A Fix of France

I was lucky enough to do a house-swap with an artist friend in Paris for a couple of weeks, giving me a much needed fix of France - got to see friends, some great art and just enjoy being in the greatest city in the world. I also got down to Arles to see the Rencontres photography Festival, always worth the trip.

Rue De Buci

Dominique cuts loose in the Café des 2 Moulins, Montmartre (the Amelie bar)

Little Italy

After watching the Sopranos again, I've started listening to the "Our Thing" podcast, in which real-life gangster Salvatore "Sammy the Bull" Gravano tells stories about being underboss to John Gotti, head of the Gambino crime family in New York. In the first episode he describes the FBI raid on the Ravenite Club in Little Italy that brought Gotti's career to an end. There was something about the place that sounded familiar, so I looked up the address. Turns out it was in the same building on Mulberry Street where I spent a winter a couple of years ago.

This was the view out the window.

You can see more about my winter in New York here.

Goodbye to Cara Magazine

It’s sad to see that Aer Lingus’s inflight magazine Cara won’t be published any longer - it was a great magazine to shoot for, and they won several well-deserved awards for best use of photography. It was always a treat to travel on an Aer Lingus flight and see other passengers looking through my photographs. Here is a selection of work I’ve done for them over the years - hover over images for captions. You can see more of my travel features here.

100 Views of Contemporary Ireland

I was asked to contribute an image to the 100 Views of Contemporary Ireland exhibition, which marks the first decade of PhotoIreland. The show is running  at the Library Project in Dublin between 12-29 March as part of the St. Patrick’s Day festival. This is my contribution, and prints and postcards of all of the images will be available from the Library Project.

Title: Mary

Location: Inis Meáin

Year: 2014

Annaghmakerrig

I’m staying at the Tyrone Guthrie centre in Annaghmakerrig, getting some writing done. It’s a fantastic place, which I wrote about for The Dubliner magazine a few years ago - you can read the article here.

I found this couch yesterday on a walk near the centre, and one of the artists sat in for the picture.

The big house

The big house

Fifteen Years of New Year's Days.

Lord of the Rings

A recent NYT piece about the bagel war in Montreal reminds me that when I was packing at the end of my last visit there, I left most of my t-shirts behind so I’d have more room for bagels.

PS: St. Viateur for life.

There are more of my Montreal photographs here.

Ireland for @ireland

My friend Helen O’Rahilly is curating the @ireland twitter account this week, and put out a call yesterday for photographs of Ireland. I sent her a few, and here is a selection of some of my other favourite images of the country.

Sunday in Montmartre

Part of the really interesting / disturbing Roger Ballen expo in Halle Saint-Pierre

L'esprit de l'escalier

L'esprit de l'escalier is a French expression that no French person seems to have heard of, which describes what it’s like to think of a perfect response long after the opportunity to deliver it has passed.

I was leaving La Guarida in Havana when I noticed him coming down the staircase, and when I asked for a photograph he knew just the right pose.

There are some more of my Havana photographs here.

Taken on my first visit to the MEP, in the company of my favourite exhibitions coordinator.

The staircase in my last apartment. Monter ces escaliers aide à garder le cul soigné, as they say.

Etymology

Borrowed from French esprit de l’escalier (literally “mind of the staircase”), with the definite article le (“the”) at the beginning of the term elided to l’. It refers to a description of the phenomenon in the essay Paradoxe sur le comédien (Paradox of the Actor, completed 1778 and published 1830)[1] by the French encyclopedist and philosopher Denis Diderot (1713–1784). During a dinner at the home of the statesman Jacques Necker (1732–1804), Diderot was left speechless by a remark made to him. He wrote: « l’homme sensible, comme moi, tout entier à ce qu’on lui objecte, perd la tête et ne se retrouve qu’au bas de l’escalier » (“a sensitive man, such as myself, overwhelmed by the argument levelled against him, becomes confused and can only think clearly again at the bottom of the stairs”), that is, when one is already on the way out of the house.

The Staircase (Mystery)

Into The Woods

I was given an unusual commission over the summer - to photograph some woods in the Wicklow mountains. They belong to a friend’s father, but as he’s become too unwell to visit them she wanted some prints made so she could bring the woods to him.

Here are some of my favourite images from the shoot.

He renovated this little cabin himself.

Fall Colours in New England

Taken while I was shooting around Boston for Cara magazine last week.

Paris Street Art, Part Two

September Windows

Portimao, September 21st 2017

Paris, September 20th 2019

Paris, September 25th 2018

Paris, September 25th 2018

Antwerp for Cara magazine

Belgian beauty in this month’s Cara magazine.

Arles

The rencontres de la photographie in Arles