Seoul. The city without soul. In the mad rush to develop on the surface and bring itself rapidly from post-war devastation into perceived modernity, Seoul had to forgo a lot of things. Only recently, for example, has there been a focus on clean and welcoming public spaces or leisure activities. The monumental effort to construct the city is, in a sense, done and the focus is now on making it livable. However, as this gentrification proceeds, the main streets of […]
I recently found myself driving along Korea’s east coast just south of Samcheok city. The light I needed for my morning’s work was over, but I wasn’t quite ready to pack in yet. So, I started taking the small roads along the coast and after a series of turns, found myself at a small harbour that hadn’t quite finished sorting the morning’s catch yet. Initially, the roadside fresh seafood market was what caught my eye. The store owners were just […]
My first trip to Taiwan was an absolute rollercoaster. The visit only got finalised a few days before departure so the preparation was a whirlwind of planning and research about the subjects I would meet for Tattoos of Asia. My good friend, Marco Tessiore would be joining me for this journey and creating a beautiful film about our time there. It wasn’t until we landed in Taipei that the weather report confirmed that Typhoon Meranti would be hammering the island […]
Guwahati was certainly not my favourite place on this trip. I’d just spent almost a month in North East exploring Nagaland and Ziro to meet the Konyak and Apatani peoples. In just a few hours on a sleeper train, the cool mountain weather and verdant rice paddies gave way to the urban grit and extreme summer heat of the largest city in Assam. It was chaotic, hot, noisy, and unforgiving in every way. After a month of peace, I simply […]
Just before the world realised what we were up against with COVID-19, I spent a few days in Tokyo. As always, Tokyo was crowded and rushed. While it is easy to find a quiet spot to be alone in Tokyo, the same cannot be said for its railway system. The city is home to many of the world’s busiest train stations and at the top of that list is Shinjuku. Millions of passengers daily pass through that station alone as […]
September seems like an age ago. In the 6 months since these images were taken, I’ve been going at a pace I can’t really describe in this current slow-down due to COVID-19. It was a complete blur until I got back from Myanmar a few weeks ago and I’m now just having a chance to reflect on all that’s gone by and flick through some of the images I made between all the chaos. Everything on this page was photographed […]
Unexpectedly finding myself with 7 days in Yangon was not something I was ready for. Having spent so much time there in the past, I had planned only to have one day to deliver my books to the various outlets a one day buffer in case flights didn’t work out. With a week in hand, I decided to revisit all the spots I had visited on my first trips to Yangon. One of my favourite experiences had been exploring the […]
The last time I was in Taipei I was visiting for my Tattoos of Asia project in the middle of Typhoon Meranti. Surely, there are better times to visit Taipei, I thought? Not that it was a bad trip, there were plenty of stories to tell. I just figured there must be more representative times of year to visit! So it was, in August last year, that my wife and I decided to take a week off to visit Taipei and […]
In this continuing series of monthly updates, here you will find Seoul in the month of August. Despite only being here for 3 weeks of the month, a lot happened and I was able to document much of what I saw. This blog will show several things that passed in front of my lens as the month went on. For the few weeks or so, I spent my time experimenting with and testing the Laowa 17mm f/4 for Fujifilm GFX. […]