Aidan O'Rourke 'My North West' tv interview with career overview and background to this site

Written by Aidan O'Rourke
2008-07-01

My name is Aidan O'Rourke and aidan.co.uk is my main site, presenting my portfolio of articles, photographs and other media. On this page I present the television interview I did for the ITV regional programme 'My North West' produced by Bakermedia. The article gives some details about career and the background this site.

I have been a professional photographer writer since April 1998. I live in Manchester with my wife Ann and daughter Adele born 4 Oct 2001.

Formative years

I was born and grew up in the town of Stockport, Cheshire, 6 miles south east of Manchester city centre. From age 5-11, (1963 to 1969), I went to Our Lady's primary school Stockport where I discovered abilities in writing, art and music. I won a Kodak Instamatic in a poster competition, learned piano and did projects on local architecture. Nicknamed 'the professor' by other children I was inspired by tv journalists Alan Whicker and Richard Lindley. I imagined I would go on to be successful in something to do with writing and the media.

From age 11-18 (1969-1976) I attended Xaverian College boys grammar school Manchester. I specialised in languages and achieved A Level exam grades B in French and A in German. I studied music but only managed an E. I missed out on the opportunity to study art due to timetable clashes between art and music.

Language study at TCD travel to Europe and America

I went to university at Trinity College Dublin from 1976 to 1981 studying Modern Languages German and French. I became involved in the Dublin music scene and witnessed the rise of U2. In my vacation periods I was active on the Manchester music scene and saw the Buzzcocks, Joy Division and many others. I spent 1979-1980 in West Berlin and travelled in Poland, Czechoslovakia and Austria before returning to Dublin for my final year.

I discovered photography in May 1981 and went on my first photoshoot in Dublin using an Olympus Trip kindly lent to me by my friend Kieran Sheridan. I spent summer 1981 working in New York where I took more photos and bought my first SLR camera, a Fujica STX-1.

I returned to Dublin and in September took my final exams. On graduation I had no idea of what I wanted to do and tried unsuccessfully to find work in Dublin. It was the worst year for graduate employment since the 1970s. I returned home to Manchester and during 1982 worked at Manchester Airport.

Still unsure of what I wanted to do, I took up a place on the Post Graduate Teaching Certificate in London. During this time I taught myself the principles of photography and experimented with black and white printing.

Teaching languages in the UK and experimenting with music

I returned to Manchester and taught for one year in secondary schools, then left to teach languages part time in Further Education. I became involved in music production, collaborating with others in the recording studio. I neglected photography, hoping to achieve creative and commercial success in music. Around 1986, I gave up music altogether and experimented with various genres of writing.

Frustrated by part time FE working conditions, I applied and was interviewed for a job at Granada TV but didn't get it. I contemplated moving abroad but decided I wanted to stay in the UK. In September 1988 I finally secured a full time teaching job at South Trafford College of Further Education.

I visited Hong Kong in August 87, 88 and 90. This was a working holiday: I taught English for four weeks on the British Council summer school and travelled in China and Asia for a week before returning home. I bought a Voigtländer rangefinder camera on my first Hong Kong trip.

Teaching English in the Middle East experimenting with photography

In 1991 I went to the exhibition 'Fashion Photography since the Second World War' at the Victoria and Albert Museum London, and immediately became switched on to the creative possibilities of photography. Due to frustration with the job and problems paying a mortgage on the salary, I resigned from my full time FE teaching job, and on Friday 15 July 1991 flew to Saudi Arabia where I began a one year English language teaching contract. I worked at the Institute of Banking in Riyadh. I sublet my flat in Manchester.

During my year in Saudi I experimented with E6 slide processing and used some of my earnings to buy cameras and darkroom equipment. I didn't renew my contract at the IOB.

In 1992 I spent time in Manchester, then travelled through Germany, Hungary and Romania. I secured a job in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, teaching English with the UAE Military, beginning on 5 September 1992. I spent more money on photography equipment and worked intensively on black and white printing, converting my bathroom into a darkroom and my spare bedroom into a studio. I also experimented with stereoscopic photography. Around six months into my contract I was taken out of the classroom and given the job of computer lab teacher, due to my interest in IT.

I continued to experiment with black and white printing, but grew progressively frustrated with it. A colleague urged me to take a look at digital photography but I dismissed this idea as I considered the picture quality to be inferior to film.

Discovering digital photography and the internet

And then on 18th October 1994 I had a life-changing experience. During a free period I was sitting in the computer lab working on the Macintosh Centris 660 AV computer. I found a program called Photoshop 2.5 and was immediately awestruck by its creative possibilities. I soon had some photos scanned and saved onto PhotoCD and began to experiment with digital image enhancement. A year later I bought a Macintosh PowerPC 6100 and the Nikon Coolscan slide scanner, which I purchased via mail order and had shipped from the UK. I went on to scan hundreds of photos and taught myself Adobe Photoshop.

1995 was a key year. I got married in April and in autumn the Internet arrived in the UAE. I had the feeling that this new medium would change my life and I was right. I started to surf the Internet and found Virtual Manchester, then run by Nigel Stewart and the late Andy Blunt. I wrote 'Postcards from Dubai' with reports and photos, which Nigel published in Virtual Manchester. By now I had had enough of expat life and was desperate to get out. I finally returned with Ann to live in Manchester on 15 July 1996, just one month after the bomb.

Documenting the changing face of Manchester

After five years away I was now visually absorbed by my home region and the changes which had taken place while I was away, and I began to photograph it intensively. I did an A Level in Photography at MANCAT and began a course in computer programming.

On 18 January 1997 I started to publish a weekly illustrated online newsletter called Eyewitness in Manchester. Nigel Stewart kindly provided a link from Virtual Manchester. I registered aidan.co.uk and used it to publish my new site. By summer 1987 I was getting a massive response and the feature had grown in size and number of photographs. In 1998 I was approached by Manchester Online (Manchester Evening News / Guardian Media Group} and offered a contract to produce Eyewitness in Manchester as part of the Manchester Online website.

With the support of Manchester Online, Eyewitness in Manchester grew to become one of the largest online sources of photographs, information and opinion from Manchester by one individual.

I gave up computer programming as I found I wasn't interested in it, and tried commercial web design. For a while I was moderately successful, but the market changed and I grew frustrated with it. I realised I was getting more money and satisfaction from doing the things I like best: continuing to work on m own photography and writing projects.

Moving to all digital capture

The purchase of the Nikon Coolpix 990 digital camera in May 2000 enabled me to move to all-digital capture. I gained a few interesting commissions, including doing production stills on two feature films, portrait photos for Manchester's Urbis museum and a small but steady trickle of orders to to supply photos for commercial use.

Despite these successes, I was still underachieving financially. In summer 2001 I developed ambitious plans for an e-commerce enabled database-driven mega-website. The birth of Adele on 4 October 2001 brought joy and additional responsibilities. I developed tutorial content on digital photography for the new site but was held back by the lack of a content management system, and by the limitations of working on my own. Quotes for web development were at the time astronomical and I simply didn't have any money to invest. I put together a static website with a small amount of content.

In July 2002 I received an e-mail from Digital Camera magazine who were looking for writers. I referred editor Nick Merrit to the sample tutorials I had produced and he awarded me the commission the same day. Later in the year I was approached by Clare Johnson of the British Council to help produce their UKinfocus website. These two commissions transformed my situation so that by summer 2003 I was able to invest in web development. I had also acquired the Nikon D100 digital camera and the Sony digital projector for use in seminars and presentations.

Launch of the aidan.co.uk portfolio site

Surfing the internet one day in July 2003 I found Manchester-based company Exclaim IT run by Peter Kelly. I contacted him and we agreed to collaborate on a new website, which I finally made live with 321 images at aroun 9pm on 8 October, 2003 from the easy internet cafe, Aston Quay, Dublin.

The new site gave me the ability to present, promote and market my work in a professional way with the minimum of effort. I extended the range of content with reviews of other photographers, artists, books, websites films and other media. The site soon became my main channel of communication. I stopped producing Eyewitness in Manchester in 2005.

The Photobox Printbutton service, first installed on a trial basis on 12 December 2003, and sitewide in May 2004, enabled people to buy prints and other products online directly from the website.

In June 2005 I started to display Google Adsense adverts on the site. To my surprise they quickly began to generate income, which has since grown, though with big fluctuations.

In autumn 2007 Photobox announced that the Printbutton service would be withdrawn in January 2008, and so I started to handle print orders individually, which is actually a much better arrangement, as I can deal individually with customers and configure each picture for optimal quality.

I receive .

Plans for the next few years and beyond

The site is very well indexed by Google, and has a similar Page Rank and Alexa Ranking as a medium sized regional newspaper website. Consequently articles and photos published on aidan.co.uk are usually highly visible and receive a considerable number of page views.

I had previously set a numerical goal of 10,000 photos and 1000 articles, but I have moved away from this strategy in favour of the principle of targeted quality rather than just quantity, like so many other sites on the internet.

in the latter part of 2008 I expect that the site will undergo considerable improvements, including simplification, a new cleaner design and clearer goals.

I intend to continue to present an individual, independent, non-corporate point of view with a personal touch, pursuing my creative goals, and staying open to new possibilities.