Sometimes as a community photographer there are people I spend years wanting to photograph because of how important the work they’ve done is. These people are not always high profile, not in the public eye in any way, but the work done and the lives saved mean far more. Steve Kamenicky was one of these people.

On Sunday June 7 the people of Derby gathered to say that Black Lives Matter. The event was peaceful, with no visible police presence (the police had closed off roads to allow the event to take over the whole of the area near the Council House). Although I was there to participate rather than photograph I of course always carry my camera and so took the opportunity to document the moment for myself more than for anyone else.

A few weeks ago I had a conversation with Naomi Burke-Shyne the Executive Director of Harm Reduction International (HRI), about the idea of using some of my photography on their social media accounts. The plan we came up with was me doing a takeover, which happened last week.

So the UK government have said no to opening or allowing a legally run safer drug consumption room. Of course to do this that have has to ignore or dismiss rather a lot of evidence into how effective they are at saving lives and increasing the uptake of treatment services. OK, so no legally run space then…

On November 29 I joined in a walk through Manchester with members of Anyone’s Child. The date and the place are important because one of the people walking was Ray Lakeman whose sons Jacque and Torin were last seen alive on November 29 2014 after going to Manchester United’s football ground. Their bodies were both found two days later in their hotel room, they’d died of overdoses.

I’ve said it before, I’m lucky I get to spend time with so many people in the harm reduction community, I’m lucky I’m trusted to take photos of people and get the chance to show something about them to the wider world. But when someone you are staying with says “I want you to take some photos later, I have a lucha mask” then things can get … weird.

I was recently interviewed by the team at the Narcotica Podcast on my thoughts about the need for more documenting of the harm reduction movement.

At the start of the year the organisers of the 2019 International Harm Reduction Conference asked me if I would like to exhibit some images at the conference, This is a conference with 1200 harm reduction activists, researchers and policy makers so the answer to that was easy… yes.

In September 2018 I was in Australia working on a photography project about drug consumption rooms. While I was there the team involved in creating campaigns for Uniting (the organisation that runs the Medically Supervised Injecting Centre) asked if I would be willing to spend a day travelling to photograph a young woman involved in their Fair Treatment campaign. She was going to be doing a part called the ’Long Walk to Treatment’. Of course I said yes, who wouldn’t? But it did almost kill my camera.

On October 12 in Sydney Uniting, the organisation that runs the Medically Supervised Injecting Centre (MSIC), launched their ‘Fair Treatment’ campaign. This launch was at Sydney Town Hall, Sir Richard Branson spoke and around 2000 people attended. As part of this event Uniting put on an exhibition of my photography in the vestibule of the Town Hall. The vestibule is… big.