What sparked your interest in photography ? 

My mother had a camera and she bought me a kit to develop film .
That got me very interested .

 Which photographers do you admire ? Walker Evans , Lewis Hine . Raymond Meeks, Josef Sudek. 

Where did you train / study ?
Trained in London with around 13 photographers doing a variety of work but mostly advertising . I studied a masters in photography at The University of Westminster . 

Who were your early teachers or mentors ? Paddy Pendergast took me into the Air corps to see the photo section of the Irish Military . At that time they were mapping the country using a plane fitted with very large format roll film camera . They would also be responsible for photographing prisoner head shots and doing large military group shots as well as lots of other stuff .Theo Bergstrom taught me so much about how to light in his London studio, he was a great teacher, photographer and person . 

What are your artistic influences ?
Atget, Walker Evans ,Tarkovsky , Irving penn, John Wooden , John Cassavetes, Lewis hine , Vittorio Storaro , Johan Cruyff ,David Byrne , Leo Messi, David Bowie , Andra Pirlo, Clive Woodward , Van Morrison , Rembrandt , Walter Murch , David Hockney , John Claridge ,William Eggleston, Roe Ethridge , Hoyte van Hoytema, Roger Deakins, Emmanuel Lubezki, Ang Lee, Chris Doyle just to name a few. 

What was the most satisfying moment on a job ?
-Chilling in the sand dunes listening to the art director telling stories of the glory days of advertising .
-Getting a letter of thanks from a client at the end of a project was a nice surprise . Laughing my head off while photographing my assistant Hu in his boxers in the street in Brooklyn for a job. 

 Have you made any memorable mistakes ?
Yes . On my very first job. I was wearing a wool jumper that my aunt knitted for me while loading film in the darkroom and the tiny natural fibres came off and onto the film. All the shots had to be retouched. That was a big deal then.

What’s the best advice you’ve received ?
Don’t make the same mistake twice (Alex Ferguson)

What recent art works inspired you ?
Gravity and The Revenant two films shot by Emmanuel Lubezki, The Films IDA, Her and Mud and The Vertical Ray of the Sun. The Queen of Ireland and 100 Mornings by Conor Horgan. Eamon Doyle’s Books. 

If weren’t a photographer what might you be doing ?
Cinematography or Chef . 

Books that I keep handy ….

What is good, Phaedrus, and what is not good-
Need we ask anyone to tell us these things?*

I have books everywhere and over the years I have learned so much before Youtube , Google and Lynda.
Learning from books and from working with  the top Photographic Studios in London and from my own endeavours , shooting , shooting , shooting. The books I have chosen here speak to me for various reasons. I have excluded photography picture books. Thats for another post.
The books here are not about Photography or Film but I get so much from them that feeds into my work , how I look at the world and how I prepare for my work.

 Mastery by George Leonard is an interesting study of pilot training and Mastery is a subject close to my heart. Leonard teases out different kinds of Mastery and you will have to read it to find out which type you are. Having experienced many masters at work , particularly in the top kitchens and observed Athletes , Mastery is something we should all read about, what it is , how can we get it and is it even worth it? I have a Masters in Photography, did I say that ? The Art of Travel By Alain De Botton is a little book I loved reading as it had a different take on what it means to travel and one of the lines I loved was “ the trouble with travel is we bring ourselves with us “ He turns on his head the tourist travel experience . The Peregrine By J. A Baker is a beautiful work of superb description and poetic writing that I’m currently reading to inform my own Photography and Film Making. Barker concentrates on a patch of land near his home and that is a lesson in itself. Werner Herzog loves this book . Walker Evans (any book will do ) I keep coming back to Walker Evans direct and Sociological type of photography work. Evans was perhaps one of the first Modernist Photographers. He advocated shooting from the stomach ! The Object Stares back By James Elkins This book is about seeing and Elkins lifts under the carpet to examine stuff like blindness and how bodies and weird objects have been repressed. Gets the creative juices flowing. Packed with good stuff on seeing and even seeing to much . The Essential Wooden
Learn from the master basketball Coach John Wooden. Wooden was considered one of the best all time coaches. Learn about motivation, attention to detail, how to compete and how to prepare to win, about the downside of talent and how to put things into perspective (great reading) Hamburgers in Paradise A tour de force of the history of food and the mythologies of food , it tackles food shortages and current problems in food production in detail and with vision.
Our relationship with food and how we view food its all in there, superb. At almost 500 pages, I’m still reading it. I expect this will inform my short Film Making ideas around food. Zen and The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig Ok you have always wanted to read it now is the perfect time. This is not about how to repair your Motorbike, it’s subtitled, an inquiry into values. It’s an incredible journey and belongs up there with the Peregrine. You will learn about observation, detail and mastery by reading this one and about yourself.
Published by Viking.
* headline quote from Zen and the art 

Not a day goes by when I don’t come across some amazing ( really) new technology for Photography and film.
New equipment , new apps, new photo services . The rate of change and innovation in photography is staggering . New gimbals for film work , new apps like After-light , FaceTune and Mavis . My favourites are Sun seeker to track the sun while shooting or planning a shoot and Cine Meter 2 and Mavis . Mavis turns the iPhone in to a proper video camera . The new equipment I love are the mirror less cameras from Sony with 5 axis image stabilisation and new lenses , to many to mention here .
However sometimes the best work comes from limiting your resources , it makes you more creative I believe . It makes you concentrate more on the work than the tools  . Avedon  used to call it a series of no’s . He’d have a project and he would decide no to this type of light , pose, composition or whatever . I’ve got a series of ads coming up with two different ad agencies and both campaigns only have what needs to be there , strong and simple. Good art directors know that.
Photograph by Bill Brandt .
Brandt used a simple approach to create some of the most memorable photography . I must tell the story of when I called Bill for a job as an assistant . When I lived in London i would spend part of each day in phone boxes or on a Motorola mobile phone calling up photographers looking for assisting work and one day I was surprised to find the legend Bill Brandt’s number . I loved his work so I called him up . Hi can I speak to Bill ? The voice on the other end seemed a bit puzzled . Is Bill there I said ? Bill is dead , the voice said . Can I help you ? Oh I was just looking to assist him . You can’t assist him now , she said . Embarrassed . I didn’t realise he had died a few years earlier.