Personal Work

Has your work made people take drastic action?

A photographer recently told me about a fashion shoot where the model’s nose was slightly retouched in post production. After seeing the shot, the model paid for a nose job. She actually had her own nose made to look like the final image. Horrified, the photographer contacted her afterwards. The model thanked her for showing

The Bangkok Curveball

Patpong, Bangkok. The red light district. It’s dark except for the cacophony of flashing signs and pools of light as doors open into sweaty bars. Sue Stubbs and I are weaving our way through a throng of mostly men, and into the bowels of a seemingly never ending warren of alleys. We try not to

You don’t know what you’re doing

I was sitting in a dark theatre, entranced by the black and white portrait on the screen. A freckle-faced Irish child with wonky teeth and a cloth cap crinkled his eyes as he looked into the lens of Dorothea Lange. It was 1954 and Lange had been on assignment for Time Life Magazine when she

New fences, old fences

We stood on an almost empty parking lot outside a Rotorua hotel staring up at the distant windows, some with faces peering out, some of those offering a resigned wave to possible relatives or friends. Between us and the building were two soldiers and a 10ft high fence. We were collecting our daughter from her

Success in scary times

After 9/11 strategic coach Dan Sullivan wrote a “Scary times” success manual. Since then it has been a popular read in subsequent crises including the GFC and again during the current global situation we are in. In at least 3 recent calls with clients I have directed them to this amazing resource so I decided

It’s time to re-examine

‘I live 2 blocks from the George Floyd murder’ I heard, repeatedly yesterday, as I ran a 3.5 hour folio review marathon with photographers based in Minneapolis. ‘I had my bag packed and was ready to flee in case our building was burned down’ said one. ‘Please let there be change’, they all said. Starting