Suspended reality

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Sometimes you just want to go somewhere where everyday life feels far away. Where things are not quite real. I get that feeling when I’m in Dubai – which is also known in my head as Arabic Disneyland. It’s all so clean and shiny and sparkly and unreal – and that’s just the airport…

There are many elements of the UAE that don’t sit well with me, like their environmental degradation and poor labour laws, but I seem able to ignore those when visiting friends for a luxurious couple of days. And a surreal balcony vista like this helps make my daily stresses feel very distant.

Dubai's motto: build it and they will come? The marina awaits its floating tenants.

Cultural insights from… supermarkets

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Have you ever spent some time in a foreign supermarket? It’s fascinating! You can learn so much about the locals.

In the UK, there’ll be an entire aisle for breakfast cereals. In the USA, there are more types of milk than you can imagine. Here in Cape Town, the cheese selections are usually excellent. In Kuala Lumpur, an amazing fresh produce hall had me buying one of every fruit I’d never seen before (there were many – and it was such fun trying them all!).

This display at a Whole Foods store just screams ‘first world’…    (Washington DC, USA, 2011)

You think they could have made sure all the peppers' stems were facing the right way.

Starting a new collection

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It was this alleyway scene in a back street of Rhodes Town that triggered a new collection: I collect photos of Vespas and other scooters in interesting contexts.

This first one is still my favourite. The contrasting silvered textures of the wall, cobblestones and the front of the scooter are just beautiful.

Don't you wish you were there, right now?

(Rhodes, Greece, 2002)

Feeling a connection to home

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I am drawn to the seashore at sunset as a moth is to a flame. I could never live inland; after more than 48 hours in a landlocked city I get edgy and the nearest river or lake becomes a magnet.

When I am standing on a beach, watching the sun dip below the horizon (and never seeing the green flash!), I get a strong sense that the water before me is the same water that’s lapping on the sands at the beach down the road from my home. And it’s the same water I stood before in Fiji, California, Thailand, Tahiti and numerous other places. No matter where in the world I am, if I can be down by the shore as the sun is setting, I feel at home.

Italy. Never anything less than 'bella'.

Capri, Italy, 2002