Who are The Hacks?

We are a husband and wife team, Simon and Jill Hack, who between us have lived on this gorgeous Island of Cyprus for over 30 years.
We love life and love to live, really live, and we try to bring this personality, and yours, into our photographs. Our aim is to capture the real emotion and events of your day as they happen, and give you a great selection of bright, stylish and timeless photographs for you to take home and treasure forever.

Now, let’s meet the individuals involved in this crazy gang:

Simon on Simon:

Who am I?….. that’s a difficult one. All I really know is that I love life beyond what you would call passionately. Every day is a gift, that’s why ‘now’ is called ‘the present’.
I believe so much in the principle of what you give out you get back. I have journeyed from South America to Asia, to Africa and almost everywhere in-between and have always treated everybody as I would like to be treated myself. Life is an amazing, humbling, scary, fantastic, joyous roller coaster of a journey but we must remember that sometimes we need to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy.

“Somewhere on your journey don’t forget to turn around and enjoy the view”

Anyway, I got a bit philosophical there, back to the basics…. I was born in England and have lived and worked in Mexico, Andorra, Thailand, Canada and Austria but home is here, home is Cyprus – where my heart is 🙂

My first photography experience was at 16,changing films (way before the dawn of digital) for a sports photographer at a Wimbledon Tennis centre court final . From then I was hooked and it’s brought me to this moment now, to wedding days, to sharing and capturing other people’s most amazing moments.

My lucky number is….. the one you’re thinking of now, my favourite colour is every colour except black and grey. I have surfed since I was 12,I play guitar, piano and I paint, and without a doubt I am the luckiest person I know 🙂

Jill on Jill:

“Leave footprints of love and kindness wherever you go.”

I find it much harder to write about myself than Simon so I asked a few people for words to describe me. The 2 that came up the most were “safe” and “kind”. After at first thinking “wow, how boring do I sound” I realised that not only do these words describe me perfectly but also that I’m proud of that.

I love to love, I love to give, I love to see happiness on other’s faces from things I have done for them. Not just in my personal life but with work too – there is nothing more rewarding than seeing a bride and groom brought to tears when we show them the images we’ve captured. And as for the safeness, anyone who has met Simon will know he needs me beside him to press the “safe” switch at appropriate moments. I really am the ying to his yang, the calm to his crazy… 🙂

I was born in Newcastle, and like most Geordies am an avid Newcastle United fan and also adore Ant and Dec. In my teens I moved over to the lake district and after completing my A levels I tried a number of careers…. retail, business management, even donning a hard hat and steel toe capped boots to train to become a quantity surveyor, all a success but none of them inspiring me.  At 24 I moved to Cyprus, trained in videography and photography, loved loved loved it and the rest is history, 12 years later and I am beyond happy doing what I do and so lucky to be able to do it with the man I love by my side.

My family and friends mean the World to me, I’m romantic, fun, energetic, caring, creative, organised and maybe a little bossy at times (in a good way of course, just ask my hubby)!! I love to travel. I love to be inspired and also to inspire other people. My favourite colour is blue, which is not a surprise when my favourite thing is sitting by the blue sea listening to the waves lap against the shore….

 Us on Mogpog:

Who would have thought we would be giving a section to our dog!!! But Mogpog is more than a dog, she is part of who we are, she is a big part of The Hacks. She has been in a couple’s sunset shoots, she has partied the night away at a wedding disco and she has been lucky enough to receive mountains of gifts from our wonderfully thoughtful brides and grooms.

So many people ask us where the name “mogpog” came from….
It was 2008, we were watching sunset while drinking a beer sat at a place in the Philippines, called, yep you guessed it “Mogpog”, so right there and then over that beer we decided when we returned home we would get a dog and that would be her name.
So, a trip to the dog shelter and this crazy little scruffy abandoned white thing was dancing on her back legs. There was no doubt she should be ours and she would suit the name. And that is how the adventures of Mogpog began 🙂