Family and Child Portraits

Return Of The Karate Kid

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This is one of the key shots from my "Portrait Of Diabetes" exhibition of a couple of years ago. It's now being used as one of the main images in the current Diabetes UK re-branding and awareness campaign. Matilda Rostron who is now 13 was one of the stars of the my show. She has Type 1 Diabetes as well as Coeliacs Disease but despite her conditions takes part in karate, cycling , swimming, football and rugby. She has been unwell recently  so I wish her all the best.

 

 

Compassion For Elizabeth

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photocrati galleryA pic of mine in an ad for Compassion Sunday which is a day when churches in the US promote the Compassion charity and encourage people to sponsor deprived children from around the world. Elizabeth who features here was the star of my recent trip to Guatemala. She is 11 years old , lives in a tin shack and takes care of her 3 younger mal-nourished siblings and disabled father. She is sponsored through Compassion by  a lady from Colorado Springs also called Elizabeth who sends her about $30 per month which helps to make her very tough life a little bit easier. You can see it in full here as well as the video that was shot of the two Elizabeths on the same trip I was on.

http://compassionsunday.com/index.php

At School In Guatemala

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photocrati gallery I'm just back from Guatemala. An amazing trip, photographing kids and village life for Compassion who are an american charity that organise and promote sponsorship of Third World children. There's hundreds of pictures to edit but I thought I'd start by posting up a few from our visit to the village school, the contrast of which, to my previous post of my own children's school is stark to say the least.

During rainy season and after a wet and at times, hairy 6 hour journey from Guatemala City, we (that's me and a 3 man film crew) arrived on the last day of term at Qeutzali village primary school. Apart from the school having large classes and an absolute lack of any facilities except the enthusiasm of the teachers, what hit me beyond how happy they seamed, was how small the children were. Most of the shots here are from a class of 11 year-olds, nearly all of whom were smaller than my 5 year-old daughter and this is simply due to the fact that they are malnourished and many including 11 year-old Elizabeth (in the white top with pale stripes) survive on just one meal a day. More on Elizabeth in later posts as she was the focus of the story we were there to shoot.

At School In East Sussex

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photocrati gallery Some shots from last week's visit to Skippers Hill School where I'd been asked to get some pictures for their new prospectus. It's my children's school so it was particularly enjoyable and interesting to sit in on lessons and break-time. After some initial posing and showing off (mainly from the teachers), they mostly ignored me and were fully engaged in study and play.

Star Jumper

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This is 7-year-old Sam MacDonald at home in East Sussex. His mum wanted a fun portrait perhaps with their pet labrador. However, Pippa the dog wouldn't play ball so Sam, who likes lego, took over art direction duties and we worked together to get this lively jumping shot.