I am cycling 100km in memory of my good friend Prof. Paul Lowe who was murdered last year. We will ride from the college where Paul ended up as Professor in photography in south London to the college where he started out, reading undergraduate history, Clare College, Cambridge.

https://paullowechallenge.org/

I like cycling and I feel a slob asking for you to pay for my fun, so in return for backing the Challenge, you have the unique chance to own an original Simon Norfolk print. Read on for details:

Why the money is being raised

I am supporting the Paul Lowe Fund

https://paullowechallenge.org/the-paul-lowe-fund/

It will fund the professional training of photojournalists from under-represented countries. And a part will be for helping PTSD affected photojournalists. Both of these are causes Paul cared about very much.

What I'm offering in return for your support

A signed 10"x8" print on Fuji Crystal Archive paper made by my lab, Spectrum in Brighton. The print will have the stamp on the back of the Paul Lowe Challenge. It will be uneditioned.

The picture is from my book about Bosnia, 'Bleed,' from 2005. It's full title is 'The waste pond at the Karakaj aluminium factory complex. In the afternoon and evening of 14th July 1995, hundreds of muslim Bosniac men and boys were forced into trucks and taken to the aluminium plant and executed.'

Paul helped a lot on that project of course. The first time I went to the location I was arrested. I knew if I returned when the lake iced over I would get a stronger colour of red from the aluminium waste and a much better metaphor. Paul helped me figure out a way in through the back of the site. We hoped it would be too cold for security to be out patrolling.

All contributions of any amount are gratefully accepted of whatever amount. But to get a print you'll have to back the Challenge to at least £100. More is of course welcomed.

(If you'd like to back this cause and honour Paul's memory to a higher amount and you've always wanted a Simon Norfolk print then get in touch and perhaps I can make something bespoke.)

If you're a good cyclist and you'd like to come with me on Sunday Sept 21st, and maybe even raise some money, then contact me.

Motivation

I can’t add more than the words I said at Paul’s Memorial:

It was inevitable that Paul and I became friends. Both from northern towns, both raised by single mums, both sent to Oxbridge on scholarships. I met him on the first day of Photography College when I was just 23 years old. I liked him immediately and I've been his friend ever since. We started working for newspapers at the same time. We learned the ropes and we earned a bit of cash and spent it dancing all night in London's clubs and fruitlessly chasing after girls. Fruitlessly in my case.

But all that silliness came to an end when Paul went off to cover the war in Bosnia. He was gone for years, (we were all getting older) and he was much changed by it all.

Then from Sarajevo he sent back to London this thing to be looked after. It looked like a half-drowned kitten, all huge anxious eyes and skinny. It lived on cigarettes and Coca-Cola and its name was Amra. Paul clearly loved her very much, this one was the keeper and we'd all have to shape up a bit to avoid her withering eye. I was a Best Man at his wedding and later, he was Best Man at mine. For some reason that sentence alone upsets me enormously.

So we gave up all night dancing and took up cycling instead. Paul and I rode halfway across Northern France in a day, up and over Tenerife's volcano, and once, all the way across Bosnia, in 3 days, in a strange, mass cycle-ride that turned into a tear-filled, rolling memorial-ceremony the closer we got to the annual remembrance day at Srebrenica.

We'd bicker and argue, about photography and cycling and politics. He helped me batter my photo projects into some kind of shape, he was the only person I ever trusted for this. He was critical and generous and open. We'd always find time for a ride or a dinner somewhere on his frequent loops into London for teaching. He'd never fail to allow me to catch the bill.

Paul's death for me is not so much the death of a friend as the death of a brother. Outside my family, I have known him longer than anybody else in my life. His leaving is Pain and Loneliness and Anger and Fear all looking down into a deep hole. It's like the magician's trick: you close your eyes for a second whilst the tablecloth is whipped away and when you open them, all the crockery is in the same place, wobbling slightly, but something huge and vital is missing.

You can read more about Paul here:

https://www.1854.photography/2024/10/tribute-paul-lowe/