Patron:
The Right Honourable Michael Portillo

Michael Portillo joined the Government in 1986, and remained a member until 1997. He held a number of positions Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Secretary of State for Employment, and Secretary of State for Defence. He was admitted to the Privy Council in 1992. After his 1997 electoral defeat he turned to journalism but returned to politics in 1999. Following the Conservatives’ election defeat in 2001, Michael unsuccessfully contested the leadership of the party and in 2005 Michael left the House of Commons. He is now a successful broadcaster and journalist.

Website: www.michaelportillo.co.uk/

Michael writes about Zak: Zak Waters loves simplicity. His subjects are the people who have nothing but their smiles, their rustic pleasures or their hunger. No pretension intervenes between the subjects and Zak's lens. Sometimes it is not the faces that tell us most about their lives: it might be the trusting but anxious hand of a child, or the gnarled foot of a poverty-stricken worker. Zak's work is involved and empathetic without being intrusive. Somehow it evokes a certain optimism even where hope might be in short supply, and it finds humour in bleak places. But none the less confronting his images often brings a lump to the throat. I always want to know, "And what happened to them next?"

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