Bazaar Flare

☀️ Sulaymaniyah city bazaar. Kurdistan, Iraq, 2019.

I’ve been starting these posts with a sun emoji, as a nod to the Kurdish flag (you can see it in the bottom right of this photo), as much as the beautiful end of day light I inevitably found there. And how irresistibly my old banged up old 35 flared when pointed at it.

I didn’t shoot as much street in Sulaymaniyah as I would have liked to. Right at the start of my time in Iraq, I was reminded that cameras were a tool of oppression not so long ago, and to be careful of how I wielded mine.

So for the Pro3 project, I went about making images in an entirely new way… I made sure people knew what it was I was taking photos of. I spoke to a few people, smiled at a lot of others. But no explanation beat the LCD screen at the back of the camera is an utterly invaluable tool. Because I could show the product of my intentions.

I lived in Kurdistan, Iraq for a year in 2019, working for a small American aid organisation.

In the middle of 2019, Fujifilm asked me to be one of a handful of X-Photographers launching the brand new X-Pro3 — the camera line I’d used since it started in 2012. Check out the write up and a ton of photos.

The project required a movie to be delivered, and luckily, I knew a fantastic filmmaker. Ihsan keen to work on the project, and delivered a movie we’re both super proud of. Read about the movie making here.

Stopping for lunch in a little sandwich place next to the spot where I was shooting the above images. It had a mirror, so of course, I had to take a selfie with the new X-Pro3 (and my old 35mm), much to the amusement of Ihsan, laughing in the background).