From the Classroom to the Camera – charting his shift from teaching English in Chile to full-time photography in Northern Ireland.

The Language of Light

Hernan’s relationship with photography deepened when he met Wiesław Olejniczak, a renowned Polish portrait photographer living in Chile who had worked for Vogue Latin America. “I asked him to give me lessons every Friday after work,” Hernan says. “After six months, I became his assistant, then his second shooter. Wiesław became my mentor – a patient teacher who not only showed me how to handle a camera but how to truly see. He taught me how to read light, to understand its mood, and to let it tell the story rather than force it.”

That early lesson – the art of light – remains central to everything Hernán creates. “How you use light in photography is the number one rule,” he insists. “When you learn to read light the right way, you reach a different point in your photography.”

You can see that philosophy across his work. Interiors glow softly through window panes. Portraits seem to breathe, the light balanced perfectly between precision and atmosphere. Even his commercial shoots – from malting factories in Cork to music stages across Belfast – are treated as studies in light and relation rather than product documentation.

One moment that captures this perfectly happened on a farm in County Cork. While filming with two farmers for a commercial project, Hernan recalls arriving at ten in the morning and immediately asking, “Can I move around your sheds to search for the best light?” For him, finding that perfect shed mattered more than any backdrop. He spent time exploring the space, shifting hay bales and machinery, building a composition around the soft, natural light that poured in. “The backdrop would be nothing without that nice light,” he says – a quiet reminder that illumination, not setting, is what gives his work its life.

From Portraits to Video: A Changing Medium

Over the past decade, Hernan’s career has evolved alongside the industry itself. Once primarily a photographer, he now spends 90% of his time on video work. “If you plan to make a living in media today, you can’t just do photography,” he says. “Both go hand in hand.”

Working in marketing, he now helps businesses tell their stories visually – creating long-form YouTube pieces and dozens of short social media clips per campaign. “We go to a client for a week and create enough content to last them a year,” he says. “It’s fast-paced, creative, and every trip is different.”
But even as the technology shifts, Hernan doesn’t lose sight of the fundamentals. “Whether natural or artificial, how you use light to your favour is one of the most important aspects of photography and videography,” he says. “Everything starts from that.”

Seeing the Human First

Though he has travelled widely – documenting humanitarian work in India, Bhutan, Nepal, and Pakistan – Hernan’s sensibility remains grounded in portraiture. “I believe a product is shown better when you have a human face in the image,” he says. “That probably comes from my strong interest in portrait photography.”

His street portraits show the same empathy. “I like speaking to people before I photograph them,” he says. “It’s social. I don’t see it as work – it’s more like being on holiday, getting to know people.” For Hernan, relationships are at the centre of every image. Whether shooting a bride, a farmer, or a musician, he approaches each subject with curiosity and care.