So?…

I have always found it slightly amusing that people insist on putting labels on things.

Photographer. Speaker. Author. Educator. Singer. Creative entrepreneur. It depends. Depending on what decade of my life they happened to meet me in, any of the above were technically correct. The trouble is that life rarely follows a neat little plan.

At various points, I have sung on television in front of audiences large enough to make a grown man question his life choices, spent years on theatre stages pretending to be other people, travelled the world with a camera, written a published book with a title my high school teacher would disapprove of, and somehow found myself helping build an English education platform in China.

None of that was on the original list. In fact, I don’t remember there ever being a list.

For more than four decades I have been fortunate enough to make a living from creativity. Sometimes that meant standing in front of an audience. Sometimes it meant standing behind a camera. Occasionally it meant standing in front of a room full of people explaining why neither of those things are nearly as important as curiosity.

Along the way I received the Prix Walo, Switzerland’s highest honour in entertainment. My photographs found audiences I never imagined possible. The Swiss Government kindly recognised some of my work as a photographer, educator, and speaker. There were moments that felt important at the time and others that only became important years later.

These days I have retired from professional photography. Not because I stopped loving it. Simply because life, every now and then, taps you on the shoulder and points towards a different door.

So now I write. I speak. I teach. I learn. And I remain endlessly fascinated by people, stories, creativity, and the strange paths that connect them all.

After all, the most interesting chapters in life are rarely the ones you planned.