In June 1995, suffering from a particularly bad case of writers block, I bought a camera, thinking a hobby would give me something other than music to think about and I’d be able to go back to writing songs and getting nowhere. I haven’t picked up the guitar since.
Photography came very easily to me. I understood it instinctively and the results, compared to writing a song, which might take a year, by which time I couldn’t tell if it was any good or not, were instant.
I started getting work immediately and soon had to give up my part time waiter’s job.
My first big job was a series of book covers for Poolbeg Press, which I couldn’t believe they actually hired me, since I hadn’t a clue what I was doing. I had a rough brief and had to find locations, props, models etc. For all you photogs, I was shooting transparency film on a Pentax 67 with no polariods, using filters, mixing daylight and tungsten and keeping my fingers crossed that they would turn out. I travelled to each location on my bicycle, with the lights balanced in a suitcase on the handlebars, camera and tripod strapped to my back. Ah the good old days.
I love photographing people. There is still something magical that happens between pressing the shutter and the image being exposed to the film (or light sensitive panel as it is these days).
I feel like I’ve only started.