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Arete Gazette

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One of the biggest lessons I have learned as a photographer is this:

You cannot make people care.

When I started my career, I could not understand why people seemed unmoved by famine, conflict or humanitarian crises.

Over time, I realised the problem was not always the story.

It was how the story was being told.

Good storytelling is not about overwhelming people.

It is about creating a narrative they can understand, connect with and remember.

If people do not engage with a story, shouting louder is rarely the answer.

Telling it better often is.

Thebiggest misconception about humanitarian photography

One of the biggest lessons I have learned as a photographer is this:

You cannot make people care.

When I started my career, I could not understand why people seemed unmoved by famine, conflict or humanitarian crises.

Over time, I realised the problem was not always the story.

It was how the story was being told.

Good storytelling is not about overwhelming people.

It is about creating a narrative they can understand, connect with and remember.

If people do not engage with a story, shouting louder is rarely the answer.

Telling it better often is.

Thebiggest misconception about humanitarian photography

Some of the most important stories I have told have not been difficult because they were dangerous.

They were difficult because no one wanted you to see them.

When I began documenting the trafficking of women and girls in Bosnia alongside photographer Tom Craig, the original plan was to tell the story through photography.

The problem was access.

The people protecting these young women understandably did not want cameras around them, and the people exploiting them certainly did not either.

So instead of forcing the issue, we kept showing up.

Again.

And again.

Working alongside UN police officers, earning their trust, understanding the reality of what they were facing every day.

Eventually, they invited us to witness a raid on one of the coffee bars where trafficked girls were being held.

It wasn't luck that got us there. It was patience.

How to tell difficult stories

Some stories take years, not days.

After returning to the UK, I spent months researching what I had uncovered in Bosnia before travelling back four separate times to investigate further.

By then, what had once happened openly had moved underground, making the story much harder to document.

Over four trips, we slowly pieced the story together.

It eventually became the first story I ever had published on the cover of The Sunday Times Magazine, alongside photographer Tom Craig.

Investigating a story in Bosnia

Some stories sound impossible until you see the evidence.

In 2001, I was in Bosnia documenting the long-term impact of the war.

While working in Brcko, I met an American UN police officer supporting the peacekeeping mission.

He told me about a market that took place every Sunday.

Young women from Romania, Russia and Ukraine were being brought there and openly traded.

I remember thinking he had to be wrong.

How could something like that happen so openly in Europe?

But it was true.

That conversation became the beginning of a story I would spend years documenting, alongside photographer Tom Craig.

It reminded me that some of the world's biggest human rights issues are not invisible because nobody knows about them.

They remain hidden because too few people are willing to document them.

That is the role of ethical photojournalism.

Not to shock. Not to sensationalise.

But to bear witness, gather evidence and help ensure that stories that matter are not ignored.

Uncovering Human Trafficking in Bosnia

Investigative journalism and detective work have far more in common than most people realise.

Neither begins with certainty. They begin with curiosity.

Over the years, I have learnt to pay attention to the moments others dismiss. A passing comment. A conversation that does not quite make sense. A reaction that feels disproportionate to the question that has been asked.

Very often, that is where the real story begins.

Some of the biggest investigations I have worked on started almost by accident. I was following one story when something else appeared in front of me. Something that did not quite fit. Something that nobody else seemed interested in pursuing.

The easy thing would have been to ignore it. After all, I already had the story I had travelled there to report.

Instead, I have learnt to trust my instinct.

The art of investigative reporting

It's becoming harder than ever to know what is real.

I spend my life looking at images and video and sometimes even I have to stop and ask myself whether what I am seeing is genuine.

This is a worrying place to be.

Artificial intelligence has extraordinary potential. It can make our work more efficient, improve accessibility and create opportunities that didn't exist before.

But it also has the power to manipulate, mislead and completely reshape how people understand a crisis.

Conflict has always been fought with weapons. Increasingly, it is being fought with information too.

This makes the role of trusted journalists, photographers and humanitarian storytellers more important than ever.

The dangers of AI in photojournalism

When stories of conflict emerge from places we associate with wealth, luxury and stability, they quickly capture the world's attention.

Watching people document attacks on luxury hotels in Dubai through smartphones and social media has been a reminder of just how powerful first-hand storytelling can be.

Within minutes, people around the world could see what was happening through the eyes of those experiencing it.

But it's also worth asking why some stories break through so quickly while others struggle to be seen.

Every day, families in conflict zones and crisis-affected communities experience violence, displacement and loss.

Many don't have access to the technology or connectivity needed to share their stories with the world. That is why Arete exists.

Documenting conflict in the age of social media

One of the challenges of reporting on any crisis today is that many people experience it first through social media.

Right now, much of what we are seeing in the Middle East is the sharp end of the conflict; the explosions, the fires, the missile strikes.

Dramatic footage can be captured instantly and shared around the world within minutes.

But what we are not seeing nearly enough of is how ordinary people inside Iran are being affected.

There are brilliant photojournalists and journalists in Iran. There always have been. But working there has become increasingly difficult.

Restrictions on media, internet blackouts, censorship, and the risks faced by reporters make it incredibly challenging to get information and images out of the country.

As a result, we are seeing a very uneven picture of the crisis.

We have been working closely with photographers and videographers in Lebanon who are documenting displacement, damaged communities and the impact of this conflict on people's daily lives. We can see those stories.

Inside Iran, visibility is much more limited.

That does not mean people are not suffering. It means we are not seeing the full picture.

As journalists, we must remain aware of that distinction. The absence of images is not the absence of reality.

Some of the most important stories are often the ones that are hardest to reach.

Photographing the current crisis in the Middle East