Hello and welcome
to Out of the Darkroom
on AdoramaTV.
I'm Ruth Medjber
and joining me on today's show
is conceptual photographer
Jason McGroarty.
Jason thank you so much
for coming on
the show today. You're welcome
I'm really sad you
didn't bring your cat though,
I know yeah well
she's too sick,
she can't travel you see.
Awe.
Tell me a little bit
about Hummus will you?
Well we got Hummus when she was quite
young she was a kitten and then she
started to get really unhealthy,
she started to get really skinny
and so we brought
her to the vet
and found out that
she had feline leukemia
which is fine, it's manageable
it's grand, you know, she's up now she
might get lucky, she's a bit sick
at the minute
and so we started taking care of her.
Looking after she's got a little bit
chubby, she got a little bit skinny
and has been
this constant revolve ever since.
Awe, so you're just looking
after her.
People watching the show might be
like why are they talking about his cat
on a photography show,
but it's because you do this really,
amazing series of photographs
of your cat.
I do, yes.
I had done, I'd dabbled in fashion photography,
and I really kind of struggled,
I don't really take photos of people quite well
you know it was an area
that I struggled with
and I'm the worst, at like,
interacting with people,
so I decided, I came back
I had done about three or four different
photo shoots at one stage
and I came back I was exhausted.
I put my gear down
and my partner at the time, was like,
there's got to be a better way, you know
if you want to just
develop your portfolio?
and out walked Hummus
and so we decided right,
we'll give it a whirl
so I threw up like
this old backdrop
on top of my
kitchen counter
threw up a couple of little
pieces ripped apart an old shirt
and threw it around her
and decided then
we'll take some portraits.
So we got like bold lighting,
set it up, took a few photos of her.
They're terrible photographs
but that was the foundation.
The magic was created
Yes that was it.
So we used like these old
hippie rags that we'd thrown on her
and we put like a little bead
on top of her head
and she's just sat there
the whole time.
But how did you get your cat to sit
still for a picture?
Copious amounts of treats.
Is it? Is it treats or like cat nap?
Yes ,she's chill anyway
because like I said with leukemia
she's always at the vets.
She's the best cat.
She'll sit there no problem
at the vets.
Chill out, and then once,
we actually,
it's gotten to a stage now
where I'll set up the studio
and you'll hear,
she'll come running out
and she'll jump up.
She knows? Yeah.
See I didn't realize that you
you started off
doing fashion photography.
Were you, did you study photography
or is it something that you were
self-taught and fell into yourself?
Yeah, I kind of,
beforehand when I was younger
I used to dabble around in like ink
and stencil work
and yeah loads of
different forms of art,
and I went for a very brief
amount of time to college
to do art design in Londonderry.
Two days. Yeah,
and it was kind of,
they handed me a camera
for my first module
and I took a few photos
and was like, yep, perfect.
This is great.
That's all I need.
Yes I think I'll take a run at it myself
and so I dropped out, I was like
mwaa, you know "formal education"
jumped into it
and I had no camera I started off
with absolutely nothing.
It's a good start.
Yeah and a friend
asked me to do a portrait
and I went down took a portrait
and then as a consequence
I got a lend of this old
you know the Nikon F4 series?
Yes
Which was like the foundation
for the modern SLR
that we have now
and I started playing around on that
it was a clunky thing, it was horrible
and it was work. I love it. Really?
Yeah I do. It's so noisy.
Yeah, it's magic
with like purple film
and things and so I went
and I would go out at night
because I was working at the time.
I'd go out at night with a notebook, you know,
write down stats; blah blah blah.
Write it all down
and come back develop them
check them out and then I got way
to into it and then I got a camera
for my birthday
and haven't looked back since
So it's not just Hummus the amazing
cat that you shoot,
you also do some
pretty cool Fine Art series like really
conceptual stuff right?
Yeah.
Tell us a little bit
about the Totem series if you will?
Yeah, Totem, I mean I've always,
I'm from Donegal
it's saturated in nature
and wildlife,
and a lot of my work
is based around like nature and wildlife.
You wouldn't see a lot of people
in my work,
that's why I like it
and it was
kind of based around the idea
that the wildlife
is starting to breach
the barriers of the city
and so I decided
yeah, I must do a project
to kind of,
create that awareness.
And what a project you did,
I mean some really amazing
characters in there
Yeah. I need to know.
I need to know how it's done?
The fox is not brought
into a casino, yeah
everyone wants to know is it brought
into the casino?
It's impossible even trying to get a photo
in a casino.
So it's not like a dead fox
taxidermy or anything?
Its wildlife photography
so it's like a three step process
and trying to get as much right as
I can possibly get right in camera
at the time so that it minimizes
the amount of Photoshop
that I do afterwards.
So I would take the shots
of the casino first.
I would know
all the main lighting sources.
So from the slot machine is the
main source of light
and then I would wait
and there's, my grandfather feeds
wild fox
at his home. Handy. Yeah
There's foxes everywhere
up in that part of the town,
So I sat waited for the sunlight to be
at the right angle
snap took about 10 - 15 shots
and then went back to the same
place made a 3D representatives
of the fox, out of like clothes
just anything to mimic the form.
So you get the shadow then is it?
Yeah. Wow okay.
and I'd slice the three
together so it's there's no heavy, heavy
Photoshop it's just a nice net,
going together,
three images,
sliced together
and it makes the image then.
Are all the animals
in that series then,
are they are they
all your own photographs?
Yeah, yeah they're shot in different
locations I mean,
I would shoot
ones in Donegal,
others maybe in a zoo
because there's no
bears roaming around.
Yeah.
You're not exactly going
to see a Russian bear
standing around.
Wildlife Russian bear
coming up the streets
of Donegal.
Where did you photograph the owl?
They would be in,
like different sanctuaries.
and things so yeah.
So you go and visit sanctuaries?
Yeah, I mean there's falconry
and everything up in Donegal,
so it's easy to find someone.
At the moment I'm working
on a couple of different projects
where I've come back
to the house
and there has been dead animals
all over my house,
you know from, I've gutted fish
you know. Ohh!
Catching fish and sourcing them.
For a photo project?
Yeah and I would eat them afterwards
it's all ethically done.
But you have a series
A Place To Go, Please
Yeah. Right?
And that's just,
you've created these fantastical
worlds, that are so,
it's so cool to look at you know
obviously completely fake,
because you put a whole world
in a teacup or in a coffee cup
or in,
you know you've put Moscow
into a shot glass
and things like that. Yes. It's just,
it's really fantastical
that must be so much
fun to just create right?
Yeah, yeah
absolutely I think the biggest
thing that makes them network
together and makes it,
if you see,
an image that has been Photoshopped
and you say that's
Photoshopped straight away.
The biggest giveaway
is the lighting,
you know
if the lighting doesn't make sense
and it's never going
to blend well so just getting your
lighting, everything right is fantastic
and for A Place to Go series
because outside photography
it's like a natural
soft box in Ireland anyway as well,
so taking any image is going to slice
together pretty easily with it
so I had ended up putting them in,
I wanted to sum up
in A Place to Go,
I wanted to sum up essentially
the whole city into one drink
and the most associated drink that
I have ever come across,
do you know, which was
London in a teacup,
you know and what did
we get we get?
We got a pint. Yeah.
I know, I'm sorry.
They're really cool. Yeah, just
removes you away
because I mean you've been
adopted.
Let us just use
that word adopted by the Fine Art
Photography community right?
I have yeah
and they've taken you as one of your own
and gone we love him. Yeah.
I don't know how
I got into it really,
it was an amalgamation
of different events
I started doing a couple
of different exhibitions
I'd done one solo exhibition
and thought great, you know
I love doing the
whole exhibition side of things.
Yeah I can see
because you're like your resume
online is just like, whoa exhibitions,
Yeah,
it went, it skyrocketed over the past
couple of years
and then I started
applying for, people told me I should
apply for maybe like at an arts grant
or an awards, send my name
in for a competition
and I started getting
notoriety from that.
I got Fine Art Photographer of the year,
Conceptual Photographer the year,
those guys would
contact me say hey
do you want to do an exhibition?
You know, it would be nice
to see your work on the wall
I said yep absolutely let's do it
and then from there on it just
kind of snowballed, and it went crazy, yeah
Brilliant so is that something that you'd
recommend then so like people watching
this and want to get into more of the
Art side of the world of Fine Art
Photography is to get into it by
applying for awards or competitions?
I think you, most importantly is just
work on your work
you know make sure
that what you're doing
is something
unique, you know,
because it's a
dog-eat-dog world photography.
I love this insight
it's brilliant,
listen thank you
for sharing all this with me now
but if will you stick with me
and we are,
we are going to talk about the gear
and particularly the gear that you use
and the constructs
that you put Hummus
into and things like that.
Yes. Cool all right
thanks, Jason, cheers!
That's all we have time for
for this episode.
but Jason's going to be joining
me again soon
and we're going to chat about
the techniques he uses in his work.
If you'd like to brush up
on your own photography skills,
then check out
the Adorama Learning Center
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then subscribe to our channel.
Thanks
and we'll see you again soon.