Exhibition Guide

Over the years I've accumulated more than 21,000 photographs. Rather than simply choosing my favourites, I've selected images that have stayed with me. Each has a story—not just about where it was taken, but why I pressed the shutter, what happened next and why, years later, it still feels worth sharing.

Marrakech had lived in my imagination long before I visited. As a child it represented somewhere impossibly distant, — a crossroads of Berber culture and African energy.. Today it's remarkably accessible, but it has lost none of its mystery or vitality.

Cheap European flights have brought it within reach, even for a long weekend, and if you want great food, distinctive culture, and the chaos of a major market city, this is the place.

I've always been a sucker for early morning light. This is the one quiet hour Jemaa el-Fnaa gets — a lone figure crossing the square in fluorescent stall-light, before the storytellers, snake charmers and food stalls arrive to fill it with noise and crowds. Set one early alarm while you're there, and you'll have one of the world's busiest squares almost entirely to yourself.

**Morning Alms, Phnom Penh, Cambodia - 2013**

Phnom Penh has an unhurried feel before the markets start trading for the day.

I came across this scene during an early morning walk through the city. Buddhist monks were making their daily alms round while stallholders, still preparing for the day ahead, paused to make small offerings in the hope of good fortune. It was a quiet exchange that lasted only a few moments before everyone carried on with their day.

The monks, the umbrellas, the symmetry and the man's gesture of respect all seemed to come together almost instinctively. Sometimes photographs are carefully planned. This certainly wasn't one of them. I simply happened to be in the right place at exactly the right moment.

The image later appeared on the front cover of the Sunday Times after being selected as the winner of their readers' photography competition. It remains one of those happy reminders that curiosity and an early morning walk can occasionally be richly rewarded.

**Galata Bridge, Istanbul, Turkiye - 2023**

The Galata Bridge connects old and new Istanbul and is rarely quiet. Day after day, its railings are thronged with fishermen, while beyond them lies one of the world's great football cities, home to fierce rivalries between Galatasaray, Fenerbahçe and Beşiktaş.

Perhaps thirty years of living in Manchester has conditioned me to notice these things, but the lone angler in red, surrounded by fishermen in sky blue, immediately caught my eye. For a moment, I wondered if that's what it feels like to be a United supporter in the home end at the Etihad.

Jodhpur is known throughout India as the 'Blue City', its old neighbourhoods washed in shades of indigo. While wandering the narrow streets with my camera, I heard laughter above me. Looking up, I found two young girls and their mother smiling from an upstairs window. It was a fleeting encounter, but one that has stayed with me ever since. I never tire of returning to this photograph not just because it reminds me of India but because it reminds me of how much we share, wherever we are in the world.

The light was soft, beautifully illuminating mother and child at this busy market. But it wasn't the light that made me choose this photograph — it was their expression, and the universal bond between them. Their traditional Mayan clothing, still worn throughout Guatemala's highlands, added another layer to a moment that already felt timeless.

Central America is sometimes portrayed through stories of violence, instability and danger. Our experience in Guatemala could hardly have been more different. Everywhere we travelled we were met with warmth, curiosity and generosity.

This portrait has become a reminder that first impressions, and sometimes entire reputations, can be misleading. Long after I've forgotten the market itself, I remember the kindness of the people we met and the feeling that, wherever we travel, we have far more in common than that which divides us.

This is just one of many photographs from Guatemala on my website. If this image resonates with you, I hope you'll spend a little time exploring the others. Together they tell the story of a country that surprised me at every turn.

Volcán de Fuego, or the Volcano of Fire, is one of Guatemala's most active volcanoes.

Getting this photograph involved a six-hour climb up neighbouring Acatenango. Looking at the map beforehand, it all seemed perfectly manageable. Looking up at it from the bottom was rather a different matter.

We clambered up in Adidas trainers, largely on the basis that I do the occasional 5k parkrun and inflict the odd spin class upon myself. It turns out that neither is ideal preparation for scrambling up a volcano approaching 4,000 metres, (three times the height of Ben Nevis).

As darkness fell, Fuego began to perform. Every few minutes there was an elemental roar, followed by another burst of ash and glowing rock into the night sky. It was one of those moments when conversation stops because everyone is quietly trying to absorb what they're seeing.

The tiny white lights to the right of the volcano belong to another group of hikers who decided they'd like an even closer view. I admired their enthusiasm from a distance and felt no overwhelming urge to join them.

Some photographs stay with you because of what they show. Others because of what it took to be there. This one, for me, is happily both.

**Bridgewater Canal, Brooklands Bridge - 2025**

Sale has been my home for almost 30 years. I love the summers here - but it’s those few days in January and February when the canal freezes, that it becomes its most atmospheric for me.

Most mornings the towpath is alive with runners, rowers, cyclists and dog walkers. On days like this everything seems to slow down. People stop to look, conversations become quieter and even the canal appears to pause for breath.

I stood on Brooklands Bridge for almost half an hour waiting for the right moment. Two walkers appeared, almost unnoticed, and suddenly the scene had the quiet sense of scale I was looking for. Sometimes the most memorable photographs aren't found at the end of a long journey. They're waiting just a few hundred metres from home.

Chengdu: I've always loved portrait photography—especially when working with natural light and photographing people (with their permission) in the places where they live, work and spend their time.

I took this during a work trip to Sichuan Province in southwest China. I had wandered into one of Chengdu's traditional tea houses when this gentleman looked up from his pipe and caught my eye. There was something about the combination of the soft light, his expression and the quiet confidence with which he held himself that made me ask if I could take his portrait.

Almost 30 years later, the photograph still takes me back to a very different China. Not a smartphone or neon billboard in sight.

Before sunrise, while visitors gathered to photograph the Taj Mahal, two worshippers performed their morning prayers on the banks of the Yamuna River. For a few moments, one of the world's most recognisable landmarks became little more than a backdrop to a quieter and more personal ritual.

The image is a reminder that even in places visited by millions, small moments of reflection and devotion still unfold unnoticed.

**Tikal, Guatemala - 2024**
A pre-dawn hike and a clamber up Temple IV to wait for the sun. Tikal, in Guatemala, is one of the few places UNESCO lists twice — for wildlife and Mayan ruins. At first light you understand why: howler monkeys roaring below, temple roofs through the mist, a crescent moon and Venus.

**Pushkar, India - 2025**
Pushkar is built for spectacle — thousands of Hindu pilgrims come to bathe in the lake, which is ringed by 52 bathing ghats and, depending who's counting, anywhere from 300 to 500 temples. Cows wander the lanes as though they own them, and there's barely a street without a shrine on it.
But it's the quieter corners of a place like this that pull me in more than the spectacle does, and I found one on a back street, at a doorway numbered 790. I'd noticed the steps first before I'd noticed anyone sitting on them. Then the three girls spotted the camera and the whole scene arranged itself: delighted faces stacking up behind a mother whose attention was already elsewhere, fixed on something off to my left. It was clear the girls understood photographic composition better than I did.

Two women transplanting rice seedlings in a paddy near Hoi An. The greenest green I've ever seen, and that's saying something for an Irishman. Back-breaking work, done at a pace I couldn't have kept up for five minutes.

Hoi An is one of the most visited towns in Vietnam. While it is thronged with visitors throughout much of the day, the early morning markets are where local life comes alive - including this lady with an infectious smile who happily posed for me.

A Promise Made in Antigua

“Going anywhere nice on your holidays?”