smiles and who, in spite of the poverty surrounding them, always showed great generosity and, more importantly, usually managed to find the courage to overcome their natural fear of an intruder’s camera lense.
'CAMP LIFE'
A series of photographs taken during a commission for a charity called 'Dubai Cares' in Syrian Refugee Camps near Aleppo
FROM RICHES TO RAGS
From Riches to Rags is a work of ‘faction’.
Some of it true, some of it created from my own experiences with people on the streets, with people who have, nearly always through no fault of their own, found themselves in seemingly irresolvable circumstances.
All the names of the people who appear on these pages have been changed but it’s unavoidable that several will recognise themselves. I assure them that nothing I have written is meant in any way to offend them, indeed I feel I should thank them since without them this book would not have been possible.
'COLOURS'
Colours which define and shape a composition as effectively as a shape, a shaft of light or dark shadows leading the eye to any given point.
Colours which define a mood, which give character to an image.
Within this book are photographs which hopefully succeed in illustrating this point.
Photographs which run the full range of the rainbow, from red to yellow to green to blue and finally to the rich tones of the all powerful black and white.
Follow them like Judy Garland.
‘Follow 'The Yellow Brick Road’ along to the end enjoying the journey along the way.
Red, Yellow, Green, Blue and Black and White.
You’ll find them all here at the end of the rainbow.
'WHEN ALL ROADS LED TO LAMU'
The Island of Lamu nestles in an ancient and long forgotten river delta on the East Coast of Kenya.
An island where, once upon a time, almost all the then known world used to visit leaving behind rich cultures and superstitions and, most important of all, the birth place of the Swahili culture.
Lamu is a jewel forgotten in time, a land of no pretentions where secrets still exist waiting to be discovered.
Long may it remain that way.
'DOWNSIDE DUBAI'
There are two sides to Dubai and one is slowly disappearing.
The problem is nothing happens slowly in Dubai.
The 180 photographs in this book were taken over a period of three years in which the face of the city changed at a frightening pace, acquiring its new appearance; one of cement monoliths, sparkling glass facades, intertwining overpasses and six lane highways.
This, the upside of the city, has grown relentlessly at the expense of an older culture that risks becoming seen as the city's downside.
All along the wharfs of the Creek and in the Souks which are crushed along its borders, people still carry on with a lifestyle that exists since long before the words 'Anno Domini' came into being.
Slowly but surely Dubai's Downside is being sucked into a way of life as alien to its being as the cement jungle surrounding it.
People who for centuries traded with dhows, bringing continents closer together, now risk finding themselves a mere additional attraction for tourists who come to ski and shop in the luxurious shopping malls that sprout like mushrooms throughout the city.
These photographs are a record of a people who bear little relationship to the brave new world surrounding them.
They are a tribute to a way of life which deserves to be remembered; not in photograph albums or picture postcards, but with respect for an existence that in no way should be considered the downside of anywhere, but rather as the origin of the process that led to the city that proudly calls itself Dubai.
'BLACK BLACK & WHITE'
Photographs in black and white of the faces of Africa and its many and varied peoples.