Transition Year student snaps up photo award

A Galway City Transition Year student has beaten off competition from 200 other hopefuls to win third place in a national photojournalism contest for his beautiful photograph of a chaffinch.

Daragh Murphy from Newcastle spotted the tiny birds jumping around on outdoor furniture while he was on an outing to Kylemore Abbey in Connemara.

Award winner: Jes student Daragh Murphy

Judges in the National Press Pass Awards were most impressed by the way he captured the colour and character of the creature in such close proximity.

Daragh, a student of the Coláiste Iognáid – better known as ‘the Jes’ – said he became a fan of nature photography when in second year and would capture images on his phone and post them to his Instagram page.

After playing around with a cousin’s camera, he convinced his mother Nuala to buy him one – a Fuji Film 590-400 – which she eventually did a month later.

“I take no photos of people. I don’t really like that. I’m into nature and architecture,” he reveals.

He entered the competition after doing a segment on journalism with teacher Ray Silke.

“My best friend said you have to enter the photojournalism category. So I submitted one of Blackrock and of the bird and couldn’t believe when I came third.”

Daragh said he is a fan of Casey Neistat, who posts pictures and films on Youtube of abstract objects and scenes. He is self-taught and hopes to keep up his hobby, however after school he would like to pursue architecture.

“I’ve just done work experience in a bakery. I love baking, but let’s just say I don’t want to be a baker. It’s such hard work. You’re standing up the whole time.”

Press Pass is an initiative for TY students to encourage them to engage with newspapers. Some 7,500 students took part this year across Ireland, with students entering in four written categories (news, features, opinion and sport) and a photojournalism category.

The photojournalism category was judged by Michael Chester, President of the Press Photographers Association of Ireland.

The competition provides a workbook to the schools each year in November and free copies of newspapers over a two-week period. They then use the workbooks in class with the newspapers and prepare entries. The written categories are judged by a panel of editors and journalists, chaired by Prof John Horgan, the former Press Ombudsman.