Nuala Mahon divides her time between Sherkin Island and France. She became fascinated with photography after receiving a box Brownie, aged twelve. She holds a BSc and MSc in chemistry. `She graduated in 2023 with a BA(Hons)Photography from The University for the Creative Arts. She speaks a number of languages and has lived and worked in many countries.
Her seafaring ancestors has given her a deep affinity with the sea and a desire to protect it from polluting materials. She experimented with sustainable photographic techniques, using her chemical background to photography the plastic waste on the beaches of her island home. She fabricated her pinhole cameras from tin cans and cardboard boxes. She developed the images in a seaweed solution and fixed them in sea salt. The work was included in a group video “Ways of Living” exhibited in the Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool Climate Change Lab 2022. The work was also shortlisted for Belfast Photography Festival in the same year.