Mount Ayr Record-News
Mount Ayr, Ringgold County, Iowa
Thursday, August 01, 2002

A British photojournalist traveling around the United States to take pictures for a book made a stop in Ringgold county early this week.

Charlie VARLEY has had his work printed in publications on both sides of the Atlantic and still sends an occasional photo essay to the press while working on a book entitled "A Drive-By Shooting."

The book will feature black and white photographs of people in all 48 states of the continental United States.

"I'm trying to capture the real Americans, where they live and work," VARLEY said.

He is driving around the country in what he terms a "beat-up Mustang" looking for photographs and his travels brought him to Ringgold cunty Monday night for a stay in the Clinton Motel.

Among places visited were the Lesanville project and the home of Keith and Beth WHITSON in Beaconsfield.

The fact that his book will not feature many celebrities has made it harder to sell to publisher, but he is getting good feed back from the public as he travels and shoots pictures for the book.

Not that he hasnt' taken some celebrities along the way such as former President Bill CLINTON and Vice President Dick CHENY. He has photographed celebrities such as Gloria ESTEVAN and hopes to catch a celebrity or two when he makes it to California.

While his book title is a play on words, he may even take a picture of the namesake of the book along the way. He plans to spend some time with gangs in Los Angeles taking photographs of everyday life for them.

His travels have taken him to many parts of the world. VARLEY is the official photographer of the World Elephant Polo Association which holds polo matches from the backs of elephants in an areas of southern Nepal each year.

As a photojournalist he has a base in Fort Lauderdale, FL, but has covered stories around the world.

VARLEY said he takes pictures to try to help make a difference and he has been frustrated at time in trying to interest editors in topics he has covered.

"I was covering the war in Afghanistan in its early days before the September 11 events and trying to interest editors in the fact that something needed to be done to stablize the situation there," he said. "My insistence in stating my case to a foreign desk editor got me thrown out of one British newspaper office."

VARLEY, who was born in Malaysia in 1967, move to England when he was a yong boy and won his first camera for a photograph entered in a contest by his mother when he was 13-years-old.

He worked for a local paper, The Andover Advertiser, following college and then worked his way up to work for a number of publications.

His photographs of the Britain's royal family and other photojournalism coups for the British tabloid press are part of his portfolio.

He has traveled to many parts of the world on photo assignments and has photographs published in many top British newspaper publications as well as The New York Times. He has been published in magazines from Time and Newsweek to Playboy and has taken photographs for several books as well.

He came close to being killed while living with Hazb-e-Islami mijahideen in Afghanistan in 1994 at the height of the civil war in that country, one of the worst places he says he has been.

Contrast that to time spent in the Australian outback after three weeks of civil war photography in Kashmir, the best place he's been.

VARLEY said his best journalistic achievement has been giving the Red Cross images from a previously unknown refugee camp between Kabul and the Pakistani border, why they in turn took to Switzerland, resulting in aid going to the people of the camp.

Now to see if Ringgold county makes the final cut when the book is published in a year or two.

Transcription by Sharon R. Becker, August of 2012