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Daragh Muldowney
Daragh Muldowney is an Irish photographer with an abstract and surreal style while building a narrative or a concept in his books and collections. He goes under Dúlra Photography… Dúlra is the Irish word for Nature, specifically the Elements.
Michéla Griffith
In 2012 I paused by my local river and everything changed. I’ve moved away from what many expect photographs to be: my images deconstruct the literal and reimagine the subjective, reflecting the curiosity that water has inspired in my practice. Water has been my conduit: it has sharpened my vision, given me permission to experiment and continues to introduce me to new ways of seeing.
When you print an image, you never know what might happen. In Daragh’s case, exhibiting and selling photographs led him to commit himself fully to selling prints. Although he stumbled into photography through a love of outdoor activities, the two feed and reinvigorate each other. He has a particular passion for working in projects, often contemplating cold places and in so doing, their fragility.
Would you like to start by telling readers a little about yourself such as where you grew up and what you were interested in? Did you have a particular set of studies, or vocation, that you initially wanted to pursue? I sense that you were maybe more of an outdoor person.
I grew up in Dublin and the outdoors was a big part of my life… lots of hiking in the Dublin/Wicklow mountains with family and scouts. Also, lots of sailing in the Irish Sea.
I was obsessed with rugby in school and was becoming half decent until I tore my ACL (anterior cruciate ligament), which ended my rugby career. The repair of the ACL back in those days was not what it is these days.
As regards knowing what I wanted to do… I hadn’t a clue… I ended up doing economics at college here in Dublin, something that I wasn’t interested in. I loved the social aspect of college, but the course was a bit of a drag. After a summer trip to the USA, I became interested in surfing and that became a new obsession over the years.
I loved the outdoors, and that same trip to the USA, we bought a van and drove from East to West coast, staying and hiking in many, many National Parks as we travelled across. This really opened my eyes further to Nature’s wonder.
You fell into photography through another passion. At what point did you decide that this could be the career?
Yes… I did a PADI open water dive course in Florida, and it honestly blew my mind. I felt like I was flying on another planet. The dispersion of light reflecting under the surface was a spiritual experience for me. When I returned to the surface, I was given a questionnaire to fill out reviewing my experience, and there was a checklist as to other areas of diving I might be interested in. Underwater photography was one of them. Something clicked for me then, and I decided to buy an SLR and learn the mechanics of photography… with a view to returning underwater at some point. I bought a Canon AE1 with multiple prime lenses and began to snap away, making plenty of mistakes.
I shot all sorts at the beginning… lots of travel photography as I travelled extensively through Central and South America, Australia, New Zealand, South East Asia, India and Nepal.
After trying many genres of photography, which I was enjoying immensely, I got an extra lift when I started shooting abstract patterns, forms, and colours within Nature. The energy I felt while shooting, connecting me to Nature while staring into beauty, was life changing. And reviewing the colour transparencies when processed extended this magical experience. So I began shooting more and more in this style. I got myself a macro lens which enabled me to view the natural world with a new eye. Details, patterns, shapes, colours, in Nature all fascinated me. I loved the abstract images that could be made, giving the viewer an image that they would be unsure of what they were looking at, but all the while enjoying the natural forms and drinking up the colours.