The puppeteer of Notre Dame

Irma and Pascal photographed in Paris, November 2017.

Irma and Pascal photographed in Paris, November 2017.

Pascal and Irma Delamaire were friends of my mothers for many years, although I only met them for the first time shortly after I moved to Paris in 2017. Pascal and I quickly discovered that we’d much in common, including that earlier in life we’d both been puppeteers. My fledgling puppetry career was over before I left my teens, but he’d gone on to perform for many years, ending up on the best pitch in Paris – performing classical puppetry from inside a booth directly opposite Notre Dame.  When he looked up during the show, all he could see beyond the puppets in his hands was the two bell towers of Notre Dame, and it gave him a great sense of connection with all the other puppeteers who’d performed in the same spot, with the exact same view, for hundreds and hundreds of years. I love that.

Some Paris art...

…that I really didn’t like. Well, maybe the Royale with Cheese was alright. You can see some portraits of artists whose work I do like in this gallery.

My First Riot

I got some concerned calls from friends and family in Ireland when they saw I was out taking photographs at the Gilet Jaunes protests. I assured them I was fine, having learned a valuable life lesson during my first ever riot*.

The current protests also remind me of attending a much quieter riot during the winter of 2011 in New York.

And of going to the May Day riots in Berlin, which turned out to be a very civilised affair.

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*I was seventeen and had just started taking photographs when I went to my first riot, which kicked off during a squatter’s protest in Nørrebro, Copenhagen. Unfortunately I didn’t get any good pictures - after a few hours hanging around in case something happened, when it actually did I was far too busy running down a narrow city street as fast as I could from a terrifying wall of charging police, equipped with barking dogs and waving long mahogany batons. I didn’t have a press card, but even if I had it would have made absolutely no difference - they were determined to pacify everyone on the street with extreme force, no matter who they were. So my top riot tip is this: in a riot, stay as far away as possible from the people who are most likely to hurt you, and those people are probably the police.

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My book of New York photos is available online. Limited-edition prints from the book are available for purchase at The Copper House Gallery in Dublin. You can see a piece I did on New York for Narratively here.

Mathias Zwick does great photographs of the Gilet Jaunes protests in Paris, and there’s a country-wide live feed here.

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.

Flattery in Paris

We saw these two walking towards us, and I said “He must be in love”. “He must have done something terrible”, replied Nicole.

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I first met Nicole Flattery when we were both in the Irish Cultural Centre in Paris, and was really impressed by her clever and funny short stories. We did a portrait in the centre that became the author photograph in her new collection, which was given a rave review ("a highly addictive mix of deadpan drollery and candour") in the Guardian yesterday.

Nicole Flattery in Paris, 2017.

Nicole Flattery in Paris, 2017.

There are more portraits of writers in this gallery.

Lisbon?

About eighteen months ago I had a screenplay to finish and wanted to go somewhere warm, cheap and interesting* to get it done, and Lisbon sounded like it would be just the place. It didn’t happen in the end, but I did get to visit for a couple of days last January and very nice it was too.

*When a friend from Northern Ireland overheard what I was looking for, she couldn’t stop herself blurting out “Then why on earth would you move to Lisburn?”

A Mother Brings Her Son To Be Shot

“One night, Majella O’Donnell brought her son Philly to be shot in both legs”. So begins this week’s episode of An Irishman Abroad, featuring journalist and film-maker Sinead O’Shea telling the story of how she came to make the feature documentary “A Mother Brings Her Son To Be Shot”.

Director Sinead O’ Shea, photographed in my Dublin studio last year.

Quiet Places

I’ve just begun a new writing project.

The Image You Missed

Donal Foreman’s “The Image You Missed” is a really interesting essay film about his relationship with his estranged father, Paris-based documentary maker Arthur MacCaig. I saw it last year in The Pompidou Centre, and asked Donal to sit for a portrait the next day. We met at the cafe in the 5th Arrondissement where he last saw his father, who died in 2008.

As I was shooting, a man who looked like Arthur MacCaig passed by in the background.

“The Image You Missed” screens this evening at the Odeon Point Square Cinema in Dublin, as part of the Five Lamps Arts Festival.

What have you got to say for yourself?

I shot these portraits of Margaretta D'Arcy and John Arden for a piece on married couples in The Sunday Telegraph Magazine. They refused on principle to appear in the same picture as they weren't actually living together. Margaretta filmed me as I photographed her, and when we were finished took me up to the attic where there was a tangle of wires hanging from a bare bulb in the ceiling. She flicked a switch, thrust a microphone at me and said "You are now broadcasting live on the world's only Irish language, feminist pirate radio station - what have you got to say for yourself?" Not a lot, as it turned out.

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Low!

 “You look like the kind of people who probably bump into each other a lot...maybe at the same library” - Alan Sparhawk of Low, nailing the audience demographic at last night‘s gig in Rouen.

Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker

I’ve loved Low’s melancholy songs, distorted guitars and eerie harmonies for some time, so it was a real treat to get to see them live. 

Steve Garrington

Steve Garrington

They didn’t disappoint, with this being a highlight of the evening.

Never too loud

Never too loud

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Teeth solo!

Teeth solo!

Here’s my favourite song from their new album, a classic, and a great cover. 

Goodnight Normandy!

Trans / Punk

I shot some portraits recently of Irish transgender people for Michele-Ann Kelly’s Transition, Family and Me project. When Sarah R Phillips and I started talking about music it turned out we’d both been to many of the seminal punk gigs in Dublin. I asked if she’d seen the legendary Slaughter & The Dogs play in Belfield, and she told me not only was she there, she still goes to see them every chance she gets. Respect.

A History-Making Nerd

Liz Carolan is a self-confessed data and transparency nerd. In 2018, she set up a project to bring transparency to online advertising in Ireland’s referendum on the 8th amendment which banned abortion. That project led to a change in policy by Facebook and Google, and prompted commitments by the Irish Government to reform electoral regulations. Reading about her work makes it even more obvious that treating social media, particularly Facebook, with an ever-increasing degree of scepticism can only be a good thing. See also: T-Bone Burnett’s incendiary keynote from SXSW.

I photographed Liz last week in the new Fumbally Exchange, Dublin 8.

A different kind of portrait

Sometimes something very different comes along, such as the couple of times I’ve been asked by friends with cancer to help make a record of their experience. One such friend asked me recently to photograph her lumpectomy scars, and we were both very happy with how the pictures turned out. I’m also very glad to say that she’s doing well now, after a gruelling round of treatment. To be asked to do something like this feels like a real honour.

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What's Wrong With Dreaming?

River City People promo video for 'What's Wrong with Dreaming?'

I barely had a clue what I was doing. Talking to Jarlath recently reminded me of this promo, my very first outing as a lighting cameraman. It came out alright, though- I think wobbly cam was a thing back then. I connected with Siobhan again years later, and we got to hang out in Nashville when I was there to shoot a portrait for the So Far book.

Saw a great comment on the Youtube video, which I just had to respond to…