Sunflowers and sky - Limited Edition 1 of 12 Print

I have an early memory of sitting in the shade of a mango tree while my German shepherd dog Tejo "sang" and my Dad played the harmonica. Tejo stopped to take a lick of my ice cream and I was left with the cone to enjoy. This was in the East African coastal city of Beira, where I was born, at a time when Mozambique was under Portuguese administration. A busy port on the Indian Ocean, Beira was a cosmopolitan blend of cultures and cuisines in the late 1960s, including Portuguese, Chinese and Indian. It was a wealthy town with wide, elegant Accacia-lined avenues, modernist architecture and white sandy beaches framed by crystal clear waves and an endless blue sky. That and the size of the tiger prawns, and the Portuguese-Mozambican culinary heritage of piri piri chicken, meant Beira was a popular holiday destination for neighbouring South Africa and landlocked Rhodesia (today's Zimbabwe) and Zambia. My first experience of British influences came from the Rhodesian holidaymakers who made the long drive every year in slow processions towing their trailers to stay in what locals called the English Campsite. I lived in a child's paradise. At 12 years old, it all came to an abrupt end. The dangers of civil war which followed Mozambique's independence, led my parents to send my elder sister and me to Portugal, a place I only knew from postcards. We spent a few months unsuccessfully trying to adapt to the cold temperatures and unfamiliar ways in a small village in northern Portugal. After only ever having worn t-shirts and shorts, we were now sleeping under eight blankets with our socks on. Next stop Lisbon. Weather and lifestyle in the South suited us much better. And I lapped up the abundance of Anglo-American pop culture. Fast forward a decade or so, and you'd have found me exploring Rolling Stone magazine's innovative photography and articles which expanded my understanding of American culture and politics, or dissecting the images of Steven Meisel in Italian fashion magazines, or mulling over the shocking concepts in Oliviero Toscani's images for Benetton. I was mesmerised by the unique portraits commissioned by Andy Warhol's Interview magazine from the likes of Michel Comte, Herb Ritts, Kurt Markus. And the marriage between photography and graphics in Face magazine grabbed my attention. By 1986 I had decided I really wanted to be a fashion and portrait photographer. London called.