PHOTOGRAPHY
As a little girl I sang songs in the back of a van that took me to corners of the world I didn’t know existed. My dad wasn’t driving but he got us there. Nowadays I sing less and look through the little rectangular looking glass of my camera. I try to make my photographs show what I see but it’s harder than you’d think. Eyes are better at manipulating reality.
To me, PHOTOGRAPHY is:
story-telling,
community-connecting,
voice-giving,
beauty-sharing,
self-expressing,
awareness-raising,
perspective-changing,
art-creating
SURINAME
“Do you see us as humans or animals living in the rainforest?”
I can hear the resentment that stems from centuries of colonial exploitation and the suffering that the indigenous Tiriyó people of Suriname faced at the hands of white men. The Chieftess’ eyes are fierce and proud as she warns us against making empty promises and acting against the interest of the indigenous community. We are deep in the tropical rainforest, in Kwamalasutu - the largest Tiriyó village and home of the Paramount Chief called the “Granman” - and the river is whispering in the distance. The sounds of playing children and village life blend with the calls of macaws and monkeys from the wilderness around us. My camera lies across my lap and feels like it is sinking through the flesh and against the bone of my leg...
MOROCCO
“Une rencontre vaut mieux que mille rendez-vous”
- A chance encounter is better than a million meetings. Younnes smiles and looks over the rim of his fake Raybans. They slide an inch down his nose, as if nearing the only bend in a perfectly straight road, and I smile back. My nose is still itching from the smoke of Camel cigarettes and black coffee, and the intensity of the encounter with Hassan is still fluttering in my ribcage. I have travelled to the Sahara and back in the last seven days to photograph the Secrets of Morocco and the last three hours feel like the last little secret I get to
bundle up and take with me...
SCOTTISH HIGHLANDS
Huddled behind a collection of boulders to evade the slicing coastal wind of the Scottish Highlands,
we stuffed our faces with oat cakes and smoked mackerel and waited for the perfect sunset that wouldn’t come.
The curtain of clouds reminded me of the smoky mist that had enveloped us just days before as we trudged over muddy ground in an effort to photograph highland cattle on the Isle of Skye. In every direction, anything beyond a couple of hundred metres was steeped in white eeriness that turned a simple farm house with cows into
Highland Cattle in Misty Mountains…
NATIONAL PARKS
Yellowstone, Grand Teton and Yosemite
"Stop the van! Stop the van!" My hands are shaking, my eyes twice their normal size. One hand grips the hard shell of my zoom lens and turns white under its weight. The other shoves open the passenger seat door and my hiking boots make gravel scatter as they hit the ground running. Running all the way back to where I think I saw a pair of ears, handsome wolves and sly coyotes flash in black and white and beige before my eyes. Only a couple of seconds after I lift the camera and squint through its looking glass, do I realise that my heart is pounding both from excitement and fear.