Some favourite shots from a recent colaboration with Buds and Berries on location at Bellinter House is Navan, Co. Meath. I used quite a bit of Polaroid this time around, the b&w images below are from a batch that expired over 30 years ago. It held up amazingly well.

Rodolphe from Best Day Productions was there to catch a look behind the scenes ..

The material was featured on the One Fab Day website and also was published in Confetti Magazine.

Credits:

PHOTOGRAPHER: Shane O’Neill www.aspectphotography.net
ASSISTED BY: Simon Curran www.iamacosmonaut.com
CINEMATOGRAPHY: www.bestdayproductions.com
CONCEPT ORIGINATION/STYLING AND FLORISTRY:
Felicity Brady/Paul Cullen, www.budsandberries.com
MODELS: Daniella Moyles and Neal Dempsey
LOCATION: Bellinteer House, Co Meath, www.bellinterhouse.com
MAKE UP: Hayley Mia McGowan, www.hayleymcgowan.com
HAIR:Lorraine Browne, www.lorrainebrownehair.com
DANIELLA’S CLOTHING: www.dirtyfabulous.com
www.larasfashion.com and shoes, www.rubyshoes.ie
JEWELLED HEADPIECE by Stacey Hannan, www.staceyhannandesigns.com
VESPA borrowed from John Martin Kenny at The Pit Stop Krew,
T: 085 7770048

2011 was a great year for awards and contests for me and although the year is not technically over with these competitions it is nice to look back and see what has been achieved. I’m a member of the WPJA, AGWPJA, ISPWP and Fearless Photographers. All of these organisations represent the very best photographic talent from around the world and it is genuinely humbling to be in the mix with some well-renowned names.

The Artistic Guild of Wedding Photojournalists, one 1st place image, one 2nd and a 7th:

I was placed 4 times in the ISPWP contests:

Finally, I received 4 Awards with the Fearless Photographers:

…and finally, of the 850 Awards handed out to Fearless Photographer, 99 were given the “Most Memorable” distinction. This shot of Steve and Mia was one of those selected.

heres to 2012!

UPDATE 7th Jan 2012: Great news to add to the list of success in 2011. The very influential Junebug Weddings which each year hosts a hotly contested “Best of the Best Wedding Photography Contest”.It features “the most beautiful, masterful, touching and creative wedding photos of 2011, taken by talented photographers around the world” from about 5000 entries. Two of mine made it to the last round and were given an honourable mention:

(described as:  ”especially creative, innovative and brilliantly composed photos that are just too good not to be seen” )

UPDATE: Along with receiving a Fearless Award (my 4th this year!), this image was also named in the “99 Most Amazing Fearless Awards 2011″

Delighted with this one. “The Artistic Guild of the Wedding Photojournalist Association is a distinct division within the Wedding Photojournalist Association (WPJA). The AG|WPJA focuses strictly on the artistic and “fine art” aspects of wedding photojournalism.” Ok, so this is not a documentary image. However I normally produce one or two artistic environmental portraits that compliment the documentary shots well. I use the AGWPJA as a platform to enter these very images into competition (leaving the WPJA strictly for documentary work).

This image was shot in Kerry this summer at the wedding of Mia & Steve. They encouraged me to push the boundaries so I owe them a lot and want to thank them for their enthusiasm and sense of adventure (Steve kindly blogged about me afterwards). The judges said: “It was difficult to resist such striking graphical symmetry compounded by an excellent juxtaposition of both color and texture.” Here is the shot. Earlier this year I finished 2nd in the same category.

Some images from a very recent wedding in Tipperary. Thanks to Annemarie & Niall for the great day.

Here is a look at some recent interior shots I did for the FBD Group shooting the Tower Hotel and Faithlegg House Hotel & Golf Club using a fairly complex multi-light set up.

Some images from Sam & Fay’s wedding at The Rectory, Glandore, Co. Cork this summer.

Caitlin & Nathaniel from Ontario came to Ireland this summer to get married. They were looking for a fairytale wedding and they found the ideal location at Cloghan Castle in Loughrea, Co. Galway. They brought 40 guests from Canada, most of them had never been to Ireland so it was a great to watch them immerse themselves in a place that is very Irish! Kate Deegan from Co-Me looked after all the planning.

Caitlin and Nathaniel said “we wanted to thank you for doing such a phenomenal job at the wedding. We really appreciated how professional, respectful, and helpful you were that day (even amongst all the chaos!), and we had an absolute blast hanging out with you!”

Here are some of my favourites:

I was placed 7th in the latest The AG|WPJA contest. “Judges Comment: The tonal range in this image and it’s lightly warm tint mixes well with the beautiful, if not elaborate moment. It’s a wonderful image that blends strong composition with exacting skill.” The AG|WPJA was created, in part, to provide an avenue for the art of digital image manipulation applied to classic wedding photojournalism. There wasn’t a lot of manipulation in this image. It was a straight forward b&w conversion using one of my own Lightroom presets.

On Monday 29th of September 2011 I received an email from the living legend that is Paul Giambarba - the man responsible for the branding of Polaroid. He is using one of my shots in his “Instant Talent” blog. To quote him “The aim of adding Instant Talent to this blog is to introduce very special talent from all over the world whom I discover as I search the Internet”

This is quite an honour! The image he chose was one my of first wedding polaroids, The shot of Éadaoin & Daniel on the steps of an old country manor in Tipperary catches people by surprise as it is difficult to tell when the image was taken. It could easily be decades old. Paul discusses this ..

He also mentioned that he was in my home town of Waterford in 1955. He did not start work with Poalroid until 1957 but I asked him if he shot any images. He responded “I was shooting 35mm Kodachrome, which surprisingly hasn’t faded much, with Hitler’s old Contax.” I think he meant Zeiss Ikon Contax not his actual property! He is looking for the negatives for me as I write this.

This was a great experience to interact with a person who was so instrumental in making Polaroid the brand it became. The architect of a photographic and cultural phenomenon that is still so strong years after the brand’s demise. A true living legend.

UPDATE

Paul kindly sent me some images from his honeymoon in Ireland in 1955. Shot of Kodachrome 35mm, they still look crisp over 50 years later. These are great scenes:

Ashford Castle Grounds.

Castlehill, Co Tipperary.

O’Connell St, Dublin.

Unknown

60,000 frames, shot over 3 days. Three weeks of planning and three weeks of editing! If you missed the Tall Ships visit to Waterford, here it is in its entirety in 10 minutes.

With thanks to Emmett Cooke for composing and performing the music and Mat Reilly who assisted and helped out with editing. Daragh Treacy looked after the custom engineering.

I plan to write a full blog post outlining how I did this. Until then I will be doing a talk and show about the project at Culture Night 2011 in Greyfriars, Waterford at 10pm on September 23rd. All are welcome. The highlight will be a screening of the show on a 3 metre screen in BluRay. I’m looking forward to it!