Hello and welcome to Out of the Darkroom on AdoramaTV.
I'm Ruth Medjber and joining me on the show today I have world renowned film
stills photographer Aidan Monaghan.
Aidan thank you so much for joining me today
and so maybe if you could give our viewers a little bit of an insight into
how you got started in photography.
Ok well nice to meet you and thanks for having me along today. I
suppose I've always kind of made pictures funny from some kind of an
early ago.
I was kind of one of those kids who like to kind of make and paint and sketch,
probably a bit of a nightmare for kind of making a mess out the garage and
stuff like that you know.
I've always been very visual in terms of how I've learned as opposed to kind of
learning by rote. Are you self taught or did you learn on the job shadowing
somewhere else or did you just learn by yourself or did you go to school for it?
Sure,
well I'm kind of in terms of photography I’m self taught. So my
background was in architecture and I think kind of there is a very similar
strand of thought that exists through architecture and photography and
kind of the core idea of it’s a space,
it's a concept, it's how you light the space, you know things like that
are very, very similar and through my architectural education and through
practice I always used photography to kind of explain ideas, to
document ideas, to record and ultimately that led me to working full time as a
photographer from around 2009.
Was it the architectural photography that first got you into
photographing things, I mean just looking at your architecture photography work is
absolutely stunning,
you can kind of see your sense of space through it, was that you're jumping off
point? Jumping off point in a way, I guess
I'd always kind of been the person who you know through studying I would
travel to these buildings, I'd document them I’d photograph them.
But also and I guess it's a bit of a throwback to the days when I used to do
paintings of people,
I was doing a lot of theatre work in my spare time, so working with kind of
playwrights in Belfast, documenting and photographing their play and doing the
publicity work for them. So it kind of came to a point were with with the
kind of recession of 2008/2009 that it kind of made sense for me to kind of, look this
is a jumping off point. Let's see what photography takes me.
So you would have had a bit of a background kind of an
introduction into the theater and into the acting kind of world, is that how you
started to move into the film stills?
Yes, that kind of lead me I guess towards my first job which was the short filmcall
The Shore, directed by Terry George and his daughter Oorlagh George was also producer
on that. I remember sending my CV in at the time which did have a mix of
landscape, architecture but also the theater work and one of the things she
commented on with the landscape work and specifically because the shore was very
much kind of landscape based piece of film because it takes place on a
tidal inlet, in a place called Killough Co. Down. So the guys are out
picking muscles on this tidal inlet. So the rhythm of the whole shoot kind
of tied in with when the tide was in and when the tide was out.
So in many ways and understanding of landscape and light was a massive part
of that film. I see, so they preferred your work over someone else that might have
had maybe more experience shooting theatrical sets because you had an
understanding of everything else, of the landscape.
I guess so, it's something that Oorlagh commented on and that kind of got
me my first kind of break into the world of film and the interesting thing
was, The Shore
a year later won the Oscar for the best short film in 2011.
So you had that on your CV now, that was a nice one
yeah and I think it just kind of came together in a way in that sense.
Did it just snowball since then? I guess you kind of with how the film industry
evolved in Ireland and in North Ireland, people have begun to look at here as
a really good place to shoot and so you start off and you kind of
work on shorts
and then you get kind of effectively low-budget features that
build and over time you can build up the confidence, portfolio and the
knowledge and an etiquette of working on set because set is it is a world
were you have to learn and you have to observe particularly as a still
photographer because your brought in as I guess your roles is to kind of
observe, document and to try and capture the key shots
that help you define what the films about. Wow, so it's kind of like documentary
almost in that you're standing back and observing and then.. There
is a bit of that, you can almost approach it like a photo essay
in a way. One aspect is to catch those key shots within scene that try and
define the essence of what the films about. To capture the public's imagination, you
know of all the thousands of shots of you'll shoot you have
a handful of shots that just bang, they just shine out.
When you're working on set then do you interrupt the flow of things to go
can I just take that shot, like to you to stop things or are you shooting while
things are in action. How do you get your shots. You largely try to avoid to
interrupt the kind of flow of the onset shoot, where you can you're
working silently with the silent shutter and work in scene. You have to be
kind of as unobtrusive as you can.
There has to be times as well when you you would obviously interrupt things
right? There are certain times when you, again it's all about getting into
that rhythm and seeing how people work, how directors operate and the speed and
pace at which they work at.
So there will be little moments of lull in between setups and I guess
that's your opportunity to grab someone or ask
do you mind if I get a shot of you doing that or in this position or in this
costume. Would you do this again for me sort of stuff.
There are little moments but the skill is
timing those moments and seeing which are the important moments to capture
from that. The other aspect of that as well is where you will do what are called setups
or specials and those are usually either for instance within
the context of shooting for the poster image.
Sure. So in that instance you'll be working to a brief, there will sometimes be a concept
sketch of poses and concept of what they want to come across in terms of the
poster and that will be a much more controlled environment where it's like a
studio set so you are lighting that.
You've got your backdrop and you’ve maybe got an hour, 45 minutes sometimes less with
the actor it just depends.
Those will be a set list that will be agreed
and then there's always that kind of human interaction that you don't expect
and then within that interaction you suddenly get that shot
that just shines you know and that's another aspect of my job, I suppose it kind of
falls into three categories. There's the the first kind of key
part which is the film based side of it.
So you are working within the context of the set within the scene as the actors do what
they do.
The other aspect is the documentary side the almost photo essay of those
kind of lovely behind-the-scenes shots where you kind of capture those little
moments where the directors is talking to the actors or those kind of
completely you know just magic moments when someone throws a little look or
does something, you're always kind of aware.
You're almost in your reaction to be like a little bit like a
coil spring because those impromptu moments you see them they are gone, so you almost have
to be ready to snap those, but when they do work you'll find that you've got some
of the most memorable images in terms of what you'll see reproduced years
later.
Then the third aspect which is what I just talk about which is the
still set up for ether poster or publicity shot.
Fantastic. Well that's all we have for this episode i hope you enjoyed it
please join me again for part two where going to be chatting to Aidan some more.
If you would you would like to brush up on your own photography skills check out the
Adorama Learning Center and if you'd like to watch more videos then subscribe
to our YouTube channel.
Thanks and I'll see you again soon