Award-winning Tallaght photographer looking for support to publish wildlife images

Award-winning Tallaght photographer looking for support to publish wildlife images

By Mary Dennehy

AN AWARD-winning Tallaght photographer who defied death in 2014 is seeking the community’s support in publishing a series of wildlife images he captured while on a life-changing safari.

Living in Aylesbury for more than 30 years, Michael Finn suffered a major heart attack in November 2014 while photographing a wedding in County Louth.

Michael Finn wildlife collage 09022017

However, against all the odds, and with a survival rate of one per cent, Michael pulled through, after spending five weeks in a coma.

When he woke up, the father-of-two started a bucket list, which would take him almost 8,000 miles to see and photograph the spectacular wildlife that inhabits the vast savannah of Maasai Mara in Kenya.

Renowned for his award-winning images of Irish wildlife, many of which have been taken along the waterways in Tallaght, Michael is hoping to self-publish a high quality, coffee table photo-book featuring 120 images from his life changing safari.

Since returning from Kenya, 31 of Michael’s images have won awards, including the world’s most respected photographic competition, the Windland Smith Rice International, with his images also featuring in newspapers and magazines such as Africa Geographic , Wings and Nature’s Best.

In order to raise funds for the book, which will be called From Sunrise to Sunset, Michael has started a Kickstarter project to help raise the €12,500 needed to publish and distribute his photo-book.

Kickstarter projects are only live for 30 days, with Michael’s campaign, which has raised more than €1,500 to date, live until March 1.

Michael, who has encouraged the community to get behind him, said: “Having spent nine days, from sunrise to sunset, photographing every species that appeared down the barrel of my lens, I returned home and began the long hard process of selecting images, processing them and preparing them for inclusion in the book – which I had always intended would be the culmination of my safari, the greatest adventure of my life.

“I am publishing this book entirely by myself and going directly to printers and I hope that the community can support me in making the book a reality.

“Alongside representing myself, I’ll also be representing my hometown of Tallaght, which has provided me with so much experience in terms of photographing birds and wildlife in the past.”

With only two-and-a-half weeks left until Michael’s Kickstarter closes, people are invited to donate at www.kickstarter.com/projects/1471779378/from-sunrise-to-sunset.

TAGS
Share This