I had a great time photographing actor/singer/ budding photographer Nicky Kavanagh, even when she turned it back onto me.
Balader à Belleville on Bastille day
Intimacy
So much of what makes a good portrait comes from a feeling of intimacy between photographer and subject. I didn’t have to try very hard with these two old friends, just turned away for a moment to load the camera and when I turned back they were naked. I love the passion in the picture.
Angel
The very lovely actor and singer Angel Hannigan. She knew my mother from Nick's coffee shop in Ranelagh, and sang an absolutely beautiful version of Nick Cave's "Into My Arms" at the funeral.
Chat tremblant
Le prince de la cour
Two Irish Artists in Paris
Aindrias De Staic, storyteller, actor and musician.
Macdara Smith, artist and musician.
These two beauties...
Alicia Ni Ghrainne and Michael Kinirons outside Baltimore, West Cork.
…are getting married in Baltimore today, and I’m very sorry I can’t be there. Wishing them much love and happiness together.
Today's office
Photographing Colm Toibin earlier today as part of a series of portraits for the Gate theatre.
Irish Times article here
Selfie
Via Aindreas de Staic
Via Macdara Smith
KWOO
Kwoo photographed in Dublin, May 2019, using this filter.
Last time I was back in Dublin I did some portraits of my neighbour Kwoo. She’s a poet, animator, performer, resident DJ for The Demented Goddess and all-round interesting person. You can follow her on Twitter here, and hear her mixes here.
Caoimhe photographed in Dublin, May 2019
Back on the Mainland
I’m going to be working in Dublin for the week of May 27th, if anyone would like me to shoot for them let me know.
Heroes and Villains
It’s great to see when somebody I’ve done a portrait of is in the news for all the right reasons.
Tom Kennedy, photographed in Dingle for the So Far book. More pictures here.
Sometimes it’s for other reasons, however.
Rolf Harris photographed for the New Musical Express, 80’s.
Try as I might, I couldn’t get past his well-worn cheeky chappie persona. Then I asked him to take off his glasses. There was only a brief moment before he put them back on and started gurning again, but it was long enough to see a very different side of him.
“There is a Jekyll and Hyde nature to Rolf Harris”- Sasha Wass QC, during Harris’s trial.
Lian and Grandad at the Glucksman
Lian in the Glucksman yesterday, photographed by her proud father.
Congratulations to my sister Lian, who has some of her work in The Glucksman gallery in Cork as part of their current group exhibition, “The Parted Veil”. It's made up of photographs she took of our grandparents' belongings in 2002, along with text from interviews with some of the family at the same time, and is up till the 28th of June.
A couple of years ago I was asked to contribute two portraits for the cover of the Hothouse Flowers album “People”. The first person I photographed for it was my grandfather.
Tim O’Driscoll, from the Leaders gallery
And the other person I photographed was Lian.
Lian Bell, also in the Leaders gallery
Trois Mecs à Paris*
*Or as one of my sisters put it, “OMG where are you getting these absolute rides”, but I don’t know how to say that in French.
Living your best life
Filmmaker Audrey O’Reilly photographed in Paris, May 2019.
If I haven’t shot your author/contributor/profile photo, I’m sorry but you’re just not living your best life. Be more like Audrey.
Clare Langan in Paris
Clare Langan photographed in Paris, May 2018.
Video artist Clare Langan is a national treasure, and I was very glad to get an opportunity to photograph her in Paris last year. I’d already seen her piece that’s currently in the Moving Woman show at La Galerie Danysz, but I went to see it again on Saturday. It’s so beautiful.
Galerie Danysz
You can see other portraits of artists in this recently updated gallery.
Me and the Da
John Horgan
I had a quick dive into the archives when I was back in Dublin, and came across this portrait I made of my father to accompany an interview in Cara magazine about one of his books. It’s one of my favourite pictures of him, along with this one:
Me and the Da
You can see other portraits of friends and family in this gallery.
The Ma and MacWeeney
Alen MacWeeney was my mother’s first boyfriend, but the relationship didn’t last after he moved to New York to become Richard Avedon’s assistant. He went on to have a stellar career as a photographer there, often coming back to Ireland to shoot a long-term project on the travelling community. I bought one of his prints of two traveller kids with the proceeds from the first script I ever sold, and it’s up in pride of place on the living room wall.
Alen MacWeeney photographed in Dublin, April 2019.
My mother Sara, aged 18, photographed by Alen. He added the image of himself looking at her and sent it from New York.
It was great to catch up with him when I was back in Dublin last week. He told me about the new biography of Avedon, saying “it reads like a thriller”. I’m halfway through its 700 pages, and he’s not wrong.
You can see some of my other pictures of artists in this gallery.
Growing up in Belfast
My portrait of writer Kate Thompson is in today’s Irish Times, illustrating her piece about growing up in Belfast. You can see more of my portraits of writers in this gallery.
For Oliver
Oliver Stanley was a beautiful man, and a really great friend to me. He died, aged forty-one, on this day in 1995. Remembered with warmth, much love, and this dedication.
He’d be pretty tickled to know I was posting a picture of his arse to the entire world, all these years later. There’s a portrait of him in this gallery.