About
My name is Hamish Devlin (aka Coast Photography), a Poole-based, freelance event photographer with over a decade of experience covering live music, sports, conferences and interior photography.
More years ago than I care to remember, I graduated from Newport School of Art and Design with an HND in Documentary Photography. Since that time I have photographed numerous bands including Placebo, Simple Minds, David Bowie and The Kaiser Chiefs as well as having work published in various magazines.
Living and working so close to the sea has also meant that I have plenty of time to explore my true aspiration of taking beautiful images of the Dorset coastline. I particularly enjoy revisiting favourite locations to explore how the ever-changing seasons and the time of day effect the light, atmosphere and mood.
My photographic style is innovative, unusual and highly adaptable. I like to do things differently, finding new and original ways of providing stunning photos that will both delight my clients and satisfy my creativity. I’m great at building relationships with people, and personable enough to take shots of you genuinely laughing rather than simply pretending to do so for the benefit of the camera.
I have extensive experience of creating great images utilising natural light and the sensitive use of auxiliary light where necessary, following briefs and matching creativity to the magazine or brand. And to deadline. Working as a freelance, I shoot in RAW and always deliver initial low res files within 48 hours. And following image selection, I go through a systematic, post-processing process to achieve the best outcomes.
I have photographed factory workers, shop assistants, musicians, artists, teachers and the odd politician so am experienced in building up a rapport in a wide range of situations. ‘Volunteers’ was a self-initiated project focusing on people in various roles in the southwest of England and involved the planning and prioritising of shoots according to availability and location and the signing of model release forms.
Empathy and a healthy respect for people in front of the lens is essential to create believable images. We are all more than one dimensional and I always aim to learn a little more about people; building their trust, leads to confidence on their part and better results.
As well as portrait experience, I am a landscape photographer, always aiming to be as creative as possible, usually by getting up exceptionally early and occasionally utilising graduated or other filters where they might complement a scene. Even environments with which we appear to be very familiar can become more intriguing with sensitive creativity and I always look for those possibilities. So with buildings, I will utilise different lenses for creative effect or capture them at optimum times of the day to harness the effects of the changing light.