By a twist of fate, I was in Bangladesh, just 20 years old, in 1991 when one of the deadliest tropical cyclones in history made landfall there. Being there determined the trajectory of my entire life. The cyclone whipped up a terrible wave 30-foot high. This tore into the coastline, which in places sits just inches above sea level, at a speed of 90 miles per hour. With so little standing in its way, the wave crashed miles inland: obliterating everything and everyone in its path. Only a nuclear bomb could have wreaked more destruction, and it left tragedy on an Old Testament scale in its wake. In a heartbeat, 136,000 Bangladeshis— most of them desperately poor—lost their lives. As soon as I heard the cyclone had hit, my friend and I made straight for the epicenter: our only instinct to see it first hand, to try to make sense of things. Officials there, mistaking us as journalists, bundled us both into a run-down army helicopter about to take off on an aid drop. I had a stills camera on me, and, flying low over mile after mile of utter devastation, I instinctively leant out of the window and began to record the scenes of havoc below. It was in those moments, on that flight, that I became a photojournalist. I realised, as if it was an epiphany, that being a skilled cameraman would give me access to practically any place, person, or situation I could imagine in life.
Along with the huge privilege I felt, to be in the front row of history, I also felt a great responsibility: to share what I’d seen to inspire help for those who’d been caught in the cyclone’s path. I knew that in capturing and conveying circumstances such as these—scenes of peoples and planet in extremis—and in using these stories to press for change, that I had found my life’s calling. 30 years later, and with just as much hunger for truth and knowledge as when I first set foot on that helicopter as a young man, I continue to believe that filmmaking and photography are the most powerful tools we have to map and feel the richly varied contours of human experience; and to build empathy and appreciation for all the wonder, majesty, hope and despair that are the gifts and trials of each life on this amazing planet.
My work has taken me everywhere from tree-top environmental protests in the English countryside, into the heart of London’s 1990’s rave scene, out onto Himalayan trails with remote Maoist insurgents, into the minds of Chinese youth and into the spirit-lands of Amazonian shamans in deep South American jungle. I tend to inhabit, or at least steep myself in, the worlds and lives I chronicle: I love to lean into a story: I’m convinced the greater the proximity and connection I have with a subject, the more vivid, urgent and immediate the photographs or films I’m making become. As Robert Capa said, ‘If your pictures aren't good enough, you're not close enough.’
My work has featured everywhere from National Geographic and the Financial Times Weekend Magazine to Vanity Fair, Colors Magazine, The Economist and Vogue and at exhibitions internationally, including The EMEI International Contemporary Art Exhibition, China, and in London at the East Wing Biennial at the Courtauld Institute of Art and the Saatchi Gallery. Advertising agency clients include BBH, Saatchi & Saatchi and JWT. In 2007 I was chosen as one of ‘The World’s Top Photographers’ in the book published by Rotovision.
