I always have a tune in my head and I’m likely to take the last spoken sentence from anyone in a room and sing it into a song. Usually bastardising pop songs from the last 70 years. Often I’m totally unaware I’m doing it.  Sorry.

I’m half Iranian, half Irish.  I think both cultures have a lot in common; they love a party, they appreciate music and dancing and poetry, and they overfeed their guests.

Way before I got into taking photographs, I loved looking at them.  My dad was a photographer.  When I was little I used to raid my parents’ big brown sack of photos.  I loved looking back at the history of our family, the history of me.  I guess I was building my story of how and why I came to be.

I’ve had a real range of jobs… from working in bars and prisons, to working as an archivist, auxiliary nurse, a BBC news researcher and cabaret performer.  The common denominator to all these roles: a fascination with people and their stories.