In March 2011 I went to Syria on a speculative shoot for an airline in-flight magazine, visiting the main tourist sites in Homs, Aleppo and Damascus. Not surprisingly the photos were never published. The uploaded photos of the historical city of Palmyra were taken on the 1st March 2011, just over two weeks before violence broke out in Deraa on the 18th March when the army opened fire on demonstrators. These include images of the Temples of Bel and Baalshamin recently destroyed by ISIS. I also visited the soukh at Aleppo, the largest covered soukh in the world but now also mainly destroyed by fire and the fighting, and the Crusader castle of Krak des Chevalier which was also damaged in March 2014