'My mother is Irish, and she instilled an interest in Irish culture with stories of her ancestors. I studied Irish dance for 7 years, which I excelled in competitively. and can also play the Tin Whistle, an Irish instrument similar to a recorder'
Most of us in North America, have a fairly limited knowledge based about most other cultures. Sure, we celebrate St. Patrick's Day with shamrocks and green beer, but for many of us, when it comes to Irish culture, that's about it. My mother used to make corned beef and cabbage every St. Paddy's day, but I recently learned the traditional Irish dish was actually boiled bacon, not corned beef. For this reason, for this March 17th, Lights on Studio's Tom Nakielski decided that for this year's shoot, he wanted a model with an authentic Irish background.
Some of you might remember Patrick Morgan from a previous piece featuring his work with Tom. Patrick helped celebrate another holiday by popping the cork back in 2018 to help celebrate New Year's Eve. (Stroke of Midnight) Today, Patrick puts down his champagne, and picks up a green beer to toast to good times, happiness and the luck of the Irish!
This shoot actually happened awhile ago. Tom had planned a St. Paddy's Day shoot for 2019, but encountered scheduling issues with the model involved. Last year, the onset of the pandemic, meant having to cancel his scheduled shoot with Patrick. When things finally began to settle however, Patrick and Tom were able to get together and Tom shot with Patrick last fall.
While on a forced modeling break due to Covid, Patrick used his down time to learn new skills. Patrick first picked up baking, but then as the pandemic went on, moved back to a focus on fitness. Like so many of us, after baking comes the fight to work off all the carbs from the loaves of soar dough bread and banana bread. Patrick was anxious to get back into the studio, especially for another shoot with Tom.
'Photo sessions with Tom are always fun and engaging. He often has a lot of ideas on what he wants to do, but he is very good at taking notice of small moments that look just right and capturing the image. '
In addition to tapping into Patrick's Irish culture, and his Irish jig moves, Tom also wanted to bring in more themes for the holiday. Due to the pandemic, the regular costume and prop store Tom usually uses for his themed shoots was closed. This forced the Michigan based photographer to get creative and use what he had on hand.
'Keeping with the Irish theme I had green beer and suspenders. Also had a hat and a Irish themed sleeve. Then I used some silk scarf's with Irish imprinting on them. This allowed me to get a little more skin in the photos. I had some gold coins that I wanted to put to use. One idea was to have him stuff his underwear with the coins and let them spring out, hitting the jackpot! Pot of gold at the end of the rainbow'
In addition to green beer and gold coins, there was another bit if Irish culture, well... more Irish mythology that Tom wanted to incorporate. Ireland has no indigenous snakes. and there is ancient Irish myth that St. Patrick banished them into the sea to protect the pilgrims from harm or death. Now, I'd never heard this myth before and was a little suspect. I think Tom suspected I was questioning the story and sent me a long a few links to stories about the myth. I actually didn't care, I liked the images, and the story. I also wanted to make sure to have images of Patrick's perky posterior to add to the piece!
