Above: who's shooting who? That's me hard at work on the border between Chechnya and Ingushetia filming Chechen refugees fleeing Russian bombardment in November 1999.

have camera, will shoot

I?ve carried a camera since I was a teenager, shooting anything that catches my eye. Although my first job was in a Queensland country town photographic studio, within a few months my prize-winning photographs at the annual agricultural show earned me a Junior Production Assistant position at the local TV studio. It didn't take me long to get behind a camera and I've stayed there for most of my career. From war zones to gay bars, you name it, I've covered it, if it moves, I've shot it. With a camera that is.

As well as Australia, I've lived and worked in the United Kingdom, Malaysia, Singapore and Russia; for 5 fascinating years I worked as a documentary cameraman & editor based in Moscow, shooting and editing TV news and documentary productions for many international media networks. Somehow I managed to survive countless trips across this massive country and its former Soviet republics, humping my camera gear and edit pack through some of the most remote, coldest and dangerous places on Earth, often under harsh and difficult conditions, without being deported, thrown in prison or developing serious alcohol, drug and/or mental problems. (I think.)

During those turbulent years I filmed in many faraway places with strange-sounding names like Chechnya, Ingushetia, Ossetia, Kaliningrad, Belarus, Ukraine, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Azerbaijan as well as a few of the ?stans?: Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and the wilds of northern Afghanistan (prior to the 9/11 attacks). I've also filmed in India, Peru, Baja Mexico, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines.

Want to know more? Check out my Strange Journeys blog. Go here for details of my international TV work.