Photographer Marvin Grech shoots to thrill. FM zooms in.

Name: Marvin Grech

Age: 36

Totally unexpected: Obsessed with filing

When I am not flying for my work as cabin crew, or taking photos, I wake up early for a big breakfast, followed by a workout. Then I make a few calls or text my friends and spend the rest of the day on coffee dates, reading fashion mags, and organising my files - I always feel that I am disorganised, but it is just an obsession.

My affair with photography started with a chat with a friend, who is a well established photographer in Dubai. It was 2003, and I remember telling him that I find photography very interesting. A few weeks later I bought my first analogue camera to start taking photos with him in clubs for the magazine he works for. A month later we went to Beirut on a trip with three other friends. I had packed a few rolls of film. We finally got to one of my friends' house, and I sat down in the kitchen for a cigarette and a chat. As I looked around, the surroundings inspired me and we planned a quick shoot for a laugh. It turned out to be one of my favourite shoots because of the colours involved, the composition, and the kitsch element of the kitchen.

My vision is still, a frozen frame isolated from a series of moving images. Locations and mysterious looks become my playground. I seek to capture personality expressed by immaculate looks, strong characters evoked by the subject's appearance and self-expression through a sense of fashion that feeds on accepted standards while toying with innovation. My objective stretches to pictures which challenge, dare, and defy our sense of received aesthetic.

When I am taking pictures of friends I do the styling myself and ask friends who are into hair and make-up to help me out. However, when I am contributing for the magazine, I work and learn with professionals.

I use fashion as an excuse. When I think of an image, I imagine woman with a strong personality, strong features, sparkling deep eyes, flawless skin, impeccably dressed in sumptuous black on towering heels. This is where fashion comes in.

Doing fashion photography full time is my dream, but I want to do it right.

Anything can inspire me. Most of the time, inspiration hits me when I am travelling on my own. What also inspire me are shop windows, classic Hitchcock movies, some of the Western movies, gangster stories, places such as New Orleans cemeteries, cities like Paris, Moscow and New York, high heels and stockings, red lipstick, copper-coloured hair, colours and shadows.