Two awards for Mark at Press Photographer of the Year Awards
Castletownroche’s Mark Condren, a fivetime winner of the Press Photographer of the Year Awards, has once again been honoured for his striking and pertinent photography at this year’s prestigious awards. The photographer has been recognised across two categories for his work, both for his portrait of Irish actor Olwen Fouéré, and another for ‘Multitasking’, a shot which embodies the reality of working from home during the pandemic.
Mark, a former student of St Colman’s College Fermoy, welcomed the recognition, noting that you can never take awards for granted.
“It’s always great to get them, and I never take any of these awards for granted as they’re still hard to come by.”
Coming second place in the ‘Daily life and people’ category with ‘Multitasking’, a shot of a woman working on the sewing machine as she minds four young children, is unmistakably a snapshot of life in lockdown.
“We covered the whole of Covid. Even though Covid is Covid, the stuff around Covid was changing all the time. You could be out with the ambulance service, the antigen testing, the mam at home like in ‘Multitasking’, and all the other news outside of that.”
Mark uses the cliché, and cliché because it’s true, that ‘ a picture tells a thousand words’. The shot in Multitasking is unmistakably an image of lockdown - no caption required.
“I really do think ‘Multitasking’ tells a thousand words. The minute we were all locked down, everyone who works and has a family was able to relate to that image.”
His other second place prize was in the Portrait category, depicting Olwen Fouéré and was described by the judges as ‘eye cathcing’ - “The use of black & white rather than colour highlights the contrast between her dramatic hair, shamanic face and penetrating gaze.”
Mark, now living in Dublin, says this picture is a perfect example of the picture you get, is sometimes not the one you were looking for.
“That was down on the pier in Dublin. It was a really bad stormy day and we were trying to find somewhere there was no wind. We were trying to find a location that wasn’t breezy, and as we were walking along I looked at her and her features and I thought: that’s the picture!”
STRONG FAMILY SUPPORT
Winning the title of Press Photographer of the Year five times since 2009, as well as numerous other accolades, Mark credits his success in the field to hard work.
“I work hard, and I still work very hard. Competition for these awards is massive - they do not come easily. There are thousands of pictures taken in Ireland every day, and all around the world. There are some really talented photographers in Ireland. You’re not competing for awards - you’re competing every day to get the best picture for a newspaper.”
“I want to thank my wife and kids; I have three kids who put up a lot with me being away from home. My family are a huge support, as are my employers who give me a lot of freedom to work at what I need to do.”
The 44th annual ‘ Press Photographer of the Year Awards’ were announceD last Friday during a specially directed live awards ceremony presented by Miriam O’Callaghan alongside Paul Sherwood, President of the Press Photographers Association of Ireland.
This year’s ‘Press Photographer of the Year’ title was awarded for the second year in a row, to James Crombie. He also won first prize in ‘Nature and the Environment’, for his stunning ‘ Murmuration’, a starling murmuration over Lough Ennell.