Wrestlers of Lahore

GALLERY: Faces of Lahore

Last month (October 2025) I made my first visit to Pakistan, with Lahore as my arrival point. I had no idea what to expect – British-Pakistani friends, and an increasing number of Youtubers, told me I was in for a warm welcome, but years of media scare stories lurked at the back of my mind.

Within minutes of getting out on the streets I learned that my friends (and those Youtubers) were right – Pakistan is without doubt the friendliest country on the planet and Lahore, with its chaotic streets, delicious street food, and welcoming locals, is the perfect introduction.

I spent three days there, much of it in the old Walled City, and could’ve easily spent the whole week there. Just wandering around taking photos, stopping for an onion bhaji, and sitting drinking tea and talking politics with random locals was an absolute pleasure. So here’s a portrait gallery in tribute to the people who gave me such a great first impression of their country.

The Courage to Be Disliked: 5 Lessons for Photographers

Every now and then a book sneaks up on you, disguised as something lightweight and harmless, then proceeds to dismantle your worldview with unnerving calm. The Courage to Be Disliked is one of those books. On the surface, it’s just a quirky conversation between a smug teenager and a maddeningly serene philosopher, but somewhere in that back-and-forth lies the kind of insight that can genuinely change how you see yourself – and the world around you. It’s no exaggeration to say that it’s completely changed my life. 

It’s rooted in the ideas of Alfred Adler – one of Freud’s lesser-known contemporaries, minus the cigars and mum issues – and while it’s not written for photographers, I couldn’t help but read it through that particular lens (pun entirely intended). Because buried amongst all the talk of trauma, freedom, and not being a people-pleasing doormat are some pretty solid truths that apply just as much to shooting on the streets of Bangkok as they do to navigating life in general.

Here are five lessons from The Courage to Be Disliked that every photographer – especially those of us afflicted with imposter syndrome, gear envy, or an unhealthy relationship with Instagram likes – should probably tattoo on the inside of our eyelids.

1. Your Photos Don’t Need to Please Everyone

Let’s just say it: not everyone’s going to like your photos. Some people will scroll past your best work and pause instead on a blurry iPhone snap of a half-eaten croissant. Others will ask why your black and white street shot isn’t in colour because “it would really pop.” And the thing is, that’s fine.

One of Adler’s main points is that life becomes infinitely easier once you stop trying to please everyone. Apply that to photography and you get permission – glorious, liberating permission – to stop shooting what you think people want, and start shooting what you want. Rusty doors. Moody shadows. Cats. Old men with no shirts on. Whatever floats your Sony.

“Desire for recognition makes you choose a way of living that is not your own.”

2. Stop Caring What the Internet Thinks

You know that feeling when you post a photo you’re really proud of, and it gets precisely one like (from your mum)? Meanwhile, a mediocre selfie you took last year garners 86 heart reacts and three flame emojis? Yeah. Welcome to the algorithmic hellscape.

Adler (and the book’s annoyingly serene philosopher) would suggest that relying on external validation is a mug’s game. And they’re right. Photography is a solitary act of observation. The moment we start caring more about how a photo will perform than how it feels, we’re just creating content, not art. And nobody got into photography to be a content creator. (Except YouTubers. But they don’t count.)

“Freedom is being disliked by other people.”

3. Your Job is to Take the Photo – That’s It

There’s a lovely concept in the book called “the separation of tasks.” It basically says: do your job, and don’t stress about stuff that’s not your problem.

In photography terms: your job is to take the photo. Whether people like it, share it, or buy it and hang it above their toilet – that’s not your task. Your task is to see, frame, shoot, and maybe do a bit of tasteful Lightroom faffing. That’s it. Anything else is out of your hands, and stressing about it is like yelling at the clouds because they’re not the shape you wanted.

“You are not living to satisfy other people’s expectations.”

4. Other Photographers Are Not Your Competition

Let’s face it: photography is full of wankery. Competitions. Gear comparisons. Flickr groups full of middle-aged men arguing about bokeh. It’s exhausting.

But Adler (and our philosophical friend) argue for “horizontal relationships” – basically, not seeing others as better or worse than you, but as equals. In photography, that means admiring someone’s work without hating your own. Learning from others without feeling threatened. Sharing knowledge without being a gatekeeping knob.

The truth is, we’re all just weirdos with cameras trying to make sense of the world. Let’s act like it.

“All problems are interpersonal relationship problems.”

5. Be Here Now. Seriously.

This one sounds obvious, but bear with me: photography is about being present. Fully, stupidly, head-out-of-your-arse present. You can’t shoot a moment if you’re not in it.

Adler bangs on about living earnestly in the now – and honestly, it’s the best photography advice you’ll never hear at a workshop. When I’m in that state – no phone, no thoughts, just wandering, watching, waiting – that’s when the good stuff happens. The light hits just right. An expression flickers across someone’s face. A dog sticks its head out of a tuk-tuk. If you’re thinking about your next post or the fact your last three shots were probably crap, you miss it.

“Live as if you were dancing. Dance as if you were living.”

So there you have it – five bits of borrowed Japanese-Adlerian wisdom for us snappers. The Courage to Be Disliked might not fix your autofocus issues, or stop you accidentally formatting your SD card (again), but it might just help you make peace with the weird, wonderful, occasionally lonely life of a photographer.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to post a photo I really love and get absolutely zero engagement on it. And I’m okay with that. I think. 

Strings of Life: The Exiles Bringing Traditional Burmese Puppetry to Bangkok

“When they’re not performing, we cover their faces because we believe they have souls”

Khin Maung Htwe and his family, one of the few remaining authentic Burmese Yoke Thé puppetry troupes, fled Myanmar and its brutal military government in June, for the safety of Bangkok. Oo, Htwe’s wife, misses their home in Yangon and worries about her elderly mother, but Htwe and his two children enjoy life here, and his son is hoping to go to university in Thailand. And what still unites them and keeps them going is their art.

Yoke Thé can be traced back to at least the 15th century and reached peak popularity in the 1800s. Like many traditional art forms in Southeast Asia – Thailand’s Chinese opera or Vietnam’s Hát Tuồng for example – it was THE form of mass entertainment before the arrival of radio, cinema and TV, and served as storytelling, news/propaganda dissemination, and an oblique (and therefore mostly safe) way to satirise and poke fun at officialdom.

And like those other art forms, its popularity has waned over the last century – Htwe tells me there are very few puppet masters left in Myanmar and those that remain mostly perform shorter shows for tourists (a real Yoke Thé show should last all night). Thankfully Htwe has taught his children well and they are highly skilled puppeteers, and just as passionate about the art as their parents, and they now perform every Thursday evening at Prince Theatre, in Bangkok’s Bang Rak district.

I joined them one evening to meet them and photograph them as they set up their equipment (most of which – including their 28 valuable puppets – they brought over from Myanmar with them), and performed a short rehearsal for me so I could shoot close-up. Then came the show itself and whilst initially I was too busy taking photos to pay it much attention, once I sat and watched I was amazed at the skill of Oo, Thet, and Paing, as they manipulated their puppets – most of them have at least 20 strings which enable the puppeteers to move them in a eerily realistic manner.

The performances are wordless and accompanied by music, which means there is no language barrier, and the stories themselves are universal tales of love, good vs evil, vice and virtue and so on, and can be easily understood. It’s a truly magical experience and the chance to experience an ancient art close up, and to meet those keeping it alive.

Htwe Oo Myanmar puppet troupe perform every Thursday at Prince Theatre Heritage Stay, from 20:00

GALLERY: 72 Hours in Jaipur

After Delhi, even a hot, dusty city of over 4 million people feels like a relaxing break. Jaipur was much more compact, easy to navigate (the old city is built on a grid system), and, staying as we were in a charming old heritage hotel, a lot more comfortable.

Our visit coincided with some pre-Holi celebrations, to which we were warmly welcomed, our faces painted, our necks garlanded with flowers, and the locals eager to get me to join in the dancing. Elsewhere, Amber Fort, which its stunning colours and light, turned out to be a photographer’s playground, as did its amazing stairwell.

The locals were some of the friendliest people I’ve met anywhere in the world, the tuk-tuk drivers were all insane but fun, and the local craft beer excellent. I’d probably take a lot of persuading to spend another 72 hours in Delhi, but would go back to Jaipur in a heartbeat.

GALLERY: 72 Hours in Delhi

On the flight to India I finished reading Kyle Chayka’s excellent Filterworld, a look at how algorithms have transformed social media from a set of our own curated interests to a never-ending deluge of spurious ‘recommendations’, and the flattening effect this is having on global culture – for example how coffeeshops, the people who hang out in them, the music that’s playing in the background etc, are all starting to become the same.

Arriving in Delhi, however, was a welcome reminder that some places remain impervious to the forces of global homogeneity. On my second day there I had one of those increasingly rare travel moments that just stop you in your tracks, as I emerged from the depths of the Delhi metro – modern, generic – into the utter chaos of Old Delhi. A mindblowing maelstrom of rickshaws, dogs, women in colourful saris, beggars, motorbikes, oxcarts, wires, the lot. It was everything you’ve heard about India and more. And, most refreshing of all for someone who lives in Bangkok, not a shopping mall, Tiktoker, or hipster coffee shop in sight.

I had just three days in Delhi and spent pretty much all of them wandering around, camera in hand, jaw frequently dropping, and shooting/chatting to the locals who were incredibly friendly. There seems to be a belief amongst tourists that any Delhiite who talks to you is trying to scam you or sell you something; that is often the case but by not stopping for a chat you miss out on a lot and I had some fun conversations (even with the ones who were trying to sell me something). It’s a city where, if you don’t go with the flow, you’ll end up looking like so many tourists I saw on the streets of Paharganj – hot, sweaty, red-faced, stressed, and for whom the classic Withnail & I quote “We’ve gone on holiday by mistake” was 100% appropriate.

Anyway, I got some great photos and could easily have spent another three days there taking more. Here are my favourites.

GALLERY: Goodbye Phutaret Flats Market

The first time I wandered into the market underneath Phutaret flats, I was smitten. Here was the grimy, dingy, tourist-free Chinatown market of my dreams, a dark maze of hygienically dubious market stalls where the cats and rats outnumbered the people. I’ve since been back dozens of times and it’s by far my favourite market to photograph in Bangkok.

Or rather, was. Sadly a few months back I learned from one of the stallholders that the apartment building is soon to be demolished (to be fair, it’s always looked as if it might collapse at any time), and over the last few weeks the market stalls have gradually moved out, with one stall still defying the wrecking ball and the march of progress and still selling vegetables (see last picture below).

What will replace the flats is as yet unclear, but we can be pretty sure it won’t have the same grit, charm, and aesthetic appeal of what was there before. The building is still standing, and the market – though mostly deserted (even the rats have moved on) – still open for a wander, so go now while you can. Otherwise, here are some memories of one of my favourite spots in the city.

GALLERY: Best of 2023

With two solo exhibitions and a book all under my belt, 2023 has been more about curation than creation and I’ve taken way fewer photos than in the last couple of years. Nevertheless it’s still been a good ‘un, with trips to Saigon, Osaka and Sri Lanka as well as shooting Muay Thai, pro wrestling, Chinese opera and more.

Looking forward to a busier 2024. In the meantime, enjoy my favourite shots from 2023!

Chimpin’ Ain’t Easy: Life Without a Rear Monitor

Last month I found myself in my former home town, Ho Chi Minh City, for ten days, and on my last night there – physically unable to drink any more beer after several nights of excess – I decided to go out and do some night photography in the busy streets of Phu Nhuan near my hotel.

I’d got about ten minutes into my shoot when I noticed that the rear monitor on my Sony A7II had stopped coming on (I have my monitor set to AUTO so it automatically comes on when my eye isn’t looking into the EVF). I assumed there was an issue with the eye detector so gave it a quick poke with a cotton bud (always carry a cotton bud in your camera bag – it’s as essential a piece of photography gear as a camera, a comfortable pair of shoes, or an inferiority complex), but it didn’t help. So, like the idiot I am, I decided to test it by switching to rear monitor mode, and, well, you can guess what happened next – I bricked my camera. With the camera in rear monitor mode and said rear monitor not working, I was powerless to do anything, as I could no longer access the menu. Shit shit shit.

Cursing my idiocy I walked back to my hotel, fired up my laptop, and consulted the internet. Now the great thing about the internet is that whatever almighty mess you’ve got yourself into, there’s invariably someone out there who’s been there, done that, and found a solution. You could find yourself trapped in an Uzbek brothel with only a live badger and a copy of Your Air Fryer Monthly, yet someone online would have previous experience of such a situation and know exactly how to get out of it.

Thankfully there were several idiots out there who had also bricked their Sony cameras in the same way I had, and one of them had come up with a solution involving a certain sequence of rear button presses which, hallelujah, got my EVF working again. I would share that sequence here but in my excitement I forgot to bookmark the page.

Anyway, with my newly restored camera I went out shooting sans rear monitor, as I’ve done several times since (I’ve been too busy with work and shoots to get it fixed, and I’m currently too skint to buy a new camera), and I noticed one significant thing: it’s cured my chimping problem.

For the uninitiated, ‘chimping’ is the somewhat pejorative term for what photographers do right after taking what they think is a good shot – looking at the camera’s rear monitor, going “ooh ooh ooh” and, possibly, jumping up and down and flinging their own shit around in excitement. Before presumably getting into comedy scrapes hauling a piano up a flight of stairs (one for 1980s Brit TV viewers there – never let it be said my cultural references aren’t bleeding edge). The more prosaic origin story says the term is an abbreviation of ‘check image preview’, but that’s not half as much fun as monkeys.

Chimping is generally agreed to be a bad thing, as while you’re looking at your screen you might be missing a good shot, and it distracts you from the flow state that we all like to be in when we’re out shooting; yet most photographers do it anyway. It’s hard not to. When you think you’ve just taken a potentially award winning banger of a shot, the first thing you want to do is look at it. Elvis could ride past on the back of a unicorn and you wouldn’t care – you want to check that that shot is as good as you think it is, even though you know it can wait.

And chimping isn’t all bad. On those occasions when you have time to work a scene, looking at each photo and working out how it can be improved is essential. Many’s the time I’ve taken what I thought was a winner, had a quick chimp session, and noticed some wayward item in the background or that my composition was a bit off. On such occasions, the chimp truly deserves all the bananas and cups of PG Tips that come his way.

But on my last couple of shoots I’ve noticed that, deprived of the opportunity to chimp, I enjoy myself more. I stay in the zone. I concentrate on the next shot instead of worrying about the last one. I focus on the shoot, rather than thinking about how I’m going to edit the Pulitzer Prize winner I took 15 minutes earlier. I don’t beat myself up at how many shitty photos I’ve taken (because that’s every photographer’s dirty secret – for every good photo we take, there are at least half a dozen shitty ones).

I’d like to think this is my new modus operandi, and that the death of my rear monitor is a life-changing event that will transform the way I shoot and take me to new heights of creativity. When of course I know damn well that as soon as I pick my camera up from the repair shop with, hopefully, a repaired screen, I’ll be chimping so much David Attenborough will make a documentary about me. Ah well, it was good while it lasted.

5 Reasons Photographers Should Embrace Impostor Syndrome

Last week a photographer friend of mine – and a fairly successful one, with his own photography business and his first exhibition held a few weeks ago – posted about his battle with impostor syndrome, and how he fears he could be ‘exposed’ and end up back in his home town as a manual labourer at any moment.

When I read it I smiled in recognition as I too am regularly assailed by the demons of impostor syndrome. In the days leading up to the opening night of my first solo exhibition back in February, I worried constantly that either no one would show up, or the few that did would point at my work, laugh, and loudly wonder how the fuck this absolute charlatan got his own exhibition.

Thankfully neither of these things happened, lots of people came, they loved the work and they bought lots of books & prints, but did I learn my lesson? No, and the ol’ syndrome still creeps up on me every time I share an image online, enter a competition, or write blog posts like this.

But if so many of us have impostor syndrome, maybe it’s not such a bad thing? Maybe it has its positives as well as its negatives? A couple of years ago I acted as a guinea pig for a friend who was training to become a career coach, and we got onto the subject of impostor syndrome. “It’s not a bad thing” he told me when I spoke of my fears. “Stops you being an asshole”. It made me rethink my approach to impostor syndrome and start to embrace it, and here are five reasons why you should too…

Well, maybe not all, but pretty much every photographer I know, from absolute beginners to seasoned photojournalists, has it to some extent. A quick bit of Googling shows that even well known photography figures such as successful landscape photographer and Youtuber Nigel Danson, and Grant Scott, founder of United Nations of Photography and a university lecturer in photography, talk about their struggles with it.

What are the signs? They vary from person to person but the following traits of the IS-afflicted photographer are fairly common:

• Hiding your work away and not sharing it because “it’s not good enough”
• Not entering competitions or submitting work for publication
• Not calling yourself ‘photographer’
• Being intimidated around other photographers
• Looking at someone else’s work & thinking “I wish I could do that”

There are loads more, but I suspect many of you reading this probably nodded and thought “yeah, that’s me”. And if so, that’s fine. You’re in good company.