Daragh capturing ‘Jewellery Box’
Daragh Muldowney will set sail from Killary Fjord in May 2015, bound for Greenland. He will be a crew member on the North of Disko II Expedition 2015.
Daragh’s Project ‘Into The Blue’ will see him Scuba diving to explore and photograph the icebergs and marine life of this extraordinary wilderness.
Daragh’s interest in photography originally developed when he completed a Scuba Diving course in 1992, where he was awe struck by the experience of being under water. Life under the sea seemed like another world, where he made an instant connection with the elements.
Since then he has become a very well known professional land based photographer, with many stunning wilderness projects from the western part of the Sahara in Morocco to the Vatnajokull ice cap in Iceland.
Dawn of Contrast by Daragh Muldowney
The Missing Stone by Daragh Muldowney
Out of Thin Air, Greenland 2013. Photo by Daragh Muldowney.
This latest project ‘Into The Blue’ was born while on Expedition to capture ‘Out of Thin Air’ – getting up close and personal with floating icebergs from a small boat, left him mesmerised by the clear water and the lure of the ice dropping away vertically underwater. The notion that he was only capturing the tip of the iceberg rang true. He made a pact to return in 2015 in order to discover this untouched underwater wilderness. He had learnt to dive over 20 years ago, but had only logged a few dives and had not scuba dived since then. Would he need to train again from the start? What gear would he need? how cold would it be? How different would underwater photography be from land based photography? where could he get the correct training and advice? ….
‘Potential divers’ arrive at Scubadive West regularly with these questions and we are always ready to help, with our full range of courses and boat diving adventures. Daragh’s situation was fascinating, an accomplished professional photographer, but a novice diver. Would he be ready in just a few months for the challenges that lay ahead, Scuba diving unsupported in the wilderness of Greenland to produce his world class Nature Art Photography?
He completed his Refresher dive with us here and that naturally led on to completing his PADI Drysuit diver training. By this stage we were so enthralled by his previous works and so anxious that he succeed in his endeavours that we decided to sponsor him!
Scubadive West are proud to be one of the sponsors of ‘Into The Blue’, providing Daragh with all of this Scuba diving equipment and training for this adventure. Another very important ingredient for success is a dive buddy, not just any buddy would do, so we are sending one of our excellent PADI Instructors, Ciaran Lennon as his Safety Diver, buddy and Guide.
The team are immersed in training with us here and we did manage to replicate Greenland Diving conditions briefly in February during his PADI Drysuit Diver Course!
It’s like Greenland out Here!.
As divers and lovers of marine life, one of our favourite of Daragh’s projects is ‘Jewellery Box – Ireland’s Hidden Gems’, an exploration of Ireland’s rock pools which led to the production of a spectacular book and the offer of an exhibition in New York at the Irish Embassy in September 2012. Jewellery Box is on a world tour as an outdoor Art Exhibition, currently on display in Mexico City.
Spaghetti Buttons, Glassillaun Beach. (Jewellery Box) Photo by Daragh Muldowney
You can see more of Daragh Muldowney’s images here
Ciaran Lennon and Daragh Muldowney are diving regularly here at Scubadive West and are more than happy to talk about their training and preparations, maybe they will be sitting beside you on your next boat dive!
Next up for Daragh is our Digital Underwater Photography Course which will be interesting, given that he teaches photography workshops! – but it goes to show that the underwater world is a completely different world and maybe that’s why we are so drawn to it!
Check in to our blog and facebook page regularly for further information.
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www.scubadivewest.com