Wildlife, Landscapes and Underwater, Fine Art Prints and posters
Portraits and people photography
My Gallery of Portrait Photography and images of People from around the World
This page showcases some of my portrait photography and my photos where I try to capture the diversity, and the similarities, of people around the World. Whether it be a fisherman in Papua New Guinea, a lady collecting oysters in Thailand, a scientist in Scotland, a street vendor in Nicaragua or a busker in England, everyone has a unique story.
Suau Island, Milne Bay Province, Papua New Guinea. An old lady, sitting weaving pandanus leaves, laughs at a joke I don’t understand, but we both laugh anyway because laughter is infectious. There are around 600 islands in Milne Bay Province; many are visited only rarely by people from outside the region. The Suau language, is spoken by a few thousand people in the neighbouring islands and mainland. Over 800 distinct languages are spoken in Papua New Guinea.A lady from Myanmar, her cheeks covered in traditional thanaka cream (a paste produced from ground tree bark) collects oysters at low tide on a Thailand beach. The pandemic in 2020-21 destroyed the incomes of many in regions that had become dependet on tourism over the last few decades. Peninsular Thailand was one of the worst affected. Many thousands of men and women from Myanmar (Burma) came to Thailand as migrant labour, working in construction and the kitchens of restaurants. With little Government support they were hit particularly hard. Marine biologist and underwater cinematographer Kat Brown writes up her notes at the end of a scientific dive. Kat and I had just completed a long dive on a conservation project and were hanging around on a decompression stop. I snapped this pic as Kat continued to write up her descriptions from the dive.I met this old Tongan fisherman by chance, over ten years ago. This is Hakautu’utu’u island (or islet), Niuatoputapu Island lagoon, Tonga. Niuatoputapu is one of two inhabited islands in Tonga’s remote Niua Group, 300 kilometres north of the more developed Vavau group. Niuatoputapu is around 4 miles wide, and is rarely visited by tourists. Fishing is how the islanders survive, and has been for at least a thousand years. Netting and spearing are the prime methods used, but spear fishing is often practised in the shallow lagoon. While I was snorkelling around the edge of Hakautu’utu’u, this old fisherman suddenly appeared beside me, and seemed pleased to show me his catch. The equipment he was using is much more primitive than in the more developed parts of Tonga. His speargun a small catapult , with a few simple steel rods for spears ( a sling spear). His mask must date from at least the nineteen eighties, with the metal clamp securing the glass plate fastened by nylon twine. His two fins each a different colour and design, I’m guessing they were discards from a diving centre. Neither the antiquity and simplicity of his gear, or his advancing years appear to cause him problems; he’s made a pretty good catch, including a reef octopus, a porcupine pufferfish and several surgeonfish. Not a bad mornings work.A warrior stares intently . Tufi, Papua New Guinea.A girl from Malekula Island, Vanuatu, looks around pensively as as she waits for her group’s turn to perform a custom dance. Vanuatu is a young country, acheieving independence only in 1980; prior to that a shared colony of Britain and France. Although the nation is new the dances and traditions (known as custom or kastom) are not, predating European colonisation by hundreds of years. Like many traditional cultures, the traditions of the people of Malekula risk, at least in some areas, becoming commercial facsimiles of old traditions to serve a growing tourist industry. A Thai lady in a bright yellow dress walks along a beach in Thailand.
