Santa Claus visits Lauralynn House in Dublin

Santa and Mrs Claus were kind enough to pose for this family portrait when they visited the LauraLynn Christmas party last week.

After giving the Reindeer a well earned pre-Christmas rest, Santa arrived by helicopter to the joy of children and parents alike.

 A Garda escort brought him to the party where the welcome was stellar!

Santa and his helpers spent the next few hours meeting the Children and presenting them with some early Christmas gifts.

As always the Staff at LauraLynn did an amazing job on the day, as did the team from Blackthorn Arts, Pilot Paul O'Donnell and the Garda Traffic Corps.

Lifestyle portraits in Dublin

This is make-up artist Frances Galligan with whom I had the pleasure of working with on a recent portrait shoot. Frances specialises in special effects make-up for film, theatre and photography. However for this shoot she created a really natural look that made my job that much easier. You can see some of her work at TakeForm FX. 

New portrait photography website

After much work behind the scenes, the new Noel Hillis Photography website is now ipad and iphone friendly. It is also happy to show up in many other places that don't begin with an i! 

Portraits for DSI

This is one of a number of advertisments being used by Down Syndrome Ireland to help to promote awareness and to educate people with Down syndrome about their rights.

As always, it was both a privilege and a pleasure to produce work with the wonderful people at DSI. 

Tomorrow, November 10th, is voting day for the Children's Referendum in Ireland. If you can, please use your vote!

Portrait Photography in Dublin

Producing these environmental portraits of Nancy Robinson was both a pleasure and a challenge! We had very little daylight with which to work and Nancy made me laugh so much, that it was difficult for me to keep the camera still! 

We were both really happy with the results.

Headshot Photography in Dublin

 Here are examples of the variety of "looks" that can be produced during a head shot photography session.

Using a mix of natural light and flash, this portrait session with Cillian Dore lasted less than an hour.

Lauralynn House is one year old!

 I can hardly believe that Lauralynn House - Ireland's First Children's Hospice - is one year old! 

The opening by then President Mary McAleese in September of last year was the culmination of the efforts of a great many people, but especially those of Jane & Brendan McKenna, founders of the Lauralynn Children's Hospice charity in memory of their daughters Laura and Lynn.

In the first year, the staff of this wonderful facility have provided support and care for over 100 families of seriously ill children and have helped, to use Jane McKenna's words "put life into a child’s day".

Amazingly, the hospice still receives no state funding and survives on the generosity of donations and the success of fundraising. 

One of the most remarkable fundraisers is Fran O'Brien who with her husband Arthur has raised over €150,000 by donating all of the proceeds from her novels to Lauralynn house. Fran is pictured here with Jane McKenna, founder of Lauralynn Children's Hospice, at the launch of her 6th novel, "Fairfields". You can buy Fairfields at most major bookstores or online here.

Find out more about LauraLynn, Ireland's Children's Hospice here.