A walk around Beddawi

In the Beddawi refugee camp, just a few kilometers north of Tripoli, 20-something-thousand Palestinian exiles live within an area of around a single square kilometer. As far as Lebanon's camps go, this one is pretty relaxed, a far cry from the likes of Ain el Helweh. Conditions are hard, but easing; more and more of the 15,000 refugees from neighbouring the Nahr el Bared camp – whose presence doubled the population of Beddawi after the army razed their camp in 2007 – are now returning home. Population figures aside, the camp still suffers from the endemic maladies of Lebanon's Palestinian population; poor services, poor education and poor prospects for anything better anytime soon.

In the Guardian...sort of

Above is the picture that didn't get printed by the Guardian along with a story about labour rights of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, which my good friend and esteemed colleague Mr Richard Ian 'Art' Hall had published in last week's Guardian Weekly. The kid on the right is seven-year-old Hasan Hameid, who wants to, but sadly probabaly will never get the chance to, be a doctor.

A publication from back home is a something of a holy grail for us, so congratulations are in order. Anyway, they said they didn't have the budget for my photo and ran a subscription wire picture instead.

However, every cloud has a silver lining and freelancer Ahmed Moor, who worked with Rich on his Guardian story wrote a piece for the Guardian website's 'Comment is Free' section. He needed a mug shot and happened to be filing from our office, so I was more than happy to help him out and, hey presto, got a picture on the Guardian's website. One day it'll be the big one beneath with my name on it. Below is another picture the Guardian didn't like (it chopped his hair off), but it's my favourite of the three frames we took by my office window.

The new Palestinian labour law also came up at Executive this month, below is my favourite shot from a series I took for our story.

Tea with Fatah

Changes to the Fatah leadership inside Lebanon's camps has been causing something of a ruckus of late, so myself and reporter Josh Wood took a trip to Badawi camp north of Tripoli to find out more from his friendly Fatah contact. While waiting for him to arrive we shared tea and watched some fairly 'unique' chess being played. We ran out of time for a walk around the camp but should be back up there soon, this time with my umbrella for some proper portraits. Should be fun.

Palestinian refugee camps - Esquire

Here's a sneaky peek at a rough version of a ten page spread looking at Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, which I worked on with freelancer Josh Wood for Esquire Magazine's Middle East edition - it should be out in glossy goodness next month. This was a fascinating project to work on, possibly one of the most important issues facing the region, so props to the Esquire guys for giving it the coverage it deserves.

He was in Doctor Who, y'know...

"So David it would be great to grab a quick portrait before you get going, if you have a minute."

Well, the man gave me five - which in blisteringly hot school yard somewhere in the midst of Beirut's Dahir suburb was just enough time to throw a light up against a convenient wall and bring you this. David Morrissey - respected actor and all that jazz - came all the way to Beirut to let some Palestinian kids have some fun with drama. Read all about it here

Please sir, I'd like my house back..

Palestinian demonstrators and their supporters gathered in central Beirut’s Martyrs square today to protest against government failure to begin reconstruction in Nahr el-Bared camp.
Considering they were fighting for their homes to be rebuilt they were very polite about it all, and jumped back on their busses just an hour and a half after arriving.

Full story.