A travel, interiors and food photographer based in Ramsgate has reached the finals of a global food image competition.

Work by Gary Latham has been shortlisted for the  ‘Pink Lady’ – Food photographer of the Year Awards 2024.

Pink Lady Food Photographer of the Year is now in its 13th year and is the world’s leading awards for food photography and film.

The images – and film – captured in the awards line-up portray everything from growing, farming and harvesting to cooking, eating and surviving.

Thousands of images are submitted by photographers each year from some 100 countries.

Finalists are chosen by a judging panel chaired by David Loftus, the most published food photographer in the world.

Moments of Joy-Ice cream Pujllay Festiva in Bolivia Photo Gary Latham
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Gary’s images made the shortlist for categories: Street Food; Pink Lady Moments of Joy; The James Beard Foundation Awards and Food Film Shorts. Two have made the finals but will not be revealed until winners are announced at an awards night at the prestigious Mall Galleries in London on June 4th. This will be followed by an exhibition of all the finalist images at the gallery.

Street food in Burma Photo Gary Latham
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Gary got his first camera from his great-grandfather -a Manchester photographer- when he was just eight-years-old. He went on to study Photography at Blackpool & The Fylde College and Lancaster University and has a BA (Hons) in Photography.

James Beard Foundation Award – Oyster fisherman in Oregon Photo Gary Latham
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He moved to London in 1996, where he assisted high profile fashion and advertising photographers before going pro in 2000. He has worked for most of the UK’s travel magazines including Lonely Planet Magazine, Sunday Times Traveller, Conde Nast Traveller, House and Gardens, Olive magazine, Wanderlust and National Geographic.

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Gary, who also leads photography tours in Burma, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos and Thailand, moved to Ramsgate in 2017.

He said: “Last year I was awarded a Highly Commended achievement for two images in the ‘Food in the Field’ category. This year I have a single image and a short film in the final, so fingers crossed.

“I am primarily a commercial freelance photographer with a specialisation in travel, interiors and food.

“I work for local letting agents as an interiors photographer on a freelance basis and continue as a long time contributor to Food and Travel magazine.

“I have recently been to Anguilla in the Caribbean for Food and Travel magazine and have a trip planned to Trondheim coming up for them next month.”

Gary Latham in Ramsgate
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Gary also has a commission from Bloomsbury Publishing to photograph for a cookbook by food writer Fiona Simms in May and has plans to lead photography tours in SE Asia, which he previously did for six years until Covid lockdowns ended most foreign travel.

Gary is also running beginners’ photography workshops in Ramsgate. Find out more at: www.garylathamphotography.co.uk

Find out more about Pink Lady® Food Photographer of the Year at: https://www.pinkladyfoodphotographeroftheyear.com/

Jane Goodall is an icon in the worlds of environmentalism and art. Originally an anthropologist and primatologist, in 1960, Goodall studied chimpanzees with the Kasakela chimpanzee community in Gombe Stream National Park, Tanzania, documenting her process with a camera. Her research was groundbreaking in that it challenged preconceived notions about animal behavior; and her role as a female anthropologist in a male-dominated space was equally radical. Known for giving her subjects names, rather than numbers, as other anthropologists had always done, Goodall’s work was humanizing, giving us a more thorough understanding of the animals’ routines, and their inner worlds. Her photographs did the same thing, offering viewers a look into the lives of chimpanzees, and her own personal experience living with, and studying the animals.

Following her time in Gombe, Goodall continued to dedicate her life to chimpanzees, opening the Jane Goodall Institute in 1977. The Institute, which continues to fund and support Gombe research, is focused on conservation and development. And Goodall’s work has continued to inspire a generation of women artists and scientists.

To celebrate Goodall’s 90th birthday, the Institute has partnered with non-profit Vital Impacts on a print sale, The Nature of Hope: 90 Years of Jane Goodall’s Impact, showcasing work by 90 female photographers who are breaking new ground in their field, inspired by the work of Dr. Goodall. Beginning April 1, Vital Impacts will host a 90-day fine-art photography sale, with proceeds directly benefiting the Jane Goodall Institute’s global chapter, which furthers Goodall’s vision of science-based, community-led conservation and youth empowerment.

“Jane Goodall did more than just redefine our understanding of the relationship between humans and animals,” said Ami Vitale, founder of Vital Impacts. “She shattered barriers and opened doors for women everywhere.” 

The sale, meant to “honor the impact this one woman had on the world and for all of us,” said Vitale, “is to help conservation and the planet, to support photographers so they can continue to produce the work that matters, and to make the world a more equitable place for those pursuing photography and making their visions heard.”

“Photography,” she continued, “is an incredible tool for capturing both the beauty and fragility of our natural world. It has the power to bring distant landscapes and endangered species into our everyday lives, fostering empathy and understanding. Photos and stories that showcase successful solutions give people hope, and in the face of environmental challenges, hope can inspire action.”

Vital Impact, a women-led non-profit, “utilizes art and storytelling to bolster community-based conservation and support visual journalists covering innovative, solution based environmental stories.” The Nature of Hope, which features work by 90 influential female photographers from across the globe, including Tamara Dean, Beth Moon, National Geographic’s Beverly Joubert, and Vital Impacts’ Ami Vitale, among others, highlights our relationship to the natural world, showcasing endangered and extinct animals and breathtaking landscapes, along with a photo by Jane Goodall herself. “I was really excited to see that the photo of me looking out at the valley at Gombe with my trusty lightweight telescope was chosen,” she said. “It was taken in, I think, 1962. I was on my own, very high up in the hills, and I thought, ‘What a great photo this would make.’” 

The collaboration speaks to the power of art when it comes to environmental impact—an ethos that inspired The Nature of Hope collaboration. “I had met [Jane] several times, so we reached out and asked to partner in this,” said Vitale, of the project’s origins. “Jane responded personally and was such an incredible support to us in the early days. She understood immediately the power of art and stories—that they are catalysts for change, encouraging a powerful reimagining of our relationship with nature and each other.” 

It’s that mission—using art to raise social consciousness—that drives Vital Impacts; a mission inspired by Goodall’s trailblazing work over the last nine decades. “When we began Vital Impacts, our mission was to bring together the most compelling environmental artists who have come together to rally around a cause—inspiring the next generation of environmental stewardship,” Vitale said. “We know that in every crisis, hope can always be found. Jane Goodall epitomizes hope and action. She shows us that each individual effort, no matter how small, contributes to a collective force for positive change.” 

And after 90 years, Goodall’s impact is still growing. “[It] extends far beyond the realms of science and conservation,” said Vitale. “She has ignited a global movement of compassion, advocacy, and stewardship for our planet and all the critters we share it with. Jane’s legacy epitomizes breaking barriers, nurturing empathy, and forging profound connections with nature; her spirit continues to inspire all of us who have been touched by her words.”  

The Nature of Hope: 90 Years of Jane Goodall’s Impact is on sale now through May 31, 2024. Purchase prints here.

Aristotle defined envy as annoyance at someone else’s success. Catholic teaching lists it among the seven deadly sins. But the sharp edges of ancient meaning have softened over time. So, when I say I envy Mark Hendricks — because he spent a morning with a bobcat in Shenandoah National Park, or because he was able to photograph a cerulean warbler in a nature preserve in West Virginia — it’s just a way of expressing awe at his good fortune.

And yet good fortune or fate have little to do with Hendricks’ harvest of photographs from his travels through the central Appalachian Mountains.

The harvest, now published in a 192-page book, required hard work, long hours in the woods and superhuman patience. If he had not gone out with his camera on that foggy Virginia morning — the fog adding an enticing layer of mystery to the waterfall Hendricks intended to photograph — he would not have crossed paths with the bobcat.

Even in Shenandoah National Park, you have to be in the right place at the right time, usually in twilight. Virginia wildlife officials say bobcats are “secretive, solitary and seldom observed.” In Maryland, the Department of Natural Resources says bobcats are “uncommon.”

So, that day in May 2013, Hendricks, who grew up in Baltimore and teaches at Towson University, was surprised to see one.

Surprised even more that the bobcat, after locking eyes for a moment with Hendricks, did not scamper into the underbrush.

If any luck was involved, it was in the nature of the particular bobcat. It did not seem to mind Hendricks’ presence. In fact, the animal went about its business, crouching, hunting for breakfast, unfazed by the man tracking him.

Hendricks followed the bobcat until it stopped behind a fallen tree and became fixated on something. Hendricks took the moment to slowly and quietly set up his camera on a tripod.

“In a sudden burst of action,” Hendricks writes, “the cat leapt over the log into some leaf clutter and caught a rodent-sized small mammal. It then disappeared … an abrupt ending to an unlikely story.”

But not before Hendricks got the bobcat photographs that appear in “The Central Appalachians: Mountains of the Chesapeake,” his book of images and prose from western Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia and Pennsylvania.

I would not call it a “coffee table book” for two reasons — because it’s smaller than the typical book of photography, and because the term demeans Hendricks’ work. Though full of images of flora and fauna from all four seasons, “The Central Appalachians,” from Schiffer Publishing, is not merely a “picture book.” There are stories and edifying captions on just about every page. Hendricks is as much a photojournalist as a nature photographer, noting the impact of climate change and habitat loss on wildlife or, say, the greed of humans who poach native plants from forest floors.

The subtitle of the book refers to the Appalachians as a geologic province of the vast Chesapeake Bay watershed, with major rivers having headwaters there.

“What happens terrestrially has a big impact on the water,” Hendricks writes, and thus his focus on the central Appalachian range. “The health of the mountains, the health of the water, and the health of the Bay. It is all but one and the same.”

The work of this book obviously took years, and some of the resulting images are stunning: A cerulean warbler in Eidolon Nature Preserve in West Virginia; three black bear cubs climbing the same tree in Shenandoah National Park; a barred owl chick in the hollow of a tree; flamingos blown off course by a hurricane and swimming in a pond in south-central Pennsylvania; elk in a meadow in the northern part of that state; a flock of cedar waxwings in the Finzel Swamp Preserve in western Maryland.

While in that part of the state, Hendricks donned a wetsuit and went underwater to capture life in the Savage River — a brook trout foraging among boulders for aquatic insects; minnows devouring a caterpillar; a wood turtle, a crayfish and the large salamander known as the Eastern hellbender.

There are numerous photographs of plant life — wildflowers (lady slippers and white trillium) wherever he found them; scarlet blueberry shrubs in the Dolly Sods Wilderness, and an old, stand-alone gray birch tree for which Hendricks developed a special fondness during trips to Shenandoah. The birch, he writes, is “a relic of the much-cooler past of the mountains.”

Almost all of Hendricks’ photography has a subdued quality, even when the subject is as bright as a goldfinch or as brilliant as maple trees in autumn. That’s not a criticism. It’s a statement of respect for honest photography that captures the natural world in its natural state  — the somber shadows of a forest, a mountain slope on a cloudy day, the oak and hickory forests of the Blue Ridge Mountains at dusk.

Mark Hendricks visited all those places numerous times. He devoted countless hours to recording life in the central Appalachians just as he found it — a long, good project worthy of envy.

In 2012, Yaw Asiedu was working towards a biology and chemistry degree at Virginia Commonwealth University. “I had a friend who had a modeling agent’s contact [information] and told me I should reach out to them,” Asiedu explains over Zoom. “I spoke to my mom about pivoting to [modeling], and she said, ‘No, you’re going to finish your degree.’” And so he did. After school, he started modeling, but his career didn’t really begin to progress until, on a whim, he moved to South Africa in 2015. There, in Johannesburg, Asiedu discovered he also had a knack for photography. Much of Asiedu’s work revolves around faces. Each tightly-cropped portrait is layered with color and light, revealing a dynamic face, full of emotion. On set, Asiedu aims to gain the model’s trust. When he can get the person in front of the camera to trust him and relax, he’s able to take a snapshot of what appears to be an intimate moment.

Ahead, we talk to Asiedu about being a self-taught photographer, his approach to his work, his inspirations, and more.

Courtesy of Yaw Asiedu

Courtesy of Yaw Asiedu

Courtesy of Yaw Asiedu

Courtesy of Yaw Asiedu

Courtesy of Yaw Asiedu

Courtesy of Yaw Asiedu

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