Observations Colour

Bagan, Myanmar. January 2013
Dog Meat Stall – Wet market, Guangzhou, China. November 1992
I wandered into this wet market in Canton, as it was known then, by accident. This was not a place for vegetarians. Every type of animal and meat was for sale both live, half alive and dead. I now realise how easy it would be for viruses and disease to mutate across species in these environments. This stall is just one example of some of the upsetting things I saw that day, most of which was too horrible to photograph.
Signal Woman – Poznan, Poland. May 1992
I spent six months working and photographing in Poland in the early 90s. It struck me how many level crossings they were all over the country from the zigzag of railways. One evening I decided I would go to the station outside town and photograph people getting on and off a train. I have no idea when the next train would be coming so I asked this lady who was sitting in the signal box just off the platform. I couldn’t understand a reply from her gestures realised it was going to be a long time and I knew the light would’ve would have gone. I asked her if I could take her picture, she shrugged her shoulders and carried on working.
Man Tending Nets – Dili, Timor Leste. August 2005
‘No Mas Somozas’ - Managua, Nicaragua. August 1998
The earthquake of 1972 ruined the cathedral on the edge of the Lake Xolotian in Managua. In 1996 it remained roofless and empty as it had been left by the earthquake. Along the side of the ruined cathedral I noticed this graffiti. Anastasio Somoza was the dictator who, followed by his sons, oversaw a corrupt regime that fuelled the popular Sandinista revolution during the 60s and 70s. The left-wing FSLN eventually toppled the US backed dictatorship in 1979. This ‘No more Samozas’ graffiti refers to the popular movement to get rid of the dictator Somoza and his corrupt regime.
Saddam calendar Tea Shop – Savar, Bangladesh. May 1991
I spent six months working in Bangladesh with two colleagues building low-cost wheelchairs at the Centre for the Rehabilitation of the Paralysed in Savar. At the time the only shop nearby the centre which was out in the countryside at the time was this small open fronted convenience store run by this young lad who used to supply us with cokes and mosquito coils. We arrived in Bangladesh at the height of the 1991 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and the resulting invasion by US and coalition troops. Throughout many Muslim countries there was a great deal of anti-Western sentiment as a result. When we arrived in Bangladesh we found that Saddam Hussein had managed the propaganda war better than one could have imagined. Almost every schoolbook, plates, cups, T-shirts were available with Saddam Hussein’s picture on. This boy had this calendar up for the whole time that we were there. One would often see rickshaws with ‘Saddam’ art hand-painted on the rear.

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