Commercial Photography - Photographing people at work

As a corporate photographer, part of my job is to photograph people at work. It is a privilege to watch experts from all walks of life engaging with their work and I am often left with a sense of wonder at the sheer variety of skills, that I see people bring to their jobs. Here are just a few examples. You can see more on my website: noelhillis.com

Coast - a personal photographic project

COAST, is an ongoing personal environmental photographic project, which tries to examine objectively how the sea interacts with man made structures, both on the water and beside it. This particular set was photographed in the west of Ireland during Autumn and Winter 2016. Check out my website to see some more images from the project.

Commercial photography in Ireland 2016 - some of the work produced by Noel Hillis Photographer

During 2016, I was commissioned to produce corporate portraits for the covers of a number of business magazines. As always my gratitude goes to the editors who commissioned me . My favourites among the covers that I photographed were Aidan Cotter, CEO of An Bord Bia, the Irish Food Board, who was photographed for Agri-Food Magazine, Eavann Murphy, Chief Commercial Officer at eir Business was photographed for the cover of Eolas and new CEO of Gaelectric, Barry Gavin was photographed for cover of Energy Ireland’s Renewable Energy Magazine.

Over the past few years, I have had the pleasure of photographing dozens of milk men for Glanbia’s award winning website mymilkman.ie. So it was nice to have my photographic glass "milk bottle” ceiling shattered during the summer, by photographing County Kildare milkman, Jennifer Daly.

 

One of my favourite photographic commissions is to produce commercial photography for annual reports. Among the Annual Reports in which my work appeared during the year were those for Greencore, LauraLynn Children’s Hospice and An Bord Pleanala . Pictured above are some tear sheets from each of them.

As an admirer of his environmental work, I had wanted to photograph His Excellency, Jean-Pierre Thébault, French Ambassador to Ireland, for some time and was delighted when I was commissioned to produce this editorial portrait by Eolas, at Environment Ireland in Croke Park.

Once again, it was a particularly busy year for conference and event photography and one of my favourite event moments was this spontaneous selfie setup, photographed at the very busy Social Media Dublin Conference, in Chartered Accountants House.

As in previous years, I have enjoyed working in a variety of beautiful venues over the past 12 months including photographing a number of events at Carton House in Co. Kildare. Such events often give me the opportunity to add value to my clients offering and allows me to polish my architectural photography and landscape photography skills as well.

Given my marketing background, Its nice to be involved in producing interesting PR photography. This image of SEAT brand ambassador, Anna Daly from TV3, was designed to highlight the new forecourt branding at the Enniscorthy Motor Company.

Of course, as a commercial photographer in Ireland, I still have to be able to photograph just about anything. For example I produced these editorial food photographs, in a contemporary style, to illustrate an article on winter and summer antipasti. As a bonus at the end of the shoot, I also got to taste some of the food and wine as well!

By producing personal photography, my creativity gets a shot of adrenalin which carries over into my commercial work. This year I have been experimenting a lot with “contre-jour” or photographing into the light. Have a look at my Instagram account here for more examples. This particular favourite was photographed at the end of November in Connemara, at the beautiful Trá an Dóilín, (the Coral Strand) just outside Carraroe, in County Galway. The amazing cloud formation, a forbearer of bad weather, was photographed looking west, towards America and offered a real sense of the calm before the storm.

During the long grey Irish summer, I was commissioned to produce photographs of a number of primary food producers for use as packaging and marketing material, for a national supermarket chain. They say that you should never work with animals, but these County Galway cattle were very cooperative, when I was photographing ecologically minded farmer Ulick Egan. And yes, my favourite image of the year, is literally, of a man who is out standing in his own field!

Thank you to everyone who commissioned, supported, looked at, enjoyed and/or benefitted from my photography over the past year. I am very grateful and hope to see you again in 2017

Christmas Greetings

Thank you for your support this year and I would like to wish you all the very best for Christmas and the New Year.

Black and white portrait photography

Here are two photographs that I produced this year. They both tell very different stories but they both tell exactly the story that was requested. They were both designed to be produced as black and white images.

The first image was photographed to be used as a professional profile image, on platforms such as LinkedIn etc. The brief was to show an engaging, professional and approachable person. I lit my subject very simply, choosing beautiful summer evening soft natural lighting and contrasted my clients features against the dark background. It is a very classic type of image, but her dress, hair and simple makeup give it a beautiful contemporary feel.

The second image was designed for an editorial feature on the “new” Irish in Ireland. My subjects journey to his new home had not been easy and this affected how I both lit and directed the photograph. A single flash angled at about 45/55 degrees to the right was used with an additional unit lighting the background. My subject is a very highly educated man and I positioned him to look directly into the camera and tell me his fascinating story. It was then up to me to choose the right moment to press the camera shutter. I think that the image worked really well.

While most of my work is in colour, black and white photography can say so much about the person being photographed, as well as about the skill of the photographer. This is why choosing a professional and briefing them thoroughly is so important, as is making sure that the photographer actually understands what it is that you, the client, wants and needs the photograph to achieve.

Commercial photography for packaging in Ireland

It was a privilege to be commissioned to photograph father and son milk delivery family, Tom Gaskin Snr and Tom Jnr, for the commemorative Premier Milk 50th anniversary carton, in recognition of their 50 years serving the community.

Tom Gaskin Snr started his milk round in 1966, delivering glass bottles from a milk float on behalf of Premier Dairies. Tom Jnr then joined his father in the family business in 1988 and eventually took over the milkround when his father recently retired.

New Website

My new website at noelhillis.com has gone live with thanks to my good friends in Photoshelter. The general look remains the same, but it has been set up to look good on mobile devices and can also house more portfolio images than before. It also links to my instagram and twitter feeds. Let me know what you think.