Iraq. April 2003. 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines approach Baghdad.
I used to lie in my bed as a boy and read the poems of Wilfred Owen and those of Sassoon, Brook, and Graves. It was from there that my journey into war began. I was fascinated by war, raised on the comic books and other exaggerated histories of conquest and warfare that I found on the staircase leading to my grandparent's attic, books that my father had read as a boy during World War Two. The poems of the First World War were where my ideas about war were challenged for the first time and where I first sensed that war was neither romantic, noble, nor a rite of passage. Every stanza bled with layer upon layer of horror, indignity, and inhumanity; those pages revealed a world where the passage ends. I wanted to see it for myself. I found more than I could imagine.
Introduction to this website
I created this space to represent my professional life as a photographer. It’s where I collect and organise my photographs, journals, anecdotes, ephemera, and thoughts and reflections about photography and journalism.
These pages will host some of my work, along with scans of the publications in which that work appeared. The site will map my career from its beginnings in Southeast Asia until now, passing through the Balkans, Iraq, and many other territories. It will also include notes on my approach, personal commentary, and anecdotes. I will publish more here as I scan my archive and organise materials. In other words, this site will continue to evolve slowly.
A selection of stories related to my photography can be found at the VII Foundation website.
I recommend viewing these pages in “full screen” mode.
Thank you for reading,
GK