Thomas McNamara

...the III actually - son of a Thomas who was son of a Thomas. My Dad was a full-blooded Irishman from Clonmel, Co. Tipperary, Ireland, my Mum is as Australian as they come, and I’m married to my Mid-Western American sweetheart. Add all of this together, the outgoingness of the Irish, laid-back Australianism, and Mid-Western hospitality: as a result I’m a people person - I love people. Meeting new people, making them feel welcome, and hearing their stories brings me joy. I love seeing people happy, excited and full of hope for their future.

That is one of the reasons I think I’ve always loved photography, the ability to capture moments, to secure memories so they will never be forgotten. As an eleven year old at our local grocery store I begged my Mother to let me purchase my first film camera, and have been taking photos ever since.

I studied photography and film processing in high school and got to work in a dark room processing my own photos from scratch. I upgraded my blue plastic grocery store camera to a used 1984 Minolta X-370 35mm film camera and spent a lot of money as a teenager on Kodak, Ilford and Fuji film rolls. I think one of the amazing things about learning photography using film was that you learnt the importance of never wasting a shot, you took the time to get the shot right, because you knew it was going to cost you 50c per photo to print those things! Later on, when I was 19 I bought my first digital SLR and from that point on have been all about Canon.

In the early 2000’s after shooting the weddings of some of our close friends, myself and close friend David Mannah (davidmannah.com) co-founded phao photography (www.phaophotography.com) which is today one of Sydney's leading wedding photography companies. Today, on the other side of the Pacific Ocean, I live in Kansas City, MO, USA, the heart of America. I love photography, it’s been a huge part of my life for over 24 years now, shooting at every chance I get.

I’d love to be there for you, to capture the natural joy and excitement of your most treasured and memorable moments. Send me an email, take a moment to view my recent work using the social media links, or feel free to look over some Frequency Asked Questions.