Philip has just returned from two commissions in two of Europes most stunning capital cities.Firstly travelling to Lisbon, Portugal for Four Seasons Magazine, the focus was on the beautiful azulejos. These are traditional hand-painted ceramic tiles, famous throughout Portuguese history; particularly the blue and white decorative scenes. It was a chance to revisit the city, and to document the extensive use of these ceramics historical importance, right through to the present. Photographing in museums and art galleries, preservation departments and local artists gave a broad view of how azulejos are used in Portuguese culture.

After a quick turn around at home in London, Philip made the short trip to Paris; the City of Light. Continuing his partnership with BBC Lonely Planet Magazine, this assignment was to give insight into a “lesser known” Paris. Featuring some of the best in local artwork, gypsy jazz musicians (in the vein of the great Django Reinhardt), urban gardens, home cuisine and absinthe bars ! This gave an interesting spin to the otherwise beautiful, but well trodden path, of the Parisian landmarks.

Between commissions over the past couple of months Philip has taken time out to complete some new personal shoots. This took him to the Gers region in the south of France for a week, where he and a small crew completed some new “luxury lifestyle” work. Some beautiful small town locations, such as Blaziert, friendly local people and the southern French sun really helped surpass Philips expectations. Check out the Lifestyle section of the website to see the new work!

Shortly after returning from France, Philip went to Wales in the UK to Snowdonia National Park. The summit of Mount Snowdon really does offer some sensational views. The weather was ideal to capture some dramatic outdoor shots, adding to the new body of work he has been working on.

Currently in London, Philip is preparing for a busy time over the coming months with back to back assignments. His work will be taking him across a huge variety of landscapes, from European cities to east Africa and beyond to south east Asia.

A shot from Philips luxury lifestyle shoot in Blaziert, France.

The top of Mount Snowdon in Wales, UK

Mountain peaks at dusk in Spitsbergen

A tepui near the huge Mount Roraima

Elephant Backed Safari in the Okavango Delta

A food stall on the Djeema el Fna, Marrakech

Sunrise near Solomeo, Umbria, Italy

Travelling Light exhibition and Private View

Philip at work photographing huskies.

Monday morning market at Djenne, Mali.

Temple of Ta Prohm, Angkor Complex, Cambodia.

St Peters Basillica and the River Tiger, Rome, Italy

Local man in the Dragon Blood Forest, Socotra, Yemen.

Dancing Lemur (Sifaka) in Berenty National Reserve, Madagascar.

March saw Philip travelling to extremes. From the dry heat of the South Australian outback, covering over 1,500 miles by road, sea and air, to the top of a glacier in the French alps.

Philip is curretly back in London working on new portfolios, but getting ready to travel to the Middle East at the end of April.

Nilpena Station, Flinders Rangers, South Australia

La Plagne, French Alps

At the start of the new year Philip travelled to Hawaii, continuing his ongoing collaboration with Lonely Planet magazine, focussing on the less commercialized island of Kauai.

The next 4 weeks alone see Philip in Australia, Lapland, the French Alps and Rome.

Philip has recently won 6 Honourable Mentions from the Px3 2009 ‘Water’ based competition and an additional entry has been selected for the 2009 Prix de la Photographie Paris exhibition in New York this May.

Philip was also the only UK winner of the TPOTY Best Single Image in a Portfolio – Life competition and was awarded Silver by the LPA.

Please scroll down for interviews about some of Philip’s recent travels.

Okkaido, Japan in December 2008

Kauai, Hawaii in January 2009

Philip recently returned to Africa to retrace the footsteps of legendary Magnum photographer George Rodger’s journey 60 years ago. Philip first went to the Maasai Mara to photograph the Maasai, then onto the mountains of Uganda to spend time with the truly amazing Batwa pygmies, culminating in the once in a lifetime experience of photographing Nuba wrestling in the central mountains of the Sudan.

Q & A

Q: Did you and the crew encounter any difficulties crossing these countries, in particular Kenya and the Sudan given the civil unrest at the time?

A: Yes, especially in the Sudan where travel is heavily restricted especially amongst the Nuba mountains. There were many conflicting opinions on what we could and couldn’t do and where we could and couldn’t go. But in the end even with all the bureaucracy we managed to make it, although there were many times when we thought we may have to turn around and come back.

Q: How closely did you follow George Rodger’s journey and had much changed from his time?

A: We tried to end up at the same destinations as George Rodger although due to closed borders and restrictions we were unable to drive exactly the same way. For example we entered the Kordofan range from the North East whereas George had driven from the South. On the surface there were probably many changes as there would be anywhere in the world over 6 decades, perhaps less so in the Sudan, although civil war has certainly changed the make up of this land and its people.

The landscape of the Nuba mountains is extremely close to how it would have been in George Rodger’s day to the point that one night we camped under the same boabab trees as he had done 60 years previously.

Q: Had time affected the lifestyles of the people you met very much?

A: Each of the three tribes had changed in its own unique way.

The Maasai have embraced tourism, and seem to have kept a lot of their traditional ways and beliefs yet have also embraced modern technology such as mobile phones and western medicine.

The Batwa 60 years ago were still forest dwelling and were completely nomadic but they left the forest almost 30 years ago due to deforestation and government pressure to comply. Their life is probably the saddest and most desperate of the three tribes we met. They rely totally on the kindness of others to simply exist. The Nuba are to a degree cut off from the outside world but have unfortunately suffered hardship due to the civil war and religious extremism.

Q: You were privileged enough to have witnessed Nuba wrestling. What were your impressions of this ancient sport?

A: Wrestling is still an integral part of the Nuba’s life, as it was in George Rodger’s day, although now one feels it is more for entertainment rather than village rivalry. Also most of the men of the village at wrestling age had either been conscripted into the civil war or had left the Sudan altogether in search of better wages.

Q: How do you feel having completed such an incredible and challenging journey?

A: It has been amazing, not just photographically but being privileged enough to spend time with Jinx Rodger, George’s wife, and to hear her tales of her time and adventures with George. My appreciation of what he achieved has been heightened by the trip and although he was perhaps the quietest founding member of Magnum his work has certainly stood the test of time.

The full article is now available to read within recent commissions on this site or in OneLife, Landrover’s customer magazine.

Please read on for a Q & A session with Philip about his September trip to Africa photographing mountain gorillas in Rwanda, as part of a travel story for Conde Nast Tatler magazine.

Q & A

Q: What were your overall impressions of Rwanda and how does it compare to other African countries you’ve spent time in?

A: It’s an amazing survival story. On the surface it’s surprisingly healed from the atrocities it’s been through. And you really wish them luck as a nation. As a land, it’s beautifully fertile and lush. The thing about Africa is that every country is so unique and different. Rwanda is amazingly diverse in its landscapes.

Q: What was the mood of the country given the horrific genocide that took place almost 14 years ago?

A: Resilient and hopeful.

Q: How difficult was it to find the gorillas considering the high altitudes and dense jungle they inhabit?

A: We hired local trackers who know the gorillas’ habitat very well. They would go out pre-dawn ahead of us, and once they’d found the group we were to photograph, they would follow them and radio their location to our guides. It took approximately 4 hours of trekking through jungle to reach them as they kept moving. Existing trails ran out very soon and our guides macheted their way through. We had an armed military escort with us, primarily there to ward off poachers.

Q: How close were you able to get to the gorillas when photographing them and did they appear comfortable with that?

A: Incredibly close. We were asked not to come closer than 5 metres to them, but, being their habitat, if the gorillas decided to move around us we just sat still. The young babies are obviously inquisitive and had no qualms about brushing right past us. The particular group we photographed, Group 13, which had been habituated for a long time, were quite nonplussed with our presence to the point of not being interested.

Q: Who do you feel a trip to Rwanda would appeal to?

A: Anyone interested in wildlife, especially primates. Other aspects of tourism are slowly developing. There are some beautiful lodges to stay in and it’s a quiet, timeless destination where you are unlikely to come across any form of mass tourism, thus being a refreshing change from some of its neighbouring countries.

Q: So, where to next?

A: Interestingly enough, maybe Uganda next door! To photograph Batwa pygmies.

We will keep you posted!

The full article on Rwanda can be seen with Philip’s pictures in January’s issue of the UK edition of Tatler magazine.

Location: London.

Birthplace: Canterbury, Kent, England.

Getty Images Collections: Stone, The Image Bank, Taxi.

Odd personal fact:

“From the age of seven to seventeen I competed in motorcycle trails. Ultimately, I was sponsored by a bike-wear company to travel around the country doing tricks on my bike: driving over cars, oil drums, rocks …anything really! It was easy to practice growing up on a farm in the Kent countryside and it was a great thing to do at that age, but I gave up when I moved away to college and found new obsessions.”

Awards:

“AOP, Creative Circle, London Photographic; Royal Photographic Society; John Kobal and Dive Photographer of the Year …although at the time I couldn’t dive! I’d been commissioned to shoot a police diver, I just floated on the surface using a medium format camera in a waterproof box and underwater lighting.”

What made you want to be a photographer?

“I went to Norwich School of Art to do a degree in graphic design, but after the first year I knew I couldn’t give photography up. To be a really good designer or Art Director you need to focus solely on design while commissioning other people to do the shoots – I didn’t want to do that.

“I’d been taking pictures since the age of thirteen. At that time, I was all set to go on a rock climbing holiday to the Outer Hebrides when I developed tuberculosis, so as a consolation my father bought me a 35mm Nikon EM. It suited me straight away. I was also very keen on painting and drawing, but I lacked the patience for it and often found it frustrating – photography brought an immediacy; I saw it as a more instinctual discipline. That’s not to say that I’m not prepared to wait for the right picture: you still get that adrenaline hit when you press the shutter release after sitting on a mountain for two days just to capture that moment when the light is perfect.

“At college, during the early nineties, I was drawn to documentary work and photographed a lot of the demonstrations of that time, such as the anti Gulf War marches and the Poll Tax riots in London. I also did some work in Northern Ireland. But I think I learnt pretty fast that if you want to do that work you’ve got to have a message – I think you have to believe you’re taking those pictures for a reason.

“When truly documenting events there is obviously a need for degree of impartiality, but I think the photographer still needs a reason to be there, more than that is just documenting events for the sake it, there needs to be some humanitarian or political motivation behind it – some sense of purpose. I was driven to capture other things.”

How did your career develop?

“By the time I left college I knew I wanted to be a photographer. I started assisting in London. I was full-time with Frank Herholdt and then freelanced, working with Macolm Venville and Pete Seaward. At the same time I was always shooting my own work. I was a very impatient assistant and was lucky to work for some very talented people so I learnt a lot very quickly. After assisting for two and a half years I started picking up editorial work. At that point I gave up assisting as I figured the only way to develop my photographic career was to give it 100%. I was fortunate to pick up a number of awards in the early years and I also managed to pick up an agent quickly for advertising work.

“My early work was inspired by painting and colour theory, much of it was saturated with colour and cross-processed and quite often out of focus. It was very influenced by the impressionists and fauvism, and I was interested in the work sculptors such as Giacometti. I picked up some big Ad campaigns because of it, including Kodak.

“At the same time, I was trying to travel, and I wanted to get more involved in that. In reality, the bright out-of-focus photography I was shooting enabled me to make it appear as though I’d travelled extensively, as I’d recreate the mood of a country in a studio set up or a field in Kent. However, this approach was too technique based and I knew it was short-lived: by becoming caught up in trying to win competitions through these experimental techniques, I felt, wasn’t being true to myself, so I decided to totally overhaul my portfolio. Thankfully, by then I’d earned enough to fund a trip to Bali and Java, which allowed me to do this.

“Every year since then I’ve managed to do one or two trips away to focus on my personal work. Also, fairly early on I picked up regular work shooting Conde Naste Traveller when it launched in the UK. That was on the strength of an exhibition of my work from a trip to Argentina – the Conde Naste work gave my travel portfolio a significant boost, which in turn generated more advertising commissions.”

Who or what are the major influences upon your work?

“There’s a photographer called Sam Abell, he works for National Geographic. In 1990 he had an exhibition in New York called “Stay this moment” at the International Center of Photography. It was about that moment when you take a picture, a moment that feels so right that you almost don’t want it to end. That definitely spoke to my feelings about photography.

“The other reason I’m particularly drawn to him is that he very much lives the photographic life. He puts himself in situations within travel because he enjoys that lifestyle – in a way the whole thing, of which photography is just one part, is a package. Similarly, in my work I’ve had the chance to do things, to witness things I wouldn’t have otherwise. For instance, I’ve photographed voodoo ceremonies on a trip to Haiti and snake charmers in a village in India. Photography opened the door to this, it gave me a reason for being there, a legitimacy within my own mind.

“While having moved away from the documentary photography of my early career, the work of the Magnum agency is still influential on my work, just as much in fact as fashion photography is – which should come as no great surprise since the photographic world is not as polarised as when I first started. Then you were either an advertising or an editorial photographer, that distinction has now gone to a degree, which I think is very healthy. The change started during the eighties when Art Directors starting commissioning people like Don McCullum. He shot a landmark ad. for the Metropolitan Police in London featuring a skinhead spitting to camera with the line ‘Could you be a policeman?’. At that time, a lot of the advertising imagery was so overworked, so well crafted that it lost its spontaneity. From my perspective, the McCullum shoot speaks to my earlier point about being drawn to photography because of its instinctual aspect, because of the emotion he recognised and recreated in that image, and hence this kind of work is a great influence on me.”

Favourite picture (yours/someone elses)?

“Again, it would have to mention Sam Abell – his National Geographic image of a fisherman in Newfoundland. It’s a fantastic photograph, it documents what this fisherman does and yet it has a creative, sculptural quality to it. It almost looks too good to be just documentary, but it is. And he’s found that composition working in an extreme environment – many photographers would have said, ‘the weather’s too bad, I’m not shooting it’. I believe it was Abell’s father who said to him words to the effect, ‘there’s not such as bad weather, just different weather. Just go out and do it’. That was the way he worked.”