Glanced out of my window this afternoon and saw this chap…

India – New Delhi – A hawk sits in a tree

Here’s a recent tearsheet for the German Magazine, Effilee of an article that I wrote and photographed about a particular response to non-native invasive (alien) species – Muntjac Deer, Grey Squirrel and American Crayfish… the German headline has it best – something like, “Who is a stranger here is eaten”. Less sensationally, the piece explores the environmental fallout of introduced species and a discussion about both ‘speciesism’ and, the realization that we now live in an age that may come to be known as the Anthrocene.

Many thanks to the very excellent Crayfish Bob, Fergus Drennan (aka Fergus the Forager) and Mike Robinson

It seems that the road lobby is on the march again (or should that be driving…). A link road planned between Bexhill and Hastings has meant a whole new generation of young eco-protesters (known as the ‘Combe Haven Defenders’) have taken to the trees in order to thwart the chainsaws and the bailiffs. The road will destroy the unspoilt Combe Haven Valley damaging an ancient woodland home to protected species.

It takes me back to the mid/late 1990′s when I did a few assignments for magazines (including I remember one for the Independent on Sunday Magazine on the Land is Ours group) about the environmental protests taking place under a previous Conservative government. My abiding memory is of descending a ramshackle tunnel somewhere under Twyford and crawling on my belly for ten yards underground to photograph a young man who’s arm was secured into a concrete pillar (see below). I never realised that I was a tiny bit claustrophobic until that point and was very relieved to get the picture and retreat the way I had come.

Here are some images from the archives.

UK – Berkshire – An environmental protester plays a guitar outside his tent at Twyford Down in a protest camp opposing the building of the M3 motorway

UK – Berkshire – A protester cemented into an underground chamber to prevent the M3 motorway development

UK – London – An eco-protester from the group The Land is Ours on a squatted site in Wandsworth owned by Guiness

UK – Berkshire – A protester in a tree protesting the M3 motorway development

UK – London – An eco-protester from the group the Land is Ours salutes the sun  on a squatted site in Wandsworth

Here is a recent tearsheet from the wonderful Effilee Magazine for whom I  wrote and photographed a really interesting story about seaweeds – an important and potentially significant food source across the world. I focused on the Welsh tradition of Laverbread and had the most wonderful time experiencing Welsh hospitality and a delicious new food.

I’ll be posting (as usual) the 5000 word text on my website in due course.

Just returned from a lovely week in Jersey opening the Human Rights week with my exhibition. Great response and a pleasure to be involved in Amnesty’s work and education programme. I spoke at half a dozen schools and also to BBC radio Jersey about my work. You can hear the interview here.

Prints by John Cleur at Metro looked extraordinary. Many thanks to everyone that came  along, listened and looked.

Here’s a recent tearsheet from Sawasdee, Thai Airways in-flight magazine – a nice assignment on the ‘New’ East End.

I’ll try and post a few of my favourite images from the job in the next day or two

Here’s a triptych of some images made during a recent four day commercial job for Ben’s Cookies – a rather wonderful bespoke biscuit outlet.

Lovely client, Lovely biscuits.

Earlier this year, I was commissioned by Smithsonian Magazine to photograph a really interesting story – an opera based on the life of Albert ‘Lal’ White an Olympic cycling champion in the 1920s.

Because of the magazine’s schedule the rehearsals were photographed long before costumes or props were really ready and unfortunately, none of these images (some of my favourites) were included in the final spread.

I work vary rarely in England and have never been to Scunthorpe (or Hull for that matter) but had a wonderful time largely due to James Beale‘s great company, Sue Hollingsworth‘s boundless enthusiasm and Kirsty Halliday‘s great organisational skills. Lastly, I should thank Smithsonian’s Associate Photo Editor, Jeff Campagna for sticking with me when I expressed disbelief that they actually wanted to send me to Scunthorpe… (which was pretty nice to be fair) when I was convinced he must have meant Sri Lanka…

UK – Scunthorpe – Jamie Beale, director of Cycle Song an opera about Albert ‘Lal’ White a champion cyclist photographed in front of the town’s steelworks

UK – Hull – Director Jamie Beale rehearses drama students from Hull University for their parts in the forthcoming production of Cycle Song in the Gulbenkian Theatre

UK – Hull – Drama students from Hull University rehearse for their parts in the forthcoming production of Cycle Song in the Gulbenkian Theatre

UK – Scunthorpe – Sue Hollingsworth, head of the Scunthorpe Cooperative Junior Choir leads a rehearsal for a production of Cycle Opera at Henderson Avenue Primary School

UK – Scunthorpe – A young girl forgets her lines at an audition for the production of Cycle Opera at Henderson Avenue Primary School

UK – Scunthorpe – Andrew Garbutt, Head of Music at the John Leggot Centre conducts members of the Youth Concert Band during rehearsals of Cycle Song. John Leggot Centre

UK – Scunthorpe – A young musician, part of the Youth Concert Band pulls faces during rehearsals of Cycle Song at the John Leggot College

UK – Scunthorpe – Erica Hardy leader of the Second Concert Band of the Youth Concert Band leads rehearsals of Cycle Song at the John Leggot College

UK – Scunthorpe – Two schoolgirls laugh and chat after gaining choir parts during auditions for a production of Cycle Opera at Henderson Avenue Primary School

UK – Scunthorpe – Schoolgirls chosen for the choir as part of the production of Cycle Opera practice for the first time in costume in the playground at Henderson Avenue Primary School after a thunderstorm

UK – London – Friends, Claire, 36 and Edwin, 61, both homeless, talk after a soup run organised by a Christian Charity on the Strand

The Broadway Homeless charity have just reported that London has seen a 43% increase on people sleeping rough in the capital from last year. The only glimmer of home in this figure is that 70% of those aren’t sleeping out for the second night due largely to the actions of charities like Broadway and increased work from outreach teams. This, despite Boris Johnson’s pre-election pledge to ‘end rough sleeping by 2012′. According to a Guardian report in April this year, £5m – underwritten by central government – was diverted from the Mayor’s budget for rough sleepers, to ‘other purposes’. Expect worse to come if proposals to remove housing benefit for under 25′s come to fruition.

There is a clear link between London’s rents becoming more and more unaffordable for large sections of the population and these figures. London is often referred to as a divided city. It isn’t. It is now many cities. Extraordinarily wealth in the centre, guarded and cosseted by technology and private security (tested and honed on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan) swimming in an ocean of increasing poverty – material and aspirational – that finds its dreams impossible. All of this underwritten by a facetious, poisonous narrative of unfulfilled personal responsibility and fecklessness.

According to Stuart Hall, cities of the nineteenth century and twentieth centuries were monuments to Imperial power: motors of industrial production and trade. Globalisation has significantly reshaped London and the people sleeping on its streets (or the thousands a breath away from it) as inconvenient dislocations from an industrial to a service economy dictated to by modern day robber barons fixated on personal wealth and profit. I write so much about the Developing World, Delhi in particular (and recently Athens) that it is easy to neglect what is literally under my feet.