About Your Tutor
Dave Mac Cathain (Mac Caw Hine) has spent his life exploring creativity through many lenses, as a photographer, poet, teacher, designer, and maker. These disciplines shaped him, but so did where he lived and how he moved between cultures. Growing up in Ireland and spending a formative year in the American Midwest gave him a perspective that was both inside and outside at once. He learned how environments can either encourage or suppress expression, and how identity often forms at the edge of worlds.
This broad creative journey underpins his belief that the deepest value of learning comes from cultivating creativity first, then applying it through live practices in both Expressions and Photography.
The Creative Guide grew from these experiences, weaving them into courses that help others reconnect with their own creative abilities. His courses invite you to sharpen how you see the world through photography and to expand how you think about it through reflective practice.
Creative Disciplines
Dave’s creative life has moved through many forms, each shaping how he works and how he teaches. Photography came first, beginning in his early teens and later studied formally. It sharpened his awareness of light, timing, and the quiet moments that hold meaning, and it gave him the skills to help others see through the camera with confidence.
Writing poetry and short stories added another language for observation. It taught him that creativity is not about polish but about presence, honesty, and expression. Words became another lens for seeing the world.
These experiences now shape how he helps others develop both the eye for images and the mind for ideas.
Living Between Worlds
Spending part of his youth in the American Midwest showed Dave a version of himself that Ireland had not fully seen. There, qualities that once felt out of place were celebrated, and he experienced how environment shapes expression.
When he returned home, the contrast was immediate. The night before he flew back, he had been praised for his voice and ideas. A week later, at a party in Dublin, a drunk uncle said, “Who do you think you are with your Yankee accent?” In that moment, Dave understood he had a choice: stay true to who he had become or shrink back into what was expected.
The choice was not easy, but it shaped everything since. It taught him that identity can grow stronger through change, even when the environment resists it, and that you must zealously protect that space. It also showed him the importance of creating spaces where others can safely grow into who they are. Dave has returned to the Midwest many times over the years, finding both inspiration and continuity in a place that still shapes how he sees and works.
Protecting Creative Space
That commitment to protecting creative space has carried through all of Dave’s work. Two moments stand out.
In poetry, he once described a plane flying from Dublin to London “parabolically.” When challenged, he spent half an hour defending that single word. Twenty-five years later, it still sits in the poem exactly where it belongs.
Photography brought a similar test. In the early days of HDR, the technique was dismissed by many as not being “real” photography. Dave explored it anyway, experimenting until it fit his vision. The skills he developed became central to a five-year project documenting abandoned wooden farmhouses in the Midwest, a body of work that was widely praised.
These experiences reinforced his belief that creativity thrives only when its space is protected and its boundaries pushed.
Why This Matters for You
Because Dave has moved between disciplines and cultures, he knows that creativity is not tied to one tool, art form, or environment. It is a way of approaching the world that anyone can develop. This perspective is at the heart of The Creative Guide.
Whether you choose an Expressions course or a Photography course, you will be learning from the same foundation, thoughtful guidance, practical learning, and a belief that creativity is a human skill you already possess — one best nurtured through live Expressions and Photography courses that cultivate clarity, communication, and creativity.
