How did we meet?
We had admired each others work online and we arranged to meet up with the prospect working together as a wedding team together with makeup genius Naomh Kirwan.
One hairstylist, one makeup artist, one photographer available as a close-knit hardworking team we called The Wedding Crew combined visions to bring a creative continuity to each and every wedding. The morning of each wedding was always fun!
Good fortune and a common creative vision kept us together. You knew everyone in the business so we had a slew of good shooting locations and models to work with on our highly enjoyable test shoots.
I remember on one of our first shoots we accomplished a series of really beautiful and unusual images working with a model wearing vintage wedding dresses. One of dresses was sold to a B2B and sold for just €75 and she subsequently wore it as her wedding dress.
There was even a bride without a dress – she wore slacks! And alas, Dexter my Jack Russell (RIP) featured in several of the shots. He drew great fun from everyone with his fetching and his play dead tricks.
I found the link! Check it out here
What inspires you.
People inspire me. I am privileged to belong to a profession that has brought me in contact the people from throughout our Island and through much of the world, meeting people and couples from diverse backgrounds and experiencing countries, situations, celebrations that i could never otherwise envisage being lucky enough to be a part of.
There is no tool like a well-held camera to give a reason to travel and to meet new people – it acts as a passport and a catalyst to new experiences.
Consider the wedding day – the first most important day in a couples life (if thats not being too dramatic ) the camera allows the capture of a multitude of otherwise fleeting moments: meetings of old friends, families, lovers, moments of doubt, desire, periods of excitement and of love of apprehension and unbridled optimism.
Moments of love : moments of life presented albeit in unpredictable order ready for recording, capturing, keeping and sharing. Like many, I enjoy sitting in my favourite cafe watching the people of my world go by. In the instants of humanity that I observe I am only that, an observer and not afforded the opportunity to capture them. A wedding day is different. we are invited,welcomed, contacted to be a part of it. This is no common gift.
Wherever my constantly evolving photographic journey takes me I will always photograph weddings. Its because I’m selfish – I am afforded the opportunity to vicariously enjoy and to capture the emotions each wedding day offers.
How did you break into the industry?
I began shooting pictures in earnest while studying arts at UCC – my granny passed and the house was sold. My mum gave me a lump sum which I mostly spent on having a good time. I ended up with £150 and decided Lily (a spendthrift) might be getting annoyed – i invested in a secondhand camera, joined the camera club and after a year in Seattle I returned to college to study photography
I spent my weekends assisting photographers in a wide variety of fields – During this time I worked as freelance assistant to over 20 individuals. A photographer once told me that assisting is a privilege – he was right. I picked up good habits from them all and noticed where some of them were not doing their subjects justice.
I was chosen by my lecturers to work on a final year project initiated by then president Mary McAleese. Over 6 months I was afforded access to record elements of both her public engagements and private life. You cannot imagine the thoughts of my good fortune that passed through my head as I made the regular cycle up the avenue the Aras, the pheasants scuttling out of my way and the president guards asking my not to park my bike up against the building!
I was all set to embark on my current adventures after those experiences.
What is your favourite part of your job?
The fact that each day is different because I generally photograph people and although we all have many things in common – in the end, as I have been told: ‘ there’s nought as queer as folk! ‘
How varied is your job?
My job is very varied. I am commissioned to photograph weddings, events and commercial business assignments such as annual reports and advertising material. I’ve had several 48 sheet billboard posters and even managed a full length of Enda Kenny that unfurled on City Hall.
I shot the promotional poster for Bernard Dunne’s first fight – an epic & bloody battle which he won against Cordoba. I was one of 4 photographers given ringside access and experienced him fainting in the lift after the fight.
I have worked in East Timor, Bolivia, Guatemala, South Africa, Madagascar and Uraguay covering developmental stories. My current and ongoing personal project is called the North Wall Series and is a document of the people living and working and playing my own community of North Wall.
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my most recent assignment was to photograph my little boy, Luke’s best friend’s family for their granny’s Christmas present. I never get bored.
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