concerned and traveling

Man, it’s been a while. Recently back from a fantastic shoot for Concern Worldwide, documenting their work with subsistence farmers in the far reaches of the Western Province of Zambia. I had the pleasure of working with a team from Concern UK and ex-BBC correspondent Paul Welsh, now of Mosquito Media, shooting for 3 days in remote villages around Senanga. Anyone who has been to this area knows that it’s all about sand – it’s absolutely everywhere. Think walking on a beach… all day. It was exhausting, but we had a great time doing it. 

This first image is of Paul conducting an interview on camera; the rest are of some of the people we met and talked to along the way. 

 

caitlin shoot a wrap!

We’ve just wrapped the Caitlin shoot yesterday. Man, it was fun… and exhausting, but mostly just fun. Caitlin was fantastic to work with and endured being frozen, covered in dust and drowned in smoke without a murmur. I couldn’t have asked for a better crew either – Vaughn, who flew with Caitlin to Zambia for the shoot, was an awesome stand-in assistant, lugging kit and holding flashes for hours on end while Joanna from Adlab, injected equal amounts of humour and style. We shot for 3 days in some very cool locations – my sincere thanks to the Dean family for the loan of their wheat fields and tobacco barns, Mr. Legg for the loan of his beautiful classic Harley, Zambeef  (specifically Brent) for allowing us to use their factory as a set and especially to Cilla who welcomed us into her beautiful home at Kalundu and went out of her way to provide us with props, transport and the use of her airfield! 

I was dead pleased with the results, but will be holding back on posting the big-set ones, until Cait releases them herself. Keep an eye on her facebook page and her website if you want to catch them. In the meantime, here are a couple random behind-the-scenes shots and a few out-takes from the first day to give you a sneak peek! 

caitlin in town…

I’m sure many of you out there know about Caitlin, the incredible violinist making waves in SA at the moment. She was born and brought up in Kitwe, and is preparing to launch her first album soon. She has just flown in to Lusaka and I am shooting her for the next 4 days for all her publicity material etc. We have some pretty awesome sets planned so check back at the end of the week to see the results! For more info on Caitlin check out her website here

back in the city

Man, it’s been a hectic month of travel and shoots. Lots to update, but to start with here are a few pictures from my recent shoot at Kasaka River Lodge in the Lower Zambezi. I shot with Mel again, and she was an absolute star as always – even twisted her arm into being a model for a few shots! More to come soon! 

chikumbuso

I am proud to be associated with Chikumbuso, a small Christian project here in Lusaka, that has made an incredible difference to thousands of people’s lives in the townshop of Ngombe. Started by Linda Wilkinson, only a few years ago, she bought a filthy bar and brothel in the middle of the township and has transformed into into an amazing place of fun and safety for a huge cross section of society. Chikumbuso now includes a school for over 300 orphans, a single mother’s skills training centre, a widows self empowerment group that produces beautiful bags crocheted from recycled trash bags that are then marketed locally and abroad, a refuge centre and a fantastic playground for the kids. They also take care of a large number of grandmothers and place and fund orphans that graduate from Chikumbuso into local high schools as well as many other services for the community. See www.chikumbuso.com for more information on the project. 

This clever playground roundabout doubles as a pump, providing water to Chikumbuso from a deep borehole.

tony & lea’s wedding

I shoot a small number of weddings a year, if my arm is twisted far enough (!) and a couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of capturing Tony & Lea’s special day. Unfortunately the light died before we got to the shoot location for the couple shots, so I didn’t get what I had envisioned for those images but here are a just a few from other parts of the wedding. All the best T&L and congratulations!

yet more good beer

Shooting beer bottles kills me, seriously. It ain’t easy. Shooting each of these took me rather a while, with much swearing and wrestling with light tents and softboxes and reflectors and clamps and glycerine spray. Ah well, fairly happy with them in the end. Shot a wedding a couple of weeks ago for the very lovely Tony & Lea. Will post a couple of pics in the next one. 

gotham city

Had a great shoot the other day for a certain leading brand of beer, on top of one of Lusaka’s “skyscrapers” Will post the results once the ads run. Since we had to have the cityscape in the background, and I couldn’t persuade anyone to shoot at dawn instead, we had the setting sun directly behind the models. Not easy to shoot. Fortunately we managed to rig up some power and my big studio strobes fought the good fight. One of the models was me old mate Mainza, singer/songwriter/film maker and after the sun set and we were done shooting I got him to jump onto one of the tanks up there for a couple grab shots. I quite liked the results:
 

the sunny side of life

Finally finished editing a 4 day shoot for the Royal Livingstone, Zambezi Sun and Royal Livingstone Express down in Livingstone. Apart from the more usual images around the resort, (coming soon) I managed to bargain a quick flip in a micro-light thanks to Batoka Sky, to try and get some arial images of the resort and the falls. Shooting from a micro-light is quite a challenge, but I loved the experience. With the river being so high at this time of  year, the falls are almost completely obscured by the spray. Here are a couple of those and one of the Royal Livingstone Express on a moonlit night. 

 

bush mail

Just saw Melanie of Kasaka River Lodge in the Lower Zambezi – I’ve shot a fair amount of work for them in the past and they recently launched a set of postcards, using my images. They aim to raise money for Mugurameno Basic School Charitable Trust here in Zambia who they support. Here are a few from the collection – the grain and sepia tint on the images is because they were printed on recycled paper.