BIOGRAPHY

In 2008, after nearly 30 years in the South African advertising industry as an award-winning art director and then creative director, Graham De Lacy decided it was time to get behind the camera. It was a fairly natural transition as he had spent many years directing the country’s top photographers who in turn had imparted onto him their vast knowledge of lighting.

It takes a certain amount of confidence to change careers in one’s fifties. Two events helped here. Firstly, De Lacy had an image published in National Geographic. This was followed by being awarded the overall image of the year in the Pix Magazine 2009 Photographic Awards (Pix is South Africa’s top photographic magazine).

In 2012, De Lacy was voted the photographer of the year in the PICA awards, South African Journalism’s premier award.

De Lacy can be termed somewhat of a generalist because of his ability to execute a wide range of assignments with a strong focus on people and performance. He also has a keen eye for architecture having just designed and shot a coffee table book for Redefine Properties featuring all their top properties in South Africa.

In the ‘PHOTOMATIC’, De Lacy has created somewhat of a niche for himself. The photomatic is a TV commercial shot in a sequence of stills, edited with music and voices and used for research purposes. It’s a full-on production that includes casting, styling and location. It takes the antiquated ‘animatic’ a lot further in that it is better able to capture emotion, character, appetite appeal etc. At this point in time, the success rate that De Lacy has achieved in the post-production research sits at 94%.

De Lacy is a Johannesburg based photographer and his clients include Unilever, South African Breweries, Outsurance, CADAC gas appliances, St John’s College, St Mary’s School, Roedean College, DDB South Africa, Ogilvy’s, Redefine Properties and Taste Magazine.