In 2015 I accompanied Stand Up To Racism Birmingham to the Refugee camps on the coast of France, in Calais. Prior to travelling I had been reading local media regarding the Refugee crisis, and along with that the comments and opinions of local people. 

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Birmingham, being an incredibly diverse, city of immigrants. Built and shaped by the movement of people. I felt that the comments were not only derogatory, ill-informed and hateful, but worryingly were written people that were living in and amongst a variety of communities, some of which would have lived experience of the camps and the journey to the city. 

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During my short time in the camp, I met a lot of people from all over the world. Eritrea, Iran, Syria, Afghanistan and many others. My experience was only that of warmth, kindness and generosity.

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With the images that I took, I wanted to focus on the resilience and personality of individuals, rather than the generic images that I had seen across news media. Returning to the U.K. I produced a small zine, alongside my artist Neighbour Paul (Boujiwoojiman) that framed some of the images across comments that were taken from online news sources. I want people to really understand that they are talking about these children, people, fellow humans that are depicted in the images, when they make their largely anonymous comments online. 

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This was my first project of this scale, I had only recently started taking photos as a documentary photographer and I think there are ethical considerations that might prohibit me doing the same kind of work now. Whether it's morally right, to drop into a traumatic experience and take photographs and video, largely without consent - under the rules of journalistic freedom. If I was in that situation, would I want my photograph taken or published? Alongside this, who am I to take the photograph? I am white British photographer, growing up and living in relative privilege. What qualifies me to tell their stories? Other than my access? There are many journalists within the camp community, who would, if they could, tell their own story. After producing the zine and doing a small exhibition pop up, I decided not to publish these photographs online, for the above reasons. 

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I am publishing this small selection of photographs and the zine spreads now, as 11 years on, I feel enough time has passed and I think that it is important to talk about the context of the these images, the people within them and the stories that are told, that are not ours. 

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