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).

Cars and canapes

Ladies, cars and canapes greeted visitors the Lebanon Motor Show 2010, the first in a few years, and the subject of the magazine's first ever online web gallery. This to be the first of many, which means more work fun for me. Hopefully the fruits of a trip to the south with UNIFIL will be used for the next one.

US invasion - Christian Science Monitor

This shot of former Los Angeles Laker C.J. Giles – now of Beirut's league topping Al-Riyadi – is to pop my US print cherry on April 12, with an appearance in Boston weekly CSM to accompany Josh Wood's piece on American basketball players in Lebanon. The keen-eyed will notice it's credited to NEWSCOM, rather than me. Bloody typical! Hopefully that little wrinkle will be ironed out before it hits the printer...

Eli Khoury

Eli Khoury was one of the key figures behind the Cedar revolution, which booted the Syrians out of the country after Prime Minister Rafik Hariri's assassination in 2005.
This was probably my favourite portrait session so far: a whole hour and a half while Khoury, head of Quantum advertising agency and owner of Now Lebanon news service, among other things, was interviewed for the magazine. Such a different feel from the usual five-minute CEO circus and tonnes of time to try different lighting set ups in their space-age 'Quantum Towers' office. Even the tea mugs made me look dowdy.

Carlos Slim does Beirut

Carlos Slim: he's only the richest man in the world! Not the most engaging speaker on the planet but he still filled the business school lecture hall at AUB this afternoon.

These students weren't so pleased that a country as poverty stricken as Mexico could also provide the worlds wealthiest.

In other rich people news, here's Carlos Ghosn, head of Nissan and Renault.

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.