The importance of capturing moments, snippets of our life, freezing a moment in time really rings through to me. As the year flash’s before my eyes I can’t help feeling that I will miss something if I don’t take care to capture, freeze time and revile in life a little. This brings me to our creative at work Paul from Moat Hill photography. Finding a photographer that will capture the atmosphere, the mood of the day is so important and I think a deeply personal choice. Paul shares with us his inspiration and why he does what he does so well.
Who is your bride?
That is a kind of hard question to answer, like who is your favourite singer or whats your favourite movie.
We never really set out to target a particular type of person. I always feel our work reflects the personality of the person. So if you’re romantic then we’ll read that and your images will have that sort of feel.. if you laugh a lot then lets laugh. I think our work doesn’t impose itself on people rather we try to capture the personality of the people in our work. So when you ask who is our bride.. its everyone and anyone that can trust us to capture their wedding honestly and authentically
When do you feel most creative?
A wedding day is a full on affair. You have to be at 100% every time, you can’t have a bad day or a day feeling off. So gathering inspiration is something that learn as you shoot more and more. Photography has always inspired me and music too.. Fellow photographer friends can push you and compete with you to inspire you. But again its back to the people for me.. the conversations you have, the atmosphere on a wedding day and the people in it all provide the inspiration. The challenge of capturing that and doing the best job for each of our clients is inspirational. So on the day working to capture that is when I feel most inspired in this Job
How do you feel meeting a new bride to be?
I’ve always enjoyed meeting people and chatting with them. I love to show them our work and hear what they’re about and hopefully find a link or spark so we both know that we’re right for them and they’re right for us.
I think it’s as important that we choose the right people as much as they choose us, to be sure that we all fit and so when we produce what we do it’s what they’re expecting.
Fundamentally we try to keep our style candid and relaxed, how we like it but from time to time a couple might ask if we can do something a little outside or scope and that’s fine with us.
What do you like to hear from a bride?
Can we book... its the biggest compliment we could get.. they like our work, like what we do and want us to be part of one of the biggest days of their lives so far... what more can I tell ya!
How did you find your calling? Get started in your industry?
I’ve always loved music and photography but worked as an Engineer for 12 years. Finally in 2006 I decided that I wanted to go back to college at night and study photography. I loved the film aspect of photography but being a techie sort of person I was really interested in the move to digital that was happening at the time. After 2 years in Griffith College I was asked to shoot a friends wedding. It was nerve wracking but from the start I knew I wanted to shoot it in a very relaxed and candid way. I didn’t really like the idea of setting things up. I never mind doing the family photos and a few portraits, I think they’re important to the couple but always felt the rest of the day should be a flow or narrative of images.
After that I started to get a few more weddings here and there and eventually setup a website and having the background in tech helped.
A year on from that we decided to go full time as things really took off and we haven’t really looked back since. We’ve been doing this now for 10 years and have shot and met hundreds of great people looking forward to many more!
A big thank you to Moat Hill for sharing insights into their business and work. Check out more of their wonderful work and see the passion that is injected into their images.
Website : www.mhphoto.ie
Instagram : Moathillphotography
Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/Moathillphoto/
Twitter : Moathillphoto
Tumblr : moathill.tumblr
