Nathaniel Bailey fell into photography through his love of the darkroom. Invited in by two technicians at just 15 years old, he soon became immersed in the process of bringing an image to life. “It was a place of peace where I could go and hide if I needed to,” he tells us. Some eight years later, he documents behind-the-scenes projects with artists and creates series that can act as a portal into a generation’s way of life. He also dedicates his time to his ongoing project Parish Walls, where he captures the people and way of life in Jamaica’s parishes with an authentic and candid feel. With every look at the series it becomes clear that his photographs are but a glimpse into the conversations happening between him and his subjects.

Nathaniel grew up in the small west London town of Perivale, where he was raised by his Jamaican family. On his regular visits to Jamaica, he takes photos and brings them back to the darkroom in London before returning the prints back to the people on the island. “Parish Walls was initially me trying to open the door to a side of Jamaica that is rarely seen, but it soon became very personal, developing my own connection to the island my family hail from. It informs my identity as a Black man in Britain today,” he tells us. Exploring the parishes on foot, simply walking around the quiet countryside, his process is quite easy-going with authenticity at the heart. “You have to trust the process of documentation. You can’t force the work being created, because it will always reflect on your final portraits, and mine have to be authentic because I want their Jamaican pride to shine,” he adds.

‘Do you know who this is?’: Famous photographer goes VIRAL after stopping Australia cricket star and glamorous girlfriend in New York for an impromptu photoshoot… but had no idea of his real identity

• A famous photographer snapped an Aussie star without knowing his identity
• Marcus Stoinis and his partner were stopped by David Guerrero in New York 
• Cricket fans flooded his Twitter to tell him he had photographed an athlete 

By Ollie Lewis For Daily Mail Australia

Published: 05:33 EDT, 9 August 2023 | Updated: 07:50 EDT, 9 August 2023

A photographer has gone viral among cricket fans after providing a free photoshoot for a ‘beautiful Australian couple’ in New York, not knowing that he was taking pictures of cricket star Marcus Stoinis. 

David Guerrero, who has 1.1 million followers on Instagram, has built a following on the social platform for approaching people on the street and asking to take their pictures.

His subjects typically turn out to be regular citizens, but that was not the case on one of his recent posts, captioned: ‘Street photography with this beautiful Australian couple’.

‘Hey, excuse me guys, sorry to bother you,’ Guerrero began as he approached Stoinis and his partner.

‘My name is David, I’m a photographer. You guys look lovely, I was going to see if I could get you a free photo?’

His offer was rejected by Stoinis and his partner, Sarah Czarnuch, before he showed examples of his work, which convinced them to go ahead with the shoot. 

The pair posed for a number of pictures and Stoinis was in a jovial mood as he pouted and strutted down Prince St in SoHo. 

Fans quickly took to social media to make Guerrero aware that he had photographed an Australian cricketer. 

‘Dude not aware he’s photographing royalty,’ Aussie actor and cricket fan Adam Zwar posted.

‘A very famous Australian cricketer, wow, he’s so humble down to the earth. Respect!’ one fan wrote.

Another fan posted: ‘THAT’S MARCUS STOINIS. He plays for Australia.. that’s crazy.’

Realising he had unknowingly photographed a famous sportsman, Guerrero posted on Twitter: ‘This is why I enjoy what I do, you never know who you’ll come across’.

Stoinis is currently holidaying in New York after joining the new Major League Cricket tournament. He plays for the San Francisco Unicorns.  

The ravages of COVID-19 have been followed by the ravages of the post-pandemic tourism boom. If you’ve been reading recent coverage of aggressive travel and its discontents, you may well assume that it’s too late to have a genuine experience of, say, the great cities of Europe. Paris, Vienna, Barcelona: none are as they used to be, we’re told, and the same may even be true of the Eternal City. Lovers of such places were complaining about tourists decades and decades ago, of course, but how far back in time would one have to travel in order to take in the glories of a Rome that hadn’t yet fallen to the invading T-shirt-and-flip-flopped hordes?

One would have to travel back about 150 years, at least according to the pictorial evidence provided in the video above from Youtuber Jarid Boosters, who appears to have a strong interest in historical photography.

His most popular videos include gatherings-up of pictures of old Los Angeles, of the lost architecture of the German Empire, of nineteenth-century Iran. In this new episode, he presents the earliest known photographs taken in Rome, which date from the early eighteen-forties to the early eighteen-seventies. Most were taken by an early Italian adopter of photography named Gioacchino Altobelli.

Soon after picking up a camera in the eighteen-thirties, Altobelli dedicated his career to “photographing some of the most ancient and most infamous sites throughout Rome,” says Boosters. “From 1841 through 1871, Altobelli, along with a team of other photographers, including Richard Jones, took it upon themselves to document the most famous and ancient city of Rome as completely as possible.” Their subjects included the still-recognizable likes of the Colosseum and Hadrian’s tomb, naturally, as well as the Arch of Drusus, the Temple of Venus and Roma, and the Porto di Ripetta. Having been demolished by the early twentieth century, the Porto di Ripetta stands out as one of the features that sets the Rome of Altobelli’s day apart from the Rome of today — well, that and the absence of selfie-takers.

Related content:

Rome Comes to Life in Photochrom Color Photos Taken in 1890: The Colosseum, Trevi Fountain & More

New Digital Archive Puts Online 4,000 Historic Images of Rome: The Eternal City from the 16th to 20th Centuries

Some of the Oldest Photos You Will Ever See: Discover Photographs of Greece, Egypt, Turkey & Other Mediterranean Lands (1840s)

Behold the Photographs of John Thomson, the First Western Photographer to Travel Widely Through China (1870s)

A Virtual Tour of Ancient Rome, Circa 320 CE: Explore Stunning Recreations of The Forum, Colosseum and Other Monuments

High-Resolution Walking Tours of Italy’s Most Historic Places: The Colosseum, Pompeii, St. Peter’s Basilica & More

Based in Seoul, Colin Marshall writes and broadcasts on cities, language, and culture. His projects include the Substack newsletter Books on Cities, the book The Stateless City: a Walk through 21st-Century Los Angeles and the video series The City in Cinema. Follow him on Twitter at @colinmarshall or on Facebook.

A Perth photographer is helping women challenge ideas of “self-loathing”.

Fremantle-based photographer Jasmine Skye was a nurse for 16 years before she picked up the lens and began her own business.

“I found my way into newborn family maternity photoshoots because I was a paediatric nurse,” she said.

“I was very natural handling the babies and wanted to teach myself how to take photos.”

Skye found herself in a place of “burnout and stress” while she was on maternity leave but in 2016 an underwater photography competition caught her eye.

“I was like ‘oh that would be amazing with a pregnant woman’,” she said.

“And I asked my friend, who was pregnant at the time, if she would be willing to let me practice on her and I was totally hooked from there on in.”

Last year the Perth mum embarked on a journey to photograph more than 60 women, including herself, to feature in a coffee table book and debut at the 38-year-old’s first solo exhibition.

The opening night for the exhibition, Underneath, will be at the Fremantle Naval Store on August 18.

Skye’s subjects spanned dozens of women with different personal stories and triumphs, including Olympic swimmers, trauma survivors and those who had had fertility or pregnancy issues.

“It is by far the hardest project I have ever done,” Skye said.

“There is so much more self-loathing going on beneath the surface than you realise.”

The Fremantle photographer said her subjects were able to be vulnerable and “embrace their own unique beauty”.

“The undercurrent of the whole project is growth because everything you’re insecure about in the water is generally what you’re insecure about on land,” she said.

“It really brings it to the surface — you kind of lose control or have to let go.”

Sarah, one of the women photographed, said the photo shoot was physically tough.

“I had concerned myself so much with how I’d look and did not consider how hard it would be to stay underwater,” she said.

“I was left awestruck at most of the gallery .. the body I have spent the last 30 years criticising and tormenting myself over was stunning and strong.”

In the book, she delves into how motherhood changed her into a stronger and “unapologetic” version of herself.

“I spend so much time in mum mode — practical clothes, no make-up, hat on hair that should’ve been washed the day before,” Sarah said.

“This was for me.”

Underneath will officially launch at next week’s exhibition.

Tickets can be purchased online.

“NYC never gets tiring to photograph,” he says. “If you’re out on the streets shooting enough, you’ll be constantly surprised.”

Taking part in a new group show at Greece’s Chania International Photo Festival, Rothstein has a relentless work ethic, committing to shooting the city’s streets almost daily. He finds something magical and magnetic about the urban metropolis constantly sprawling with life, energy and people.

Having captured the Big Apple since the early 1970s, Rothstein is currently most intrigued by how the pandemic has shaped his city – and its inhabitants. Considering himself an ‘urban observer’, he’s fascinated by how people interact and tries to document fleeting moments between passing pedestrians. Since Covid, he has realised how physically drawn he is to the people he’s photographing, seeking to transfer the intimacy and chaos of his photography process through the frame.

“When the original Covid lockdown happened, I had to change my style for the duration,” says Rothstein. “Getting up close to people with my wide-angle lenses wasn’t viable, and there were no people to be seen anyway. I’ve moved closer to my subjects when shooting on the streets. Sometimes I’m no more than a couple of feet away from the focus if I’m in the middle of a crowd. I want people viewing my images to feel like they’re on the streets with me.”

Returning to street photography after some experiments in urban abstracts and still lifes, Rothstein has noticed how the city’s pace has resumed post-pandemic – and how people seem happier than before.

“Despite people working from home some days a week, New York’s midtown area is still pretty crowded with workers and tourists on weekdays,” he adds. “The Soho area, where I like to shoot on weekends, is chock full of people. A few years ago, people on the streets seemed stressed, angry and distrustful. Now, it feels like they are ready to enjoy themselves again.”

But perhaps newly-reclaimed freedoms aren’t the only reason for this. Rothstein cites the safety of New York as something that he has noticed during his five-decade-long career as a street photographer.

“NYC, back in the day, was a lot grittier and scarier, though that’s what made it great for street photography,” he says. “Despite recent uptick in some crimes, it’s still light years safer than in the ’70s to ’90s. As far as shooting, the backdrop is a bit more bland, with many pharmacies, banks and nail salons dominating the urban landscape. And don’t even get me started about the Disneyfication of places like Times Square. But New York is still probably the best city for street photography, and I’m fortunate to have photographed here for so many decades.”

While the city’s infrastructure might have evolved to keep up with modern demands and changing industries, the same rules apply to Rothstein as a photographer. He has to keep his eyes peeled, pre-empting spontaneous moments of absurd interactions between passers-by and accepting whatever may come his way.

Revealing his process, he refers to the image featuring the soldiers, saying: “I was shooting for a while on a corner that had pretty heavy pedestrian traffic during lunchtime. Suddenly, I saw a group of these German soldiers coming down the avenue, and I spotted two punk-looking girls out of the corner of my eye. I waited for the moment they crossed paths, and I believe I caught the amalgamation of their styles and mix of worlds to create a truly interesting and multi-layered photo.”

As a native Brooklynite and having lived in Manhattan for many years, Rothstein knows that it’s the city’s people that keep New York so interesting. Or at least that’s what he finds most curious about his hometown.

And it’s something he’s sure he’ll never get bored of: “Even though I’m a lifelong New Yorker, I’m not jaded enough to think I’ve seen everything here. New York is always an adventure!”

Visit Jeff Rothstein’s website to follow his latest works.