Castledaly photographer finds success on Instagram

A local amateur photographer has recently found success on Instagram, amassing more than 12,000 followers in just over 18 months.

Dylan McBurney, who lives in Castledaly, took up photography in his final year of studying Mechanical Engineering at Queen’s University Belfast, and his impressive shots of landmarks across the country have been showcased on various Irish adventure and discovery pages.

Having grown up in Craigavon until he was eight years old, Dylan and his family lived in both America and Malaysia because of his father Denzell’s work before settling down in Athlone.

“He works for a medical device company,” Dylan says. “So I was very lucky as a child to have the opportunity to live all around the world, but I did my Junior and Leaving Cert in Athlone Community College and I’ve been here since.”

Dylan says that photography was never really an interest of his when he was younger, but there is a family connection to the hobby.

“It was only really after I started photography that I found out my Grandad was into it as well. He used to use a darkroom to print the pictures, and he has sadly passed away, but it’s kind of funny that I’ve gotten into it now. Dad always had a camera if we were ever on holidays, so I’d use that sometimes but I never really had a big interest for it.

“It was more so when I finished school and started uni when I got a GoPro that I got into it more. We went back to Malaysia in 2018 and I made a travel video for that, so I was getting more of an interest in videography and photography.”

In his final year of his combined undergraduate and master’s degree, he got involved with the university’s photography club.

“I would just take photos on my phone, but then in August 2019 I bought a camera, and I started taking pictures of my dogs and with friends if we were going anywhere. As part of my degree we had to design and build a race car, and I took shots for that and of the team members and I ended up taking over the Queen’s Formula Racing Instagram and social media pages.

“My mum and dad bought me a drone then after graduation last summer, and I really like using that because it gives different perspectives compared to a regular camera shot. I’m trying to incorporate that into more of my work.”

Dylan says he does not know where the success of his Instagram page came from, and originally did not plan to post his work online. Everything he has learned in relation to photography has also come at no cost, with YouTube being his main source of information.

“My girlfriend and my sister ended up making an Instagram page for me. They just told me they made one, had put up a few stories and that I had to put up my first post that night. That’s how it started. I find it’s a good place to display my work, and Instagram helps loads because I’ve started reaching out to companies and they can see all your work in one place.

“On my days off, I’d normally go out to various landmarks and locations, but that’s all come to a halt now with the 5km limit. Any free time I have I’ve been putting towards photography, and everything that I’ve learnt is from YouTube. It’s crazy the amount of stuff you can learn on there. You learn a lot from successful photographers who are full time YouTubers, with editing and composition especially.”

With regards to his Instagram success, Dylan says “that a lot of support on Instagram can come from other photographers.”

“Because I’ve done a lot of landscape photography there’s been a lot of Irish feature pages that have shared my stuff. They sometimes have 50,000 or 100,000 followers, so I have gained exposure from some of them.

“Generally though, I think it’s more important for you to enjoy what you post. I recently hit 10,000 followers, but I try not to look at that. I just like to remind people of landmarks they have been to with my photos or show people what’s out there.”

Dylan has been able to travel stay in Airbnbs across Ireland and Northern Ireland in exchange for taking photographs of them, and hopes to branch out more into other areas of photography.

“I don’t want to get stuck in a niche – I really like landscape photography but I want to make it a bit more personal as well. Doing the staycations was brilliant, but when things open up again I would like to vlog (short video clips) a bit, and incorporate videos into the page a bit more.

“I’m speaking to a few companies, so hopefully when things open up I can branch out a bit more into product photography as well. Whatever I enjoy taking pictures of is what I’m going to continue to do.”

Dylan can be found on Instagram and Facebook @mcburneyphotography