AOP Assistants Award winner 2009 - Mike Whelan

November 2009

Mike moved to London from Edinburgh with family when he was 16. He was in and out of college “doing the sort of courses you do when you don’t know what you want to be” and a few dead end jobs later, he found himself designing maps in his early 20's and discovered a passion for visual communication. Several years later he began photographing lots of bands at gigs for fun on his dad’s old 35mm Minolta. When his band shots started to get published he was hooked. He ditched his job in the summer of 2004 and started a BA at University of East London.

“when I think about it now I must have been mad getting through dozens of rolls of film a night and not getting paid for it, but its all beneficial as I really learned the possibilities of film which in todays digital world is still very important.”

Mike joined the AOP soon after finishing university as an assistant, initially because he felt it would give him more credibility and he needed to get work. Then he realised the benefits of the awards after being awarded a Merit for the Interior & Architecture Series in 2008. This gave him a huge boost in confidence in his work and since then he’s been selectively entering into a few awards as a way to raise the profile of his work. And it has paid off. This year he had a really strong body of work to enter into the Project category and another series for the Interior & Architect category and was lucky enough to be awarded overall winner.

Contact Mike Whelan on 07949 342240 or visit his website at http://www.mwimages.org