Den Photograph Ross McDonnel hatte ich schon vor einigen Wochen mit seiner beeindruckenden Serie „Joyrider“ auf Weg Eins. Nun füllte der Ire meinen „hallo Name“ Fragebogen aus. I’m pleased.

Your Passion.

I am a photographer and documentary maker. My passion is photography and I like to work on the streets making pictures and having the freedom to follow my instincts and look for interesting images that don’t necessarily have a story or make sense. That is the beauty of photography to me. My job is as a freelance image maker doing documentaries and commercial camerawork. Most of the projects I work on are self-motivated, I spend a lot of time writing grant proposals and trying to develop new ideas and looking for freelance work for corporate and commercial clients in between. I am very lucky that I can juggle these elements of my life, it gives me a lot of freedom.

Inspiration / Motivation.

I was inspired by the reading books and by the cinema when I was young. I think that fueled my imagination and ultimately led me to pick up a camera.

I am motivated to use photography to try to understand myself and my place in the world. The camera is a wonderful tool to be curious with, to use as a passport into worlds that are not your own but that you are interested in. Eventually this curiosity might lead you into a world that you like to inhabit for a long time, other times for just a fraction of a second.

Daily Routine.

I used to get terribly frustrated if I didn’t make pictures every single day, to always be shooting. I would think of all the amazing things that were happening all over the world at any given second and want to be there, photographing them all. Now I am a little more realistic about photography and try to structure my time wisely to develop projects that are more focussed long term in their aims. Right now I am working on a new documentary project and am preparing to film for the next week, making interviews and shooting footage for it. As I write I just had some lunch and my clothes are in the washing machine at the Laundromat. I have to put them into the dryer and go to the post-office and book my flights.

Future.

As I said I am working on a documentary project with my collaborator Carter Gunn whom I made „Colony“ with. He is a natural filmmaker and I’m fortunate to be able to work with someone like that to develop projects together. What do I want to come next? Hopefully just to grow as a filmmaker and photographer and try to balance these elements of my life and work on things that are interesting and exotic and keep me involved and interested for a long time to come!

3 Albums.

„Astral Weeks“ by Van Morrison for the memories. Arcade Fire for the concert this summer. And The Specials for shouting and dancing around to.