Kate Holt Photojournalist
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Not every important story makes the headlines.
While the world's attention is often focused on major crises, our work regularly takes us to places that aren't in the news cycle.
In the last few weeks, our teams were working in Mongolia, Cambodia, Yemen, Sudan, Kenya and Somalia.
These are places where communities are facing challenges, building resilience and navigating change, often without the world's attention.
One of the most valuable things about working with local photographers and videographers is the access they have to stories that might otherwise go untold.
Time and again, our teams uncover issues, experiences and perspectives that haven't been documented for months, sometimes years.
Displacement is rarely a one-time event.
Right now in Lebanon, we are documenting the impact of repeated displacement on civilians and families who have already lost so much.
Many of the people our photographers and filmmakers are meeting have been forced to move multiple times.
Some fled Syria years ago and have rebuilt their lives in Lebanon, only to face further instability and displacement again after the events of 2024.
Others have experienced internal displacement within Lebanon, moving from place to place in search of safety, stability and a place to call home.
At the same time, aid cuts from the US and other countries are having a very real impact on the ground. Families are navigating uncertainty with fewer resources and less support.
Our role is to go out and listen.
To find the people living through this crisis and document not just what has happened to them, but what they hope for next.
To record their experiences as events unfold, while the situation is still changing.
People impacted by ongoing crises can disappear into headlines and statistics.
Bringing their stories to the world makes sure they don't.
20/05/2026
I often get asked what it was like moving through checkpoints in a war zone as a young photographer travelling on my own.
The truth is that it could be intimidating, frustrating and at times terrifying.
When I first visited Iraq at the start of my career I was young, very inexperienced and not on assignment for a publication.
I was shooting on spec, hoping I would be able to place the work as I went along.
This made things harder, because I did not have the official backing that would have verified me to military personnel at checkpoints.
I was a British photojournalist travelling in local taxis, having to explain why I was there and what I was doing.
Sometimes the soldiers were welcoming.
Sometimes they were suspicious.
Sometimes they were both.
I had to pass through checkpoints where all my equipment was unpacked, examined, x-rayed and questioned. This was the system and the soldiers manning it had the power.
What got me through those moments was conviction.
I knew that the work mattered. I knew that I was not there to photograph war as a spectacle, I was there to tell the stories of the people impacted by it.
When you really believe in what you are doing, this belief cuts through - it helps you hold your ground.
What stayed with me most, though, was not what I was subject to - it was watching Iraqi women and children being held with the same suspicion and scrutiny while simply going about their daily life.
War is not only about the front line. It is also about power, fear and humiliation in the smallest of everyday moments.
Do you know how to tell a story with photographs? Last chance to secure a 50% discount on the course ends October 1st. Link in bio
I’ve been a photographer a long time. I’ve been a journalist a long time. And it’s been over a decade since I set up Arete.
If there’s one thing this career has taught me, it’s the importance of perspective.
When you’re documenting other people’s lives, you can’t afford to get swallowed by your own dramas.
Cars break down. You get stuck in a river. You drop a camera off a cliff. A lens falls out the back of a helicopter. At the time, it feels like the end of the world.
But it isn’t.
You can buy another camera. You can replace a lens. You can tow a car out of a river. These are inconveniences, not catastrophes.
The real weight of this work sits with the people whose stories you are trying to honour. People whose lives have been shattered, displaced, rebuilt and reshaped in ways far bigger than anything happening to you as an individual.
Keeping perspective doesn’t mean being detached.
It means recognising that the story is not about you. It’s about doing the work with clarity, respect and, occasionally, a sense of humour when things go sideways.
I still remember the feeling of seeing my first photograph published in a national newspaper.
After studying at the London College of Printing, I went to work on the photo desk at The Independent.
It was an incredible place to learn. I was surrounded by photographers I’d admired throughout college, and they were generous enough to let me shoot alongside them on assignments.
Every day, I hoped one of my images might make it into the paper. Back then, getting a byline wasn’t just exciting, it was essential.
You needed published work to apply for a press card and to build a portfolio. There was no online presence to fall back on.
So the first time the photo editor chose my image over a staff photographer’s, it meant everything.
Not because it was a competition, but because they understood what that byline could unlock for me.
It was a small moment in the grand scheme of a long career, but one I’ve never forgotten.
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