When I was a boy I had a camera but no film. When I was a student I was lent a camera but the SAP took it, also the rolls of film and they were never returned. Only a couple of prints survive. The next time I used a camera I really realised what it could do for me. That I could go to places that I would never otherwise have seen and meet people who I otherwise would never have met.
Using a camera suits me. I like the anonymity a camera affords. At school the most important lesson I learnt was how not to get noticed, not to get picked, not to get picked on. When you take a portrait, your face is obscured just as you look at someone else’s. Looking back at some of these portraits, I can now see my self as clearly as the people in the photographs themselves.
I was always going to be an outsider. Born in Malta to a submariner who was himself born in India and a mother who worked for the intelligence services my childhood was spent in England, Malaya, Singapore, Scotland, Malta and Zambia. As a teenager In Zambia I met people whose lives were very different from my own. I learnt to love wild places. Road trips in search of painted shelters were one of the things I enjoyed most in South Africa. I went to South Africa in 1975, to study Politics and Social Anthropology at Rhodes University, in Grahamstown. That was of course the era of apartheid.
In Malta surrounded by Baroque churches and forts, bastions and ramparts all built from the island’s honey coloured stone my fascination with the Order of Malta began. In Malta today the Order are referred to as the Knights of St John and have been known variously throughout their history as Knights Hospitaller, Knights of Rhodes and Knights of Malta. My favourite grandmaster is Manoel de Vilhena, because he left so much beauty behind.
In London I met legendary editor Min Hogg, who encouraged me, and published my work in The World of Interiors, the international design magazine published by Conde Nast.
During that period the Citizens’ Theatre in Glasgow engaged me to take the production stills for their shows. I did this for five years under director Philip Prowse. These photographs were used for front of house and publicity and were published in all the quality newspapers across Great Britain. I was fortunate enough to see and photograph some of the most outstanding productions and actors of that time.
Nowadays I like nothing more than heading out to take photographs of the things that interest me and the things I love to see. I have always spent as much of my time as possible photographing the historic buildings of the Order of Malta around the Mediterranean and in Europe. My aim is to take ravishing images of the Order’s great buildings and treasures. Images that do justice to the Order’s history and heritage.
Copyright and reproduction
My library of original work contains thousands of images. If you think I may have something of interest to you, please do not hesitate to contact me. With regard to copyright, I retain all rights. Please contact me before using or reproducing any of my photographs. I rarely decline requests, but do like to understand how my images will be used before giving my consent.