After numerous projects around the world, travel photographer Jim Stephens has recently been concentrating on festivals, be they religious, spiritual or hedonistic. In this exhibition, the images come from Holi (India), Garoka (Papua New Guinea), Tsechu (Bhutan), Dashain (Nepal), Intiraymi (Peru) and The Vegetarian Festival (Thailand) as well as some closer to home – Palio (Italy) and Running of the Bulls (Spain). No matter how remote or accessible these festivals are, the passion from the participators is the same everywhere and makes an integral part of Stephens’ pictures.

Stephens says “This collection represents a travel photographer’s dream - capturing the mayhem and madness of spiritual gatherings the world over. To me, my most successful images are those where the actuality of what you are looking at takes a little time to come through.”

Festival is a work in progress as Stephens continues to travel extensively, covering festivals in the US, Europe and Asia in the forthcoming year.

During his early career as a photojournalist living and working in East Africa, Stephens covered the Somali and Sudanese civil wars. Since then, he has returned to England and continues to photograph abroad as well as in the UK. Stephens has been widely published, and recently was finalist in the prestigious Travel Photographer of the Year, 2007 with one of the images from Festival.