After travelling abroad for 4 years I came back to the UK in 2010. Friends urged me to show my photographs to the national sunday papers based in London with the view to getting my work published.

None of the papers would see me apart from the Telegraph and even then the picture editor whom I spoke to said that I couldnt come barging in to their reception like a gorilla expecting to receive advice and was "f***ing lucky" to get 5 minutes of his time. He said my work was very good but "so what!?"

If I had shown him the photos from 'New York City Fairbanks City' of 'the bus' in Alaska 3 years earlier when the film "Into the Wild" had come out then he could have used them but otherwise nothing that I had photographed was 'current'. I explained that I had spent 2 and a half years in Patagonia documenting the Welsh. "Who cares?" he said.

If I wanted to get my work published then I should photograph 3 topics: Celebrity, Disaster or War - those things make news.

"Can you fly me out to Afghanistan?" I asked.

"No, we use whoever is out there at the time. We cannot afford to fly people out especially since they might not come back."

"Should I go?"

"No, I wouldnt recommend it" came the final reply.

I live in Colchester, home to The Parachute Regiment who are being deployed to Afghanistan this autumn. That same day I arranged a meeting at their barracks and handed them a written proposal about my idea to make a book of their next tour. It has taken alot of effort to just get this far - photographing their training in the UK and despite approval from the MOD in London to go ahead the project still isnt definite.