Been a keen photographer since getting my first camera at 16. A Praktica L with a handheld light meter. Times have changed since the days of waiting for the slides to come in the mail. From Praktica to Olympus then when digital came along Olympus to Nikon full frame and finally Leica. The technology may have changed but it still all down to being able expose and compose.

I left Australia when I was 21 to work as an Australia Volunteer Abroad in Papua New Guinea. Not knowing it would take 35 years to get home. I’m very fortunate to have traveled the world. Always with a camera and ready to explore the back streets. Even if I only had a 12 hour stopover or a night before heading out to a job for work I would find time to get out and explore. Some places like Casablanca I did not even overnight. Others like Egypt or Turkey I transited often and was very familiar with. Of course being curious wasn’t without its challenges. From having a knife pulled on me in China to having a rifle pointed at me a couple of times. And talking (buying) my way out of being arresting in Angola after a “misunderstanding “with a taxi driver whose rate that had been agreed on for the trip suddenly became an hourly rate. Or buying my way out of a cell in Cameroon when I could tell the taxi driver was heading into a restricted zone. After paying a small consideration I was invited back to take photos and be shown around after hours.

As for a favourite place to explore, they were all great. From the Mongolian Steppes to the back streets of Cairo or Istanbul to Papua New Guinea back in the 80s and Borneo in the 90s. All these places are changing rapidly and some hardly recognisable from when I first traveled there. Baku and Ulan Bataar still showed signs of many years of Russian influence when I first visited. These days many more glass towers and modern buildings have appeared. But the back streets still have the locals and their stories. That is where you will find me.