It’s January and the worlds elite; Billionaires, CEO’s, Politicians and celebrities descend upon a picturesque skiing town in The Swiss Alps but strangely theres not allot of skiing going on. Davos, (no not the Dr.Who villain – thats Davros) spends one week a year hosting the World Economic Forum. This year Bill Gates and Bono, David Cameron an Leo Di-Caprio all joined the throng to put the world to rights over a tasty fondue.

My coverage of the meeting started at the top of the Jakobshorne mountain; shooting a feature on the daily ski patrol with a swarthy looking member of the mountain rescue team called Frederic. He asked how proficient a skier I was but alas my only experience has ever been on a snowboard/my bum so I elected to take the easy route or so I thought. I was ushered (kit laden) onto a ski-doo which was great fun for the first 10 minutes until the cold set in. I suspect having an uninitiated journalist on his watch, Frederic, decided to show me a good time and soon we were doing 70kph with the cold wind biting though my totally inappropriate waxed jacket. Then it got even worse as my shiny new 300mm lens flew from my belt and bounced into the abyss. Thankfully Frederic heard my cries and we spun round to assess the damage – finding the white case in the sea of whiteness, I tentatively opened the case it appeared the fresh snow had saved the day – my lens lived to fight another day.

I’ve been to this event for the past 4 years now and I know what to expect, a top trumps collection of CEO’s milling the hallways – potentially everyone is worth photographing. Unless you are invited tickets are £19k a pop plus annual membership to the WEF and an unspeakably expensive hotel for a few days – it stands to reason that if you’re there… you’ve done alright for yourself!

The meetings get into full swing early every day. Generally the ones that I can attend and photograph are based on pre-agreed agendas that try foster free thinking and spark conversation for the common good. The real interest lays in the meetings that happen behind closed doors, as big businesses close deals in side rooms and rub shoulders in hallways.

Punctuating their long days with free drinks and partying into the small hours the week flies by before their Mercedes’ and Bentley’s roll back out of town and toward their private jets. The town can breath again and Frederic can stop scaring photographers with his ski-doo!

Thanks to the rest of the Bloomberg Photos team at Davos too; Simon Dawson, Julius Domoney, Gem Atkinson and especially Matt Lloyd who really loves my blog… 😉

All pictures in this post are the copyright of Bloomberg News.