Originally a freelance national newspaper journalist and best-selling, prize-winning non-fiction author specialising in crime, I fell in love with photography relatively late in life, in my 40s.
Photography has become a total passion and thanks to the support of Arts Council England (ACE), it has become a way of life. My ACE-supported book ‘Back to Normal’ is an attempt to document London’s neighbourhoods during the pandemic.
My photographs have also been published in an opus catalog by Charcoal Book Club in the United States (October 2022) and my project ‘Lost in Santa Cruz’ was exhibited at Fotonoviembre 2021 in Spain.
You can read more about my writing here, or listen to me talk about photography on the podcast Better Known.
CV:
2002 – 2019: Freelance crime journalist for Guardian, Newsweek, Times, Mirror, etc. Bestselling non-fiction author and ghost-writer of over twenty books, several adapted for TV documentaries and dramas. Winner of the People’s Book Prize 2017. My final true-crime book, Corrupt Bodies (Icon, Sept 2019), written with former mortuary superintendent Peter Everett was shortlisted for the 2020 Crime Writers’ Association Golden Dagger award for non-fiction.
December 2017: After taking a darkroom course at E5 Process in Hackney I become obsessed with making photographs. I start shooting full-time in 2020.
November 2020: Awarded a grant by Arts Council England to finance the production of Back to Normal (published October 2021), a year-long street photography project shot across London’s neighbourhoods.
April 2021: Invited to attend the Chico Hot Springs Portfolio Review in the United States, run by the Charcoal Book Club, who also publish my photos in their opus catalog (October 2022).
November 2021: Back to Normal published. 500 copies donated to UK libraries. My project ‘Lost in Santa Cruz / Perdido en Santa Cruz’ is exhibited during Fotonoviembre 2021, a month-long, bi-annual international photography festival held in Tenerife, Spain.
July 2022: Start work on a long-term project about Whitechapel Market supported by Tower Hamlets Council.
August 2022: Awarded second Arts Council England development grant and begin a year-long mentoring programme with Nikos Economopoulos from Magnum.
June 2023: Become a regular guest speaker on photography at Central St Martin’s, University of the Arts London.
