Noel Hillis - Commercial Photography - a year end review!

Every January, I aim to review the work that I have produced over the past year and show some images that I didn’t get around to posting on the blog.

This reflective portrait of Minister for Health, Leo Varadkar, was photographed earlier in the year, just before he spoke at the Transport Ireland Conference and is my favourite political portrait of the last 12 months.

My gratitude is due to the editors who commissioned me to photograph cover shots for their magazines. Here is a selection of corporate portraits which appeared as covers over the past year. Dave Kirwan, CEO of Bord Gais Energy was photographed for Energy Ireland’s Oil & Gas magazine, Cathriona Hallahan, CEO of Microsoft (Ireland) was photographed for AgendaNI and David Franks, CEO of Irish Rail was photographed for Eolas Magazine.

I was commissioned to produce commercial portraits for a number of annual reports that have been published over the past 12 months, for organisations as diverse as LauraLynn Children’s Hospice and Greencore. I particularly liked the way that Down Syndrome Ireland used my images in their most recent review which was published during the year.

It was another busy year for conference and event photography and I particularly liked this available light portrait photographed at the Botanica Conference in TCD, in September.

Of course as a commercial photographer, I don’t just photograph people. Often I am asked to produce product shots for editorial and publicity purposes. Brochure images like these, required my skills at both food photography and macro imaging. (Chicken and chips, anyone?)

Sometimes I am lucky enough to be asked to produce editorial images of spectacular interiors, such as the beautiful Dining Hall in Trinity College Dublin, photographed for Advantage PCO and the reception area at the Iarnrod Eireann head office in Dublin, for Eolas magazine.

To produce urban landscape photographs, I sometimes get to photograph familiar views from unusual vantage points, such as this birds eye view of Dublin produced in September.

PR photography usually has to be produced when time is very short. I photographed this group of ladies who participated in the Dublin Women’s Mini Marathon on behalf of LauraLynn just before the start. 

This year I decided to create a “secret” Instagram account for my personal photography - as a visual notebook to challenge my creativity. Should you wish to follow my visual ramblings, you can do so here.

At the end of an enjoyable and varied year, it was nice to produce this Christmas portrait of Dublin based alternative folk band, The Young Folk and this editorial portrait of Welsh harpist Eleri Lloyd.

As always, I’m finishing with my favourite image of the year, which was photographed in Vence, in southern France. I really like the mood and texture that the early morning light creates.

My thanks to all my clients and friends. Have a great 2015!