Jurrasic Park , Nyotaimori, Brooklyn and me

You are known for Food Photography but can you give us an example of what you work at ?

I started as commercial photographer in 1994 and spent several years knocking on doors. I had a lot of persistence and I still have the same drive that I had from the very beginning.

I work as a photographer now for ads and TV commercials. It allows me to be creative, to come up with solutions to clients’ problems, and make them look good. To me, it's all about transformation, transforming an idea that you're given into visual. Creativity in general is ultimately about transforming.

I’ve done a lot of food photography and my wife Anne Marie is a food stylist. She works with me and on TV commercials and on Movies, she has fed witches on Penny Dreadful and made Victorian Table settings out of food . She created a BBQ for a trailer for Jurrasic park . She spends her time making all sorts of food products look better than they do .

I remember was photographing a model around the time of the World Cup in Japan and Korea. We photograph her covered in sushi. It’s called Nyotaimori. She was naked and lying on the beach, which was quite a difficult job for her considering it was an Irish beach, even in summertime. She was shaking with the cold , so we took it indoors back to my studio.

Another interesting shoot that's memorable was when I went to New York and photographed my assistant/model, Hu, standing outside a pawn shop in Brooklyn, in only his underpants. And the looks I got from people who are passing by, I’ll never forgot it just made for a very fun shoot. 

Photography gives you great appreciation of beauty and I get to contribute to important campaigns like the Irish pavilion at the Expo - Milan and I get to work on ad campaigns for alone, the old people's charity or the NSPCC or doing a book on Irish trees or working with fantastic food producers .

All my hustling paid off and actually, my passion and talents paid off. As a photographer or filmmaker, you can actually see the work you're producing, you get to make something. You have something tangible after you'd finished it, which was a great thing about this kind of work. You contributed to someone's campaign and create something new. And that is really exciting. 

Mike OToole is a Photographer, Film maker and Creative Teacher. Lürzers Archive recognised him twice as being among the 200 Best Advertising Photographers Worldwide, and he has won awards for his work from The Association of Photographers (Uk) and Communications arts (USA) and The New York Food Film Festival. His work in the field of Commercial Photography has been featured in publications ranging from Conde Nast Traveller , The Wall St Journal, and The Washington Post . 

Hello ! My name is Mike O’Toole, and I’m an Irish Photographer and Educator. I live in Kildare, just outside Dublin Ireland with my talented wife Anne Marie Tobin, who is a food stylist and our Daughters Sally and Hazel . I use a wide variety of photographic techniques including a detailed knowledge of film lighting to sell not only products but lifestyles, concepts and ideas.

I consider myself fortunate to be able to say, that I love what I do , whether it’s doing a shoot or designing a course like Mindfulness through Photography, its all creativity to me. 

I have a Masters in Photography, Diploma in Personal Coaching and Certificate in Adult Career Guidance along with several Sports Coaching Awards.