Quentin Fottrell with Dublin and Manhattan

Quentin is moving to New York to start a new job next month, and he asked me to take a portrait of him in Dublin that he could use on his leaving party invitations. When Irish people emigrated to America the first time around they called their goodbye parties ‘wakes’ — as it was pretty much accepted that if you left on a boat you’d never be seen again. With this in mind, we decided to take the shot with vintage clothing and props out on the harbour in Howth, with Manhattan Island on the horizon. America is just that bit closer than it was back in the day.

Here Be Dragons

I spent much of the Christmas worrying about my travel plans — money and equipment and altitude sickness — to the point where one day I said to Conor: "Do you mind if we don't talk about Tibet today? I need a little break from it." Which is ridiculous, I know.

I managed to calm myself, though, by drawing an illustrated map of my route. I'm flying to Beijing in February and starting from there, travelling through China to Tibet and Vietnam by sleeper trains.

Seeing the places I'm going in a nice sans-serif font and colour-coded countries gives me a great deal of comfort. I'm not sure it's entirely accurate, though, so don't set off with it folded up in your pocket just yet, hey.