This time, I thought rather than hearing from me, I’d share a blog that my friend Tessa Simpson from brilliant design agency, O Street, has written about my collaboration with them on Kenema and a recent exhibition that we hosted in London. I’ve enjoyed working with O Street on many a client project and this is a personal project that is particularly close to my heart, so it was great that they wanted to get involved.
A nice bit of news to share with you this chilly Friday afternoon – I am delighted to announce that three of my images have been selected for Creative Review’s Photography Annual 2016. Every year, a judging panel of industry experts selects photographs which present ‘the best in visual communications from the past year’, to celebrate new work in the field of photography. The winners feature in renowned creative magazine, Creative Review. The standard is always world-class, so as you can imagine, I was humbled and delighted when I heard the news last month that I was to be part of the selection. In fact, it was a very difficult secret to keep.
As you may know, I’m working on an exciting project at the moment, with long-time collaborators, O Street, and a construction organisation who I volunteered with in Sierra Leone called Orkidstudio. The project actually began in 2014, when I travelled to Kenema with Orkidstudio, photographing a community who were building a new school for Swawou School Foundation. The building was to provide new facilities for local, underprivileged girls to get a better education, joining up innovative design and construction techniques to make a building that would work for years to come.
A market stallholder selling fruit and vegetables in Kenema
This month, I’ve swapped my studio in Summerhall for the altogether warmer climes of Sierra Leone. I first went in 2014 with a Scottish architecture / construction charity, OrkidStudio, to take some photos of a new girls school they were building in Kenema. I instantly fell in love with Sierra Leone, but shortly after I returned to Scotland, was devastated to hear about the Ebola outbreak in the region I was just in. When I looked at my photos I would wonder how my new friends there were coping with this tragic pandemic, and feel helpless to their fight.
One of the Swawou School girls in her new classroom.