A selection of work commissioned for Newsquest, South London papers.
On the 9th December 2010 Parliament voted to treble University fees for UK students to up to £9000 a year. A degree course plus student loans will saddle a typical London student with around £40,000 debt before stepping into the workplace. With youth unemployment on the rise young people are facing an increasingly uncertain future and many are feeling betrayed by the government as they are forced to make some difficult choices. This is a documentation of young people in the UK today and their hopes for the future in the midst of a global economic crisis.
A selection of work commissioned by Greenpeace International and Greenpeace UK.
March / April 2010. I was the photographer on-board the Greenpeace 'GE Free Future' bus, capturing press conferences and documenting organic farms as we traveled from the Netherlands to Luxembourg, Hungary, France, Italy and Spain. The tour was part of petition for a ban on GE in Europe. Greenpeace along with other environmental organisations managed to get 1 million signatures in support of the campaign.
June / July 2010. Protesters took over Parliament Square for almost three months in summer 2010, turning the green into a tented protest camp called Democracy Village. The Activists were calling for peace and an end to the war in Afghanistan. The Mayor of London took the issue all the way to the High Court and the camp was eventually evicted on 20th July. At the square, the core activist group were overrun by homeless people, alcoholics and drug addicts who found a new home and community spirit on the green.
Flash-floods hit Ladakh, Kashmir on the 6th of August 2010. The rains killed around 200 people with many unidentified bodies and missing persons plus 400 more injured in the disaster. 1235 houses were damaged and many families were left homeless as houses were reduced to rubble in minutes. Temporary camps were set up for 3 months whilst new homes were constructed across the region. Along with the damage to housing, 1420 hectares of agricultural land was destroyed and 1401 hectares saw crop damage of over 50%.
August and December 2008. A selection of images dealing with women's rights; Dalit women protesting for fair land rights and stories from women in a shelter bordering India and Nepal who are escaping domestic violence, rape and trafficking.
February / March 2009. In early 2009 I travelled with a writer on a Greenpeace commissioned project documenting climate impacts in India. We visited people in the Sunderbans, Mumbai, Cherrapunji, Rajasthan Dahanu and Calcutta and they shared with us their experiences of climate change.
February / May 2010. Kew Bridge Eco Village was started in June 2009 in Kew, London and existed as a low impact community which was set up on disused land. People lived in benders and other temporary dwellings, they skipped food from local supermarkets and wood was the main source of energy here. The village was evicted by the land owners in May 2010.
