21 April 2009

World's 1st Amateur Photography Exhibition
Based Entirely On Mobile Telephone Technology

Nokia Ireland is launching the World's 1st Photographic Exhibition by an Amateur Photographer based entirely on Mobile telephone technology.

The Exhibition, by Humanitarian and Author, Don Mullan, entitled, 'A Thousand Reasons for Living', includes world famous landmarks and icons, as will surprise and delight visitors with stunning, moving and humorous images."

For the past two years Don Mullan has been engaged in taking photographs around the world on his Nokia N73 (3.2 MPX) and Nokia N95 (5 MPX) S60 smartphones.

He photographed some of the Wonders of the World such as the Great Wall of China and the magnificent statue of Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro. He also photographed some of the great icons of the 20th Century in both Sport and Religion including Pele; Gordon Banks, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

His journey took him to Asia, Africa, North and South America, across Europe and the Mediterranean. I am sure you will be, as I was, surprised at the quality and vividness of the photographs which include projects very close to his heart such as the Pele Little Prince Hospital, Curitiba, Brazil and the building of homes for shack dwellers in South Africa.

What makes this exhibition of special interest is the fact that it is based entirely on the work of an armature photographer. None of the photographs in the exhibition have been enhanced or edited in any way.

Introduction by Don Mullan

It was my children who taught me how to use the camera on my old Nokia 6230 mobile phone. And it was a wonderful young woman from Nokia (Ireland), Aoife Byrne, with the support of her marketing manager, Sian Gray, who helped and encouraged me to create this exhibition. I owe Aoife and Sian, and all their colleagues in Nokia, an enormous debt of gratitude.

The years 2004-2006 will long be remembered by me as a time of great darkness. Mentally and emotionally I reached the edge of a precipice which threatened to consume me as I suffered from a debilitating depression. Two thieves were robbing me of my vitality for life – bitterness and worry. The first was about focusing on regrets and hurts from the recent past, the other about all kinds of insecurity for the future. The present moment – the only moment worth living – was being squeezed to death, literally.

During what I now call my Nokia years, the cameras on my Nokia N73 and N95 taught me to be alert to the beauty of the world that exists in the present moment. From a condition of quiet despair, my mobile telephones brought me back into the light. Now, several times a day I find myself taking sharp intakes of breath as I marvel at how light and colour can conspire to turn the mundane into magic.

One of my favourite pictures is a rose I photographed one morning in a neighbour’s garden while out walking. The early sun rays appeared to be absorbed, enabling the rose to glow from within. I love that rose for it is so symbolic of my journey to recovery and is why I have chosen it to open this exhibition. The rose is also symbolic of my favourite saint, Thérčse of Lisieux. Another favourite photograph is the teardrop I noticed early one morning in the Messines Ridge Cemetery in Flanders.

It somehow captured my mood in the midst of the resting place of so many young men, ‘Known unto God’, from whom life had been senselessly stolen during World War I. In reality it was a leaf – bent by the weight of a dewdrop – enveloped by an early morning mist. Tears were the silent words that expressed the depth of pain and sadness I was feeling in that instant.

I recalled the words of the American playwright Tennessee Williams: “Death is one moment, and life is so many of them.” I owed it to these young men to rediscover A Thousand Reasons for Living – and to rededicate my life to redeeming the wastage their six feet of manicured earth symbolised.

The exhibition is open to the public
from the 23rd to the 28th April at:

Gallery One
No.1 Castle Street
Dublin 2. (Beside Jury's Christchurch)

Free entry