Bio.
Shane O’Riley is a renowned photographer with over 76K Instagram followers, and over 25 years of experience.
Shane has collaborated with top modelling agencies throughout Australia and Southeast Asia, fashion labels, beauty and fashion magazines, commercial, corporate, and private clientele and collectors, has showcased work in numerous exhibitions and tirelessly mentor’s colleagues and supports models within the fashion industry.
With a waiting list including celebrities, models, and influencers across all aspects of society, Shane’s multidisciplinary approach to high-end fashion and beauty photography affords him a rare and highly sought after point of difference.
Working at the cutting edge in photographic technology, Shane’s many years mastering hyperrealism in post-production editing, having a profound understanding of makeup artistry (being a specialist in natural makeup), and cosmetic chemistry’s relationship to light, being a fashion stylist, art-director, and having a passionate understanding of interiors as a as an award winning registered architect, all combine to place Shane in a very specialised niche.
“Light paints time. And time frames a person’s journey through life.”
Shane is currently working on his latest exhibition, shooting in London, Kuala Lumpa, Sydney, Melbourne and Perth. This latest work explores the essence of humanity against the vessel of time, covering a broad range of subjects, including beauty, sensuality, mystery, and the question of permanence.
Shane began his creative journey in drawing and oil painting. Captivated by the Old Masters, da Vinci, Vermeer, Caravaggio, and Rembrandt to name a few, Shane became fascinated with light and the human condition.
Shane works very closely with his subjects to establish a trust and intimacy that embraces a clear record of their individuality that is timeless. A moment frozen forever to embed a singular, a signature (style) metaphysical beauty into his photography that is transcendent, delivering to the industry a unique and visionary artist who understands the legacy of state-of-the-art techniques and creativity in highlighting the humanity in his subjects.
In the age and advancement of artificial intelligence, it “is more important than ever to produce photographs which are honest in capturing reality.
Every image should embody a sense of storytelling, no matter how simple. There must be an organic connection that can be absorbed directly, understood immediately and resonate with our emotions beyond consciousness itself, be immediately identifiable as being of the sentient and physically human.”
“This is the responsibility of photography.
To protect the truth.”
“Beyond the natural order in beauty and fashion, our place in this world, the choreographed portrait, the body or form, there is a higher responsibility to represent themes that can bring the mind back to something more profound.”
Through his travels around the world Shane integrates the discipline of set design to his cinematic and humanist approach to photography and cinematography, exploring a lifelong fascination with memory, “which exists somewhere between the light and the dark”, the human psyche, and the relationships between empathy, the eternal, and our place in this world and beyond.
Known for his fearless passion for uplifting the human spirit, photography, is for Shane a medium where you can truly be honest, "where you can be vulnerable. And that is how you make a difference with people.”
This would translate over to experimentation with symbolism in the smallest of things. From a subtle facial expression to the infinite wonder of the human form.
Mentored at an early age by one of Australia’s top photographic journalists and political writers, the importance of the visual narrative in conveying information and evoking feeling has been fundamental in Shane’s development in illuminating the human condition.
“I believe light and shadow play a crucial role in framing form and meaning. To capture the invisible aspect of time within our environment so critically defines our emotional awareness. Ideas such as anticipation and mystery can be explored. This is interesting because you can also discuss creatively blurring the line between reality and fiction, ensuring a sense of animation and importance to the image.”
Central to Shane’s work is the idea of permanence in every moment. “No matter how fleeting, whether in nature, the physical, the perceived nature of beauty, or the juxtaposition between the abstract and the inanimate, there is always an idea that can touch the viewer’s subconscious.
When I think about my work, I want for the viewer to be fascinated, to be transported to another dimension, to keep them guessing, and in that moment, ask questions and understand themselves and this world a little more.
Timeless beauty, that’s what I want to make, that’s what I am trying to make.
What we are is very different to who we are.”