One of the reasons why I decided to go to Ethiopia, was because I watched a television programme by Dan Cruickshank called 'Around the world in 80 Treasures'. In this program, Dan goes around the world looking for some of the most sacred of items which are not so commonly known to exist.

For instance, he goes to Ethiopia to search out the Ark of the Covenant, which turns out to be held, as many Ethiopians believe, in a small hut with an iron fence around it, and looked after by one guard.

In the TV program he also goes to Lalibela to see the Lalibela cross, a 7kg gold cross which dates back to the 12th century. It is an Ethiopian heir loom of significant importance.

I went to Lalibela for Meskel, a festival which happens once a year, known as the festival of 'finding the true cross'. Ethiopians are orthodox Christians and Lalibela is their own Jerusalem.

So I thought I'd show you a photograph of the Lalibela cross, held by the Deacon of the church of Bet Medhane Alem.

It was a real privilege to be allowed to photograph the cross before the ceremonies of Maskal - it is perhaps the first and only time in my travels that I've ever been given such privileged access to something of such significance to a nation.

I've been a bit swamped lately, and I've only just literally started to work on my Ethiopian image this afternoon. But I'm a little troubled. My Nikon Scanner's software isn't supported anymore and I can't get it to work on Snow Leopard, so I've had to resort to buying Silverfast. Talk about clunky. Talk about confusing. Talk about being able to screw up a scan so easily.

I used to work in Software, and I know it's easy to make a hash of stuff (hey, I was never that great a programmer), but the user interface could really do with an overhaul on their software and more importantly, so could the workflow. It's rubbish.

Anyway, here's the very first test scan I've done. I think it's going to take me a few weeks to get to grips with scanning on Silverfast. It's always painful for me having to learn new software, get used to the way *it* wants to work, rather than it working the way *you* want it to work.

Hope you enjoy this first taste of my new portrait images from Ethiopia. I have no idea what is in store at the moment because all I have is a big box of negatives all sitting in their sleeves at the moment, and a cumbersome way of scanning them on a Canon 9000F to see what the digital-contact-sheet holds.