Sufferers Paradise

Surfers Paradise, Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia, March 2012: The taxi driver joked, “whad didya think of sufferers paradise mate?” as we drove to the train station… I’d never heard of Surfers Paradise refered to as that.. I replied “okay, but not really my kind of place…” He nodded his head knowingly… “I know whad ya […]

Holiday In Beirut

Beirut, Lebanon, November 2005: While holidaying in Beirut in 2005- my first venture downtown inevitably ended under the towering, war ravaged hulk of the Holiday Inn… The Holiday Inn was just one of the many hotels that became infamous during the conflict known as the Battle of the Hotels or (Front des Hotels)– a brutal […]

Villa 7

Porirua Hospital, Wellington NZ, yesterday: “Villa 7″ was a building that formed part of the former “Porirua Lunatic Asylum”, as far as I can ascertain. Details are sketchy and its current owners are unknown, but are allegedly local Maori iwi…

Court

Opunake, Taranaki, New Zealand, Dec 2011: I was taking a “tiki-tour” down the coast road- Surf Highway 45– the other day from New Plymouth to Hawera. There’s many interesting sites, many of these being abandoned buildings… I’m unsure what this particular building used to be, it looked like a funeral parlour to me. But my […]

Ghost Town

Kayaköy, Turkey, Oct 2005: This was my second visit to Kayaköy, the ghost town near Fetiye in South Western Turkey. Kayaköy is built on the ancient Greek village of Carmylessus and existed up until the population exchanges of 1922/3. Anatolian Greeks had lived here since antiquity… After the invading Greek’s defeat to Turkey in the […]

Lake Alice

Lake Alice, Rangitikei, NZ, Nov 2011: Lake Alice Hospital was a notorious rural psychiatric facility that operated from 1950 up untill it’s closure in the late 1990’s… It was self-sufficient with its own farm, bakery, glass houses and vegetable gardens . It could accomodate up to 900 people in various buildings spread over it’s 56 […]

Slavonia

East Slavonia, Croatia, 2002: On the road to Vukovar, the most devastated city in Europe since World War II. The Balkan’s version of Stalingrad. I was just about to end up in a rather difficult situation… See what happened next… Olympus XA2

Skopje

Skopje, Macedonia, 2002: Skopje has been inhabited since at least 4000 BC. Under the Roman’s it was known as Scupi, the Ottoman Turks called it Üsküp during their five hundred year occupation…At the conclusion of the Second World War, Skopje became the capital of the Socialist Federal Republic of Macedonia. The city developed rapidly but […]

Moser

Prague, Czech Republic, 2005: A contrasting shot in the old town… Local boys make first contact with an African street cleaner- the Moser Gallery and an interested onlooker in the background… Canon EOS 1N/28-135is