Life is hard...

Sometimes as a photographer and a journalist you get asked to do things that take great courage, to take one for the team... such as trying one of France's oldest champagnes, Ruinart, which is about to forge it's way into the highly competitive Lebanese drinks market. After carefully checking numerous 'flutes' throughout a mind boggling maze of creative canapés (foamed cheesey potatoes or champagne dipped in dry ice, anyone?), I can happily say it's safe to drink. Lebanon, you're welcome. Below, the founder of the feast, Ruinart's Jean Marc Galot.

Fadlallah's funeral

The Guardian had this to say about Lebanon's most senior Shiite cleric, who died of a longstanding illness on Sunday and was buried today. Hundreds of thousands of mourners jammed the streets of Haret Hreik, a suburb in South Beirut on what felt like one of the hottest days of the year so far. The guy in the last frame is misting the crowds with a much welcomed water hose - not so great for cameras. Haret Hreik is usually off limits for photographers who don't have a very good reason to be there, so it was nice to actually be assisted by the Hezbollah officials who'd usually be taking a very different view.

A nausea-inducing stop motion video of all the day's frames is here - first attempt at this, needs some tweaking but it gives you an idea of the scale of the day.

Natural born killers

Well, not so natural. They're carefully bred to be hardcore fighting machines you'd think twice about playing fetch with. To see just how they're bred visit the website of the kennel these shots were taken at, feminists might be better to stay away...

This was an assignment that raised a few moral quandaries in the office, especially when we were trying to pick a shot for the cover. Taste won out over sensationalism and we went for the usual illustration. Read the story here. More up on the Executive site here.

He's in fashion....

No, I haven't bought a beret, taken to sporting scarves or adopted a mononym but the magazine is doing a big fashion supplement this month, hence the expensive model in expensive clothes, kindly lent by upcoming and established Lebanese designers. Abir was about 6ft tall to start with and in the skyscraper heels so we spent an afternoon feeling like dwarves. There was make up, stylists, people and everything. I had people to hold things. It was splendid. Dahling.

From leaf to lips

As part of a special report into the country's Tobacco industry, I got to take a look inside the factory that produces Lebanon's homegrown, homemade 'Cedars' cigarettes - photos of the whole production process can be found on the photo gallery page here.

Cheers Time, don't mind if I do

Sami Halabi, our deputy ed, was patient enough to sit for me while I tried my hardest to recreate a poor mans' version of Marco Grob's portrait of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, which was featured in the May issue of Time magazine. The lighting in it was awesome and there's no better way to learn than nicking tricks of those you admire.

Regular freelancer and drunken assailer of the Holiday Inn Nathaneal Massey was my guinea pig for the first attempt. The set up was all wrong but the shots came out kinda cool anyway.

Talking heads

A few head honchos from Lebanon's banking world gathered to listen to the above talking about banking stuff at a nice hotel. My attention got as far as the awesome steak rolls...

They yacked for ages, which meant a) I really needed those steak rolls by the end and, b) plenty of time to play with the lighting. Below is Yasser, Executive's editor in chief who was hosting the talk (i.e also capitalising on a journalist's innate ability to score great free grub).