About John Ferro Sims

John Ferro Sims is a photographer with a deep appreciation for culture - in the sense of the customs, characteristics and lifestyles of countries and civilisations all over the world. He has travelled extensively portraying foreign cultures with highly personal images of people, food, wine, architecture, interiors, and rural and city landscapes.
With a library of more than 150,000 images, this website – www.simspix.co.uk – only skims the surface of his portfolio. It not only reflects his love of travel – especially Italy which is his place of birth – but also his individual, often quirky, approach. If you are looking for photographs of the usual tourist landmarks and clichéd images of a city or nation you may not find them here. But if you are seeking an image that evokes history, humour, atmosphere, climate or social realism, you will find a wide range of pictures - some of them perhaps unexpected in the category you choose to explore, but nevertheless, representative of the country’s culture and identity.

Having spent his boyhood in rural Shropshire (where his family moved shortly after he was born) but lived his adult life in the heart of London, his appreciation of both countryside and city are apparent in his work. His love of all things natural – trees, plants, rocks and the land - influences much of his work. His photography of food goes beyond the presentation on the plate, to the source of the ingredients and the culinary traditions of the country. His images often contain a ‘story’ of the dish and the culture from which it originated.

In the cities, his pictures of statuary and architecture indicate not only the artistic and creative skills of their makers but the essence of the society and culture in which they stand. Photographic interplay with the local people, whether in carnival or work mode, also portrays the attitude and characteristics beneath the surface of a group or individual shot.

Italy, France and Spain feature most prominently on the site and in the library, plus the UK, Portugal and Greece. Other countries include Thailand, Yemen, Jordan, the US and some of the Caribbean Islands. The Dreamland selection on the site is a prime example of how his pictures can evoke some of the characteristics of a nation; they are a selection from a touring exhibition of the same name illustrating the UK’s unique seaside resorts in out-of-season guise.

John has published 12 books, the most successful of which is The Renaissance of Italian Cooking (co-author Lorenza de’ Medici), an international best seller (USA, Germany and France) with more than 120,000 copies in hard back alone. Other books published to date, the majority in more than one foreign language co-edition, are: Landscape in Italy (co-author Lisa St Aubin de Terain); The Renaissance of Italian Gardens (co-author Lorenza de’ Medici); Discovering the Hilltowns of Italy and Traditional Houses of Rural Italy (Paul Duncan); A Taste of Tuscany (John Dore Meis); Claire Macdonald's Scotland (Lady Claire Macdonald); Traditional Houses of Rural France (Bill Laws); Thai Vegetarian Cooking (Vatcharin Bhumichitr).

Recent titles include ‘Handmade in Italy’ (for which he was co-author as well as photographer), an illustrated book celebrating artisans all over the country working with glass, ceramics, metal, textiles, stone and wood, and ‘La Mortella’, the story of one of Europe’s most enchanting gardens set on the island of Ischia in the Bay of Naples where Sir William and Lady Walton made their home. A further book on Tuscan Food entitled ‘My Tuscany’ with the celebrated author,  Lorenza de Medici, was published at the end of 2003 by Duncan Baird Publishing.

Additionally, John has provided photo-essays for a substantial number of the internationally renowned Cadogan series of travel guide books, particularly those on Italy, France and Spain. John has also worked extensively in the corporate world, photographing stories involving top-ranking international companies in business, technology, industry and manufacture as well as for governmental organisations across the globe. John has a degree in Photographic Arts from the Polytechnic of Central London and a degree in Statistics from University College London and, before turning to photography, worked as an investment analyst in the City of London.

Selected Book Reviews

“Lady Walton’s loving history of the development of this ‘Italian garden paradise’ is illustrated by remarkable photographs by John Ferro Sims, whether scrupulously detailed close-ups of individual plants or long range panoramas of the many aspects of this Garden of Eden…”

Birmingham Post – La Mortella: An Italian Garden Paradise - New Holland

“A Mediterranean paradise has been perfectly captured in this book…using archive photographs and sumptuous shots of the garden in its full glory.”

BBC Gardeners World – La Mortella: An Italian Garden Paradise - New Holland

“Thai Vegetarian Cooking is a beautiful book and much credit must go to the photographer, John Ferro Sims.”

Loyd Grossman, The Sunday Times.

“This collection of 130 expertly composed color photographs offers a wide variety of tersely captioned images of the Italian countryside - from the impressionistic, foggy outline of the Dolomite mountains and Chianti’s vineyards in an early evening glow to ancient Sicilian necropolis...fine pictures”

Publishers Weekly - Landscape in Italy - Bullfinch/Little Brown

“Informative text and exquisite colour pictures perfectly complement each other. We must hope that these two well-matched travellers will now move on”

House & Garden - Traditional Houses of Rural Italy - Collins & Brown

“The photographs are wonderful, as is the dome of tuna mousse on the circular tiled marble floor of a hall in Princess Stefania Aldobrandini’s Rome Palazzo.”

The Independent - The Renaissance of Italian Cooking - Pavilion

“A colourful cuisine...John Ferro Sims’ vibrant photographs show these dishes against the rich backgrounds of the villas in which they originated.”

House & Garden - The Renaissance of Italian Cooking - Pavilion

“...we are seduced with nostalgic memories and glorious photographs, witnesses to a luxurious vanishing life...And always there is magnificently styled food: pecorino and lamb soup, quail on toast with polenta, and fresh fig and lemon tart.”

Publishers Weekly - The Renaissance of Italian Cooking - Pavilion

“...the handsome and aristocratic looking The Renaissance of Italian Cooking by...Lorenza de Medici full of decorative photographs by John Ferro Sims. Not the sort of book you’d want to drop olive oil spots on...it’s a geographical and gastronomic feast for the eye.”

The Listener