A Real Nobody

Looking at his face, this man seems very much at ease with who he is. Ironically he is a complete unknown. Going by the name of Benjamin Kyle, he's the only person in the United States to be officially listed as missing, but whose whereabouts are known. Mr. Kyle suffers from retrograde amnesia as a result of a severe beating in 2004. And despite all efforts to identify him, involving extensive media coverage and DNA research, no one has yet come forward who can claim him as their own.

Click the photo to see if he's your long-lost loved one.

Snowy Snapshot

Street photography is tough at the best of times. You need quick reflexes and must instantly recognise a story when you see one. On the upside, street photography has a freshness and ring of truth about it that is all too frequently lost through ponderous studio shooting and excessive photoshopping.

Scott Schuman of the Sartorialist (http://thesartorialist.blogspot.com/) is one of the best photographer-bloggers around, and this wintery beauty with her scarlet-soled Louboutins is amongst the most stylish subjects of his sublime oeuvre.

A Bit of an Old Goat

Do we want a pair? No... but they are weirdly sexy...

Wisdom on the Walls

Photo: Annie, click for greater enlightenment.

The Pink Sheep's Sad Farewell

No more Alexander McQueen. No more of his gorgeous, flamboyant glam to cover the sadness inside. Describing himself as "the pink sheep of the family" he adored his mum, his Aunt Dolly and the formidable but doomed fashionista Isabella Blow. Their deaths are said to have influenced his final, terrible act.

Photography Can Save Your Life!

War photographer Don McCullin's damaged but life-saving Nikon F camera. It was hit by a sniper's bullet in a Cambodian rice field in 1970 just as he held it up to his face.

The Final Ghost

Alexandria is a city of the invisible and longing. Many years ago my father spent time here as a young man and, when he died, he left me scrapbooks of memorabilia to prove where he had been. For instance, I know that he went to a shop called Khan Khalil to buy his mother a bag because I still have the bill.

So that our paths would cross again, I decided to see Khan Khalil for myself or what was left of it. Although I was prepared that it would be long gone and forgotten, I was completely unprepared that it not only still exists but is completely unchanged! With its art deco façade and ancient display cases, Khan Khalil is a perfectly preserved piece of history from a vanished world. It is thick with ghosts.

Photo: Annie

Photographing Ghosts

This was my room at the Hotel Metropole in Alexandria. The building used to be the Egyptian Ministry of Public Works where its most famous employee was the early 20th century poet Constantine Cavafy. Maybe this room was also his room. But even if it was not, Cavafy must have been here during his thirty year tenure as a civil servant.

It was him that I was thinking of when I took this photo, hoping that his ghost would put in an appearance. Later, as I traveled through the desert towards Abu Simbel, I found myself thinking of Cavafy's wondrous poem Ithaca:

When you depart for Ithaca,
wish for the road to be long,
full of adventure, full of knowledge.

Photo: Annie