About Me - Ben Millett, photographer

hi, i'm ben

I am drawn to capturing images, when it comes to landscape photography the more wild and tumultuous the better, I'm not sure why, but it's something to do with taking in the power of nature and marking the moment by recording it and stamping it as a moment in history with a photograph. I strive to portray natural moments that I witness as accurately as possible and hope that the resultant images can portray the same emotion and power that the real moments emitted.

This is where my love of photography started, and since then I have applied this ethos to other practises and I find joy in capturing fleeting moments and creating images that are a point of record but also images that are meaningful and powerful.

Starting out

Growing up in Ireland, in Boyle Co. Roscommon, near the west of the country I spent a lot of time near the Atlantic Ocean enveloped by the landscapes and scenery around me and as soon as I discovered cameras I realised I loved to capture the ever changing natural cinema that surrounded me.

Wedding Seasoning

Not long after finding my way around a camera I was inducted into the world of wedding photography in 2008 by the legendary David Knight. I knew I wanted to work with images and in the creative world and got to work with David and his team for a few years, shooting at 100s of weddings, and learning to edit from the ground up. At the same time I was attending college in NCAD, Ireland's national college of art & design. I was studying Industrial Design and broadening my creative mindset learning many creative skills that have now all become part of my creative war-chest.

After working with David Knight I have been very lucky to work with the amazingly talented Claire Durkin Photography on many many great weddings. Claire's work and dedication to the art is inspiring and I have learned a lot working with her. In 2014 I started to shoot some of my first solo weddings and I am currently open for bookings.

design

Following through with my industrial design qualification I have worked in and ran a few design and product related businesses, handling everything from product design, web design, marketing, packaging design, branding and of course product photography and video creation. We routinely have worked with international companies and brands and had a constant requirement for new creative and photography. This is where I built my commercial photography mindset, shooting product photos, and video, in studio and on-location for various campaigns and commercial uses - website / packaging / POS / merchandise / advertising etc. Usually with the requirement of a quick turnaround.

My Muse

Along this journey I was also very lucky to meet the amazing and now my wife Miriam Wade, a Goldsmith and Jeweller who also trained in NCAD and now runs her own jewellery studio offering commissions and a beautiful range of jewellery. I quickly found myself doing a lot of jewellery and craft photography for Miriam and some of her colleagues, another type of photography I have learned through immersion, one that really requires patience (well, so does landscape photography, but in a different way). You can check out some of my photography over on her site, and also in my gallery.

Ok what else...

Well, I love adventure and lifestyle photography and I've been lucky to travel a good bit so far in life, and of course wouldn't go anywhere without my camera so those are the two other categories I structure my work and portfolio around.

Action and sports is something I aspire to shoot more of just for fun and I love travel photography just to document the incredible world we have around us and try and keep visual memories of places for the future.

I believe that practising many different photography disciplines has honed my skillset and made me into a very adaptable photographer no matter what situation I find myself in.

Photography is a way of life for me.

Drop me a mail if you want to talk.