Jason Florio, FRGS (Fellow of The Royal Geographical Society, London), is an award-winning, New York based, photographer who works around the globe – from Afghanistan to Suriname, focusing on under-reported stories on people living on the margins of society and in places of conflict. He photographs and writes for publications including: New York Times, Newsweek, The Independent on Sunday, Virginia Quarterly Review, Men’s Journal, GQ, Geographical Magazine, AFAR, Outside. Jason’s photography has been solo exhibited, won numerous international awards, and has been acquired by a number of museums – including The Brooklyn Museum of Art, NY, Haggerty Museum, MI, and The Photography Museum of Art, Huai’an, China. Please visit floriophoto.com for more information.

Helen Jones-Florio is an expedition and photography producer and writer, based in New York. She has been traveling to West Africa for over 15 years and has produced photography assignments in West Africa, DR Congo, Kenya, USA, Mexico, and UK. She is currently finishing a book about the 2009 expedition – based around her blog entries and from her personal journal entries – and collaborating with Jason and on the book about the 2012-13 expedition.

Published work includes – writing and photography: Adventure Travel Magazine (UK), ‘Wings’ (Arik Airlines in-flight magazine), Travel Africa Magazine (UK), Resource Magazine (USA), Amazing Travel Stories (USA), Gambia Experience Magazine (UK), Stellazine (USA), African World Heritage Annual Report.

The West Africa connection : Jason has traveled yearly to The Gambia, since 1997, to work on a long-term project about the people who live and work around the sacred forest of ‘Makasutu’ – the resulting book of this work can be viewed here : Blurb Books. Jason has co-led, with his wife, Helen Jones-Florio, two West Africa expeditions: River Gambia Expedition – 1044km source-sea African odyssey’, 2012-13, and ‘A Short Walk in The Gambian Bush – a 930km African odyssey’ 2009.