A Bit of a Journey

Mark Gilligan FBIPP has always been around cameras and photography as his father worked in the industry for several national newspapers. When his own working life began, he eventually became the Director of the National Photography and Video course for the Home Office teaching specific ‘specialist’ units. Or as he referred to them ‘secret squirrels!’ That went on for over 35 years. He sat down and worked out recently that he has now taught in excess of 3,000 people in that time to date, including all my ‘students’ and people who come on my workshops. Alongside all of that, he trained at the BBC as a professional TV Producer/Director and created some 300 programmes in that time. He was involved in many global and groundbreaking national events such as riots, strikes, the aftermath of the IRA bombs and the Olympic and Commonwealth Games bids that only his position would allow access to. In that respect his working life has been truly unique. Many of the programmes won National awards including a golden rose entitled, ‘Can you Make It stop’ concerning Child Abuse.

Mark’s bolt hole during all of that when he did get down time was was landscape photography particularly the lake District which quickly became a business both producing for magazines and running workshops. Due to ill health, he retired from the Home Office in 2008 and intended to simply ‘do’ as he pleased. His first love has always been the single image and he showed many images in the second half depicting the best of the weather that photographer yearn for - moody, stormy, cloudy and shafts of light. His wife keeps saying, ‘I thought you retired” ha ha! He never will as long as the ‘big man upstairs’ allows because he is as busy now as he was then. He is not complaining though ha ha. His workshops are in constant demand from folks across the world and he still writes for magazines. All in aa, a most enjoyable evening.