ABOUT

Hi! My name is Caoimhe Murphy, I'm a photographer and artist, based in Tipperary. Hopefully you'll have seen some of the work I've created, and now I can tell you a little more about myself!
I've been creating and capturing pieces for over a decade now. Originally, my interest lay in special effects and makeup prosthetics. This ranged from high-concept creature designs, to smaller, detailed-oriented pieces such as bruising, injuries and wounds. From there I discovered a passion for cosplay. I chose characters from comics, games and films with not only complex designs at times, but that also meant a lot to me. Working on them demonstrated the importance of the tiny details in their artistic design, and also the nuances of their body language, required to bring them to life.
I developed a particular interest for making things with my hands, using many different techniques and materials. I was fascinated by the makeup/prosthetic work for productions like the Lord of the Rings, Star Wars and the work of pioneering makeup/special effects artists such as Rick Baker, Stan Winston and Jim Henson and his workshop team.  I combined these influences with the techniques used by Impressionists such as Vincent Van Gogh, and Surrealists such as Salvador Dali and Pablo Picasso. This was hugely beneficial and rewarding as I began to create more challenging and unique works that incorporated many different genres.
My work has always centred around how to tell a story with a single image. How to provoke ideas, feelings and emotions in people. This is the essence of good visual storytelling and the foundation of filmmaking, which I’ve recently developed a major interest in. It began with colour grading. Adjusting everything from exposure, to the colours and tonality of a scene, to create a specific mood- all of which stemmed from my own work with still photography. After working on short films, I discovered how this work feeds into filmmaking, and thus fell down the rabbit hole of cinematography and the cinematic image.
My interest in surrealism carried over to my cinematic inspirations, which include filmmakers such as David Lynch, Luis Bunuel and Robert Eggers. Other filmmakers who are less surreal, but every bit as expressionistic and visually daring who have inspired me include Guillermo Del Toro, Powell and Pressburger, Robert Altman and David Lowery. Most recently, a hugely important source of inspiration for me was Lowery’s film A Ghost Story. The craft and technique behind the film’s visual storytelling both highlighted many aspects that I had always aspired to, and re-defined my understanding of how stories, themes and feelings could be conveyed. It resulted in one of the most visually powerful and haunting works I’ve ever experienced.
So that’s pretty much me in a nutshell. Hopefully this gives you a better understanding of what drives and inspires my work as it develops and grows. My goal is the same in any field or genre I work in, whether it be high-concept art pieces, or more grounded and precise projects such as wedding and event photography. My goal is always to tell a story, no matter how simple or complex, and to infuse these stories with the emotions and ideas that go with them.