[Photographer Profile] #3 MaggyM

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Hi, My name is Maggy Morrissey and photography is what I most like to spend my time doing, to be honest I couldn't imagine my life without it now. Landscape, architecture, and macro would probably be my favourite types of photography to do, but I enjoy looking at all types of imagery.

My love affair with all things photography began not that long ago in 2007 when I bought my first digital camera. I used to paint (very badly) and I bought the camera to take photographs of scenes I wanted to paint. It didn't take long for the photography to take over, actually it was pretty instant. With a technical background, I think maybe photography hit a nice mix of technical and creative for me.





My photography education started with a book called 'DSLR's for Dummies' (I'm not kidding), paired with a lot of googling, and then I did a night course with IOP. I also spent a lot of time taking bad photos! The instant feedback from a digital camera, and the wealth of information on the internet, make it so so much easier to learn, not to mention all the online communities like boards.ie, where you can ask questions and get answers back instantly. I have so much admiration for anyone who learned photography only using film. In my student days I borrowed an SLR from my brother, but after paying a small fortune to have 5 rolls of very badly exposed photos developed, I figured I would probably starve trying to learn. Having taken the relatively easy route to learning photography with digital, I've recently started to experiment with film. My Holga exposures are not fit for publication yet though and my film developing skills need a lot of practice



My favourite way to learn, or play with photography, is to set myself little projects with a deadline. For example I might set myself a deadline of a few hours, a week, or a month, to shoot a series of 3, 5, or 10 photos on a theme that could be as concrete as 'white flowers', or 'laundry', or as vague as '3', or using one focal length, or a technique I wanted to learn. The challenge is to make all the photos work together as a set. I would say that without a doubt, this helped my photography the most.







I also go through phases where I don't like the photos i'm taking and feel like I'll never take another photo that I like again. When this happens I try to just keep taking photos anyway and just enjoy the process without caring about the outcome, and trust that it will turn around, which it always does.





I love the whole process of taking photographs as much as the end result. I enjoy arriving at a location and nosing around while getting a feel for the place, getting lost in framing things in my head and figuring out how best to photograph something. I have always found photography to be a very calming and soothing activity, and I hope that my photographs are beginning to reflect that. My favourite time of day to photograph landscapes is dawn, not just because of the light, but also the calm quietness at that time of the day.





On the subject of style, I don't know if I have one but I have a good idea what I like and how I want the final image to look. In general, I like simple compositions with clean elegant lines and very few elements. I would have a preference for black and white, as it helps simplify things even further. Having said that, I've recently been playing with colour and texture in photographs and it's surprising how much I'm enjoying it. I also love the simplicity of the square format and nearly all my photographs would be composed with that in mind. I'm sure my taste will continue to develop, and with that my photographs, so I'm looking forward to experimenting and seeing how it changes.











In terms of post pressing, I use both photoshop and lightroom, although I find myself using photoshop less and less as I get to know lightroom more. Like my photos, I prefer to keep my processing simple, but will do what is needed to get the image to look the way I want it to. I enjoy this aspect of photography too and it feels like polishing something to bring out it's best features.







Up until the last year or so I would only occasionally print images, but now it's an essential part of my workflow and a good print is the ultimate aim for me. When I started printing more of my photographs, I had to go back and re-edit quite a few of them. Mostly, I found the prints too dark which was largely due to my monitor being too bright! I even found the odd photograph that I liked on screen, but just didn't work for me as a print, and vica versa.







If you want to see a bit more of my work, the website is www.MaggyMorrissey.com, but be warned it is still work in progress. There is also a blog section here but as you have probably guessed by now, my writing skills are not great:) There is also a Facebook page here.



Thanks for reading this far and if anyone has any questions I'll do my best to answer them.



MaggyM