ENTRY DESCRIPTION
Mark 2014. Up to 1,500 soldiers entered Complexo da Maré in Rio de Janeiro, reputedly the most dangerous favela in Rio and Rio's second largest favela. Tanks and armoured personnel carriers arrived together with military police and armed civil police in an effort to drive out the heavily armed drugs gangs that rule this neighbourhood. As the world cup commences and with the Olympics in two years time, the action by the military and police in the favelas has become routine. The third party, the people not at war and the majority, are law abiding residents including children. They have almost become inoculated to the battles and the military presence. Here at a road block I hoped to capture an unremarkable and almost sedate moment, a picture with no shock, demonstrating this inoculation, soldiers almost silhouetted in quietness as a child rides casually by. Hundreds of years of history lays behind this moment; the elite rule of Brazil, the urbanisation of the population, the elite dominance of the poor and the justification of an internal but quiet war.

AUTHOR
Five years on from having picked up a camera for the first time, and a career in marketing, I am privileged to be working with a number of NGO's around the world. Along side sponsored project work I continue to document the european refugee crisis. This has become a deeply personal piece of work that is reshaping me as a photographer and fellow human being. To date I have worked on subjects around welfare and health, subjects I believed I could help in some small way. The refugee crisis has shaken me in ways I never expected, a subject I cannot stop documenting, but one that has engulfed me with a sense of despair and helplessness.

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