![\"Michael](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/3842426_8_articleinline_Michael_with_Vintage_Camera_2.jpeg.jpg\" "\\"Michael")
Michael with one of his many vintage cameras<\/p>\nMICHAEL Scully was only 13 years old when he picked up a book in Portlaoise library entitled How to Develop Your Own Film. The Stradbally native had already developed a passing enthusiasm for photography, but now his interest was well and truly piqued.<\/p>\n
This was 1959. At that time, film development kits could be purchased in local chemists, and that\u2019s exactly what Michael did. He bought a developing tank, reels, and \u201cthe usual bits and pieces\u201d and set up a makeshift studio on his family farm a few miles outside Stradbally.<\/p>\n
Seeing as his family no longer kept horses, Michael repurposed the empty stables on the property for his dark room. \u201cBecause there were no windows, it was ideal \u2013 no daylight\u201d, he says. And so, an illustrious career was born.<\/p>\n
Michael with one of his many vintage cameras<\/p>\n
Laois natives will be familiar with Michael\u2019s work. For over fifty years, he has photographed communions, weddings, GAA matches, retirements, birthdays, incidents, accidents and everything in between.<\/p>\n
As a news photographer, he has been a regular contributor to the Laois Nationalist \u2013 his work has illustrated and illuminated the paper\u2019s reporting for decades.<\/p>\n
But it was a career born of humble beginnings. Michael still recalls one of his earliest subjects: a spider\u2019s web. Taken with his very first camera \u2013 a Coronet 66, named for the 6x6cm images it produced onto film \u2013 Michael photographed the web when it was coated in dewy droplets.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen there’s a fog, the next day you can see all the spider’s webs\u201d, he recalls. \u201cThey’re always there, but you don’t see them until you have the fog and the dew.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
On 27 December 1965, he photographed the first of what would become an annual event in Stradbally: the Steam Rally, a showcase of vintage steam engines. By 1969, aged just 23, he had developed a network of customers who would ask him to take pictures of various people, events and happenings across the county.<\/p>\n
Despite his growing client-base, he was still in full-time employment in another field. That would soon change when Michael stumbled upon a notice in the Evening Press.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey had small ads in the back of the paper \u2026 I always looked at them to have a look at what equipment was available second hand, because I couldn’t afford a brand new\u201d, he says.<\/p>\n
Michael encountered an advertisement that read \u2018professional photographer in provincial town requires assistant\u2019. He replied with a letter and sent it to a box number. Two days later, Michael\u2019s brother Tom \u2013 who lives on the family farm in Stradbally \u2013 telephoned Michael to inform him a telegram had arrived for him.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople only got telegrams if someone had died\u201d, recalls Michael, who asked his brother to open it. The telegram said very little: \u2018Please phone Carrick-on-Shannon 84\u2019, it read.<\/p>\n
Michael sneaked out of work to a kiosk beside the courthouse in Portlaoise and phoned the number. \u201cIt turned out to be John Keaney, a photographer in Carrick-on-Shannon. He had a second studio in Sligo; he was very well known in the west of Ireland.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
John asked Michael to come visit him in Carrick-on-Shannon. The young photographer excitedly agreed. The only issue: he had no transportation.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy brother drove me up \u2026 That was before motorways, it was a good three-and-a-half-hour journey.\u201d John brought Michael in and showed him around. He assured the young photographer that his brother need not wait around. \u201cHe said, \u2018no, don’t worry, I’ll bring you back\u2019\u201d, Michael remembers. A kind gesture, given the journey\u2019s length.<\/p>\n
John spent the entire day showing Michael the town. In return, Michael showed John several prints \u2013 a portfolio of sorts \u2013 to showcase his work.<\/p>\n
The meeting felt very casual, not at all like a formal job interview. \u201cAll along, I wondered when the interview would be. [There was] no sign of an interview.\u201d Michael stayed overnight. The following day, a Sunday, John drove him home.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were almost home, we were in Stradbally\u201d, Michael says. \u201cAnd [there was] no mention. I said, \u2018oh, I’ll have to ask him.\u2019\u201d He turned to John and asked, \u201c\u2018Well, what about the job? Do I have it or not?\u2019\u201d John replied, \u201cOh yeah, when can you begin?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cYou see, all along, I didn’t need an interview\u201d, says Michael, reflecting on the moment 57 years later. \u201cHe had a full day to size me up and say, \u2018what’s this fellow like?\u2019 It’s very clever way to do it.\u201d Michael handed his notice in in Portlaoise and started working for John in Carrick-on-Shannon. It was a kind of internship into the world of photography. He assisted the veteran photographer with weddings, confirmations, christenings, passport photos, and newspaper work for the Leitrim Observer and Roscommon Herald.<\/p>\n
In one notable bank holiday weekend, Michael and John had to cover 13 weddings. The strangest event Michael was asked to cover was a funeral. \u201cI felt very uneasy about it, but the person who died had no relations in Sligo. All his family had emigrated to America.\u201d Michael spent a year in Carrick-on-Shannon before he was sent to John\u2019s other studio in Sligo. After another year, he got \u201citchy feet.\u201d And so, with the support of a local businessman who became guarantor for a loan, Michael returned to Stradbally and set up his own studio on Main Street.<\/p>\n
By 1971, he was up and running. Well, just about. He did not have his own phoneline yet and interested patrons would have to call the kiosk across the street to reach him.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf the phone rang, somebody would eventually answer, \u2018can you get Michael Scully for me?\u2019\u201d In 1973, Michael moved to Portarlington and set up shop on Patrick Street, before moving once again to his current premises in 1981. He now operates his studio out of an extension built onto his house.<\/p>\n
![\"One](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/3842427_8_articleinline_Michael_with_Vintage_Camera_3.jpeg.jpg\" "\\"One")
One of Michael’s vintage cameras<\/p>\n
Michael began working with the Laois Nationalist in 1977, following the death of Terry Redmond, a photographer for the paper.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey had no photographer in Portlaoise area, so they contacted me, and that’s when I began working for the Nationalist.\u201d Getting a photograph in print was an arduous task compared to today. Michael breaks down a typical weekend: \u201cI used to cover sport as well as other events. On a typical Sunday, I would usually go to Portlaoise, do two matches, come back home, develop my film, hang the film up to dry, have my tea, [go] back into the dark room, print pictures.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I would have all the prints done, it could be 11 or 12 o’clock Sunday night … I would put them all in an envelope, bring them to the railway station \u2026 It would be closed, of course, but I had an arrangement: I’d slide in the envelope and that would be put on the first train to Kildare on Monday.\u201d The photographs would then be collected in Kildare, put on the Waterford train, and then taken off in Carlow, says Michael.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe part I disliked most was writing the captions for each.\u201d The more things change, the more they stay the same.<\/p>\n
Michael has seen a lot of changes throughout his career. When he started working with the Nationalist, the entire paper was printed in black and white. Then colour photography began to appear with increasing regularity throughout the 1980s.<\/p>\n
However, the biggest change, he says, was the move to digital. He first began to hear rumblings about digital photography in 1998. \u201cIt was way in the distance and I thought, \u2018well, no, digital won’t affect me\u2019\u201d, he says.<\/p>\n
He was wrong, of course. \u201cI had to learn fast. I had to do a computer course, and then eventually I had to purchase a digital camera.\u201d Photographs could now be emailed in an instant. No longer did Michael have to slide them under the door of a railway station.<\/p>\n
\u201cI still like a nice black and white print\u201d, says Michael. \u201cBut I no longer have my darkroom \u2026 I’m very happy about that. It means that I’m not stuck in a dark room with chemicals and all sorts of smells.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
As a press photographer, Michael has met multiple politicians, including former Taoisigh. In fact, Michael says a former Taoiseach became irritable when he tried to reposition him in a photograph (just which Taoiseach it was Michael will not say).<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2018You photographers are always the same, giving orders\u2019\u201d, Michael alleges the former Taoiseach to have said, to which he replied: \u201cSorry Taoiseach, but I have a job to do.\u201d Did it work out okay? \u201cI got my picture\u201d, he says with a smile, quickly adding: \u201cgenerally I have to say politicians are good \u2013 very receptive, cooperative\u201d.<\/p>\n
![\"Michael](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/3842428_8_articleinline_Michael_and_Mae_3.jpeg.jpg\" "\\"Michael")
Michael and his wife Mae, looking over Michael’s prints<\/p>\n
Michael met his wife Mae in 1969 at a local dance hall. By the 1960s, dances in local halls were a popular social occasion for young people in Ireland, with many using them as an opportunity to cut their teeth on dating for the first time.<\/p>\n
\u201cI used to go to Danceland in Portlaoise on a Friday night and Dreamland in Athy on Sunday night. I gave Mae a dance now and again, or maybe every night\u201d, says Michael.<\/p>\n
At dances, women would line up on one side of the hall and men on the other. \u201cWhen a dance was called, the men would walk over and ask the ladies to dance\u201d, he says.<\/p>\n
It sounds like a formal affair. \u201cIt could be a stampede at times\u201d, says Michael.<\/p>\n
After sharing a few dances, Mae reached out to Michael through his cousin John, whom she knew. She wanted to know if Michael would accompany her to a dinner organised by her employer. \u201cI did and that was it\u201d, he says.<\/p>\n
Michael and Mae married in 1973. Mae has been a major help throughout Michael\u2019s career, assisting him with the filing and indexing of his prints.<\/p>\n
The pair celebrated their golden wedding anniversary in 2023. \u201cThank goodness we’re still in good nick\u201d, says Michael, who turned 80 in February.<\/p>\n
\u201cI said I might retire this year, but don’t see any sign of it yet\u201d. Indeed, the day before our meeting, Michael had photographed Cllr. Padraig Fleming\u2019s retirement from Laois County Council and had booked another job for the coming weekend.<\/p>\n
Michael is in the early stages of developing a book of his photographs. \u201cI\u2019ll have to see if I can finance it first. If I get the go ahead, I’ll be straight into it because I do have, as you can imagine, plenty of material. It\u2019s just a matter of what to select.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MICHAEL Scully was only 13 years old when he picked up a book in Portlaoise library entitled How…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":387558,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[307,304,305,306,308,93,61,60],"class_list":{"0":"post-387557","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-artsdesign","12":"tag-design","13":"tag-entertainment","14":"tag-ie","15":"tag-ireland"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=387557"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387557\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/387558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=387557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=387557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=387557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}