Crackin' up!

It was great to meet last week with Paul Moloney a Dublin bar manager who was striking out to take on the world and do his level best to make a life for himself in Perth Australia.

Paul has secured sponsorship in Australia and so he is away to manage a bar and by now he is well into  his second week at work there.

I met Paul on Harry Street Dublin outside the famous Bruxelles pub and club where he fancied posing with one of Ireland's rock legends and larger than life personalities Philip Lynott.

Its hard to believe that Phil passed away over 25 years ago during the middle of our last big wave of emigration, around about the time that I lost all of my siblings to London.

Paul, a very happy and vibrant man told me after the shoot of his family and their connections to Australia through family members who had moved down through the years.

He was optimistic for his future and delighted for the opportunities which lay ahead but he did add,

"I have much love for this country, this city and my own home town. It's a place I would love to be able to excel in and ply my trade at a level I want to, with success....But......sadly.... IT AIN'T POSSIBLE."

We wish Paul the best and remember one of Phil's insightful lyrics of memory and loss

Iv'e been spending my time in the old town,

I sure miss you honey since your not around,

since your not around this old town.

I really look forward to catching up with Paul when I visit Perth in early November, by then hopefully he will be feeling at home!!

Both Ray and Artur were at hand to look after the technical stuff and as always all went smoothly with their guidance.

Post 115!

Well here we are two months off a three year stint here on blogger,approaching 60,000 pageviews,a successful show behind me in Dublin,and a major solo show in Melbourne,Australia fast approaching.
I thought I would take this opportunity to alert you all to the above and to show further developments from the follow up process which I have embarked upon.

I FOLLOW ON!

It was with great delight that I traveled by car across the rolling French countryside to Quimper in Brittany to meet Tady Walsh,his wife Milena,and their new beautiful baby Helena.
Staying across the other side of the region I messaged Tady on spec to see if he was around.
He told me that they had just had a child some hours previous and he was very excited at the prospect of all that was to come.I said I would call him again towards the end of the week.I did and arrived to his house to meet him and Helena who was by then a little short of 2 weeks old.(Milena was resting at this time)

Tady still works for the same company he was with in Ireland,all of his work is carried out online so for him the the move to France was merely to try something different,to be located centrally between Ireland and Montenegro(Milina's homeland)and perhaps there was a small need to escape the crushing negativity that exudes our capital at the moment.

Whatever the case Tady and Milena have started to write a new chapter of their life with Helena

I wish them all the best and look forward to dropping in on them again to see how things are going.

this Is the second visit I have made to a sitter in their new location(the first being Conor Mc Mahon), and I am so far happy with the choices I have made regarding the capture of this work.When I go to Australia next month I hope to make several calls to the many sitters I have photographed and to make work on a similar style.It would be beneficial at this point to know what you the viewer think of this mode of work (medium format,120 monochrome film,wide angle lens,no flash)

When it comes to preparing a book I feel that these closer square images will offer a good counterpoint to the other work already shot in colour.

Please let me know what you think in the comments box!!

DM1.