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.

Iraqi elections

Iraqi voters in Lebanon took to the polls over the weekend to take part in their national elections. The ink stained finger shows that a vote has been cast.

Joe Ayoub

Joe Ayoub of Brandcell marketing is another Executive contributer and takes the award for Beirut's coolest offices so far. You'll be able to read his words of wisdom next week sometime.

This blog is getting a bit monochromatic, apologies. Also, I think I should invest in a small step ladder - these last few pictures make it look like I'm about 3ft tall.

A useful man to have around...

Walid Noshie has probably spent a small fortune searching for some 380kg of gold that was lost off the coast of Lebanon when a plane caught fire and crashed just after take-off back 1957. Sound familiar? No surprise then that it was this guy who Hariri called to help coordinate efforts to locate the flight recorders of flight ET-409. No sign of the gold, yet, but he did find both black boxes. There's a big interview in this month's magazine.

Karim Makarem

I finally sunk my teeth into the first of a bunch of portraits of business leaders who regularly contribute to the magazine. After an aborted attempt to get on the roof we settled for this interesting curved wall in the offices of the oft quoted Karim Makarem of Ramco real estate advisors, one of Beirut's top real estate figures. Curvy walls are bloody great. So are subjects who are quite willing to give you a reasonable chunk of their time to let you shoot them without making you feel like you're clogging up their schedule.

Corporate location portraiture is usually an exercise in overcoming a combination of far-too-busy-for-you subjects and less than ideal surroundings, but today was a refreshing change.

A Lebanese Valentines day

Five years ago on February 14 a bloody great bomb tossed chunks of Lebanon's then Prime Minister, Rafik Hariri, all over downtown Beirut. Now each year a (steadily dwindling) sea of flags waving mark his passing, al la the 'Cedar Revolution' of March 14, which booted the Syrians out of Lebanon.
Sadly not everyone could enjoy the day happily and a few sorry souls were escorted home courtesy of the Red Cross, after finding themselves on the wrong end of a rapidly descending flag staff. Given the close confines and the surprise circa 30º temperatures perhaps a few scuffles were inevitable.