Tom McGahan’s work is rooted in the landscapes of Britain and Ireland — estuaries, boglands, rural margins, and the quiet spaces where memory lingers. These are not just scenes, but places lived in, left behind, or quietly endured. Whether through environmental portraits or solitary horizons, he creates images that feel honest — not staged, not rushed, but encountered with stillness.
His photographs often return to the same ground over many years. Some locations he walks for months before raising a camera. What emerges is part-document, part-reflection — shaped as much by the season and light as by the mood he brings to the land. There is grief here, but also presence. He is drawn to what the landscape remembers when we stop asking it to perform.
Alongside the land, Tom photographs people in place — environmental portraits that hold a sense of relationship, ancestry, and lived environment. These are not studio sessions; they unfold slowly, in gardens, empty buildings, or windswept fields. Always with care, always with time.
Limited edition fine art prints are available for collectors and interior spaces. Each image is printed on archival-quality paper. The print store is open to all, and Tom welcomes commissions and collaborations with writers, curators, and those drawn to photography as a contemplative, storytelling medium.
His work has been shortlisted for international awards including the Portrait of Humanity and the Belfast Photo Festival, and he was named a Feature Shoot Emerging Photographer of the Year in 2019. But the real reward remains simpler: to witness something true, and to offer it back — quietly, gently — in the form of an image.
Winner, Feature Shoot Emerging Photographer 2019 for the series 'Landscape of Lament'
Winner 2017 Feature Shoot Landscape award, “ Slieve Coillte’ from the series ‘Echoes’
Highly Commended, for his series 'What Remains' and 'I Am Always Here' The Belfast Photo Festival 2023
Shortlisted 2020 British Journal of Photography, (Grace) 1854 Media, Portrait of Humanity Awards
‘Take Refuge’ was nominated as on of the top rated entries in the 2016 Magnum Awards.
Ain't Bad, Another Place Press, All About Photo, Art Pil, British Journal of Photography, Broad, Black River, C41, Don't Take Pictures, Features Shoot, Lens Culture, Of the Land and Us, Portrait of Humanity Vol 2, Private Photo Review, Peta Pixel, New Landscape Photography, Subjectively Objective.
