“I’m fascinated by the ordinary,” street photographer Colin O’Brien tells me. “Famous people and famous things just don’t interest me. The ordinary is as of much importance as the extraordinary.”
Born and bred in East London, O’Brien has witnessed large-scale migration, gentrification and regeneration. So when he tells me that evolving communities inspires his work, I wonder if there was a more fitting place in Britain to grow up.
Travellers’ Children
We’re having coffee in Shoreditch to discuss his book, Travellers’ Children in London Fields. It documents a 1987 encounter with a group of Irish travellers and their kids in Hackney and was recently described by The Independent as a “stunning set of images”.
“Those kids were so free,” he says.
“They were impoverished but not unhappy. I think they’re tender shots and there’s a real sense of togetherness in some.”
Colin took his first photograph in 1948, aged eight. From then on he was rarely seen without his box camera, even though his classmates found his hobby unusual and his family were not particularly supportive. His parents were poor and had little time for the arts.
A difficult relationship
“They spent their days trying to earn a living, trying to keep us alive. I never really got on with my dad early on in my life. I was fairly creative and he worked in a pretty mundane, awful job so I was never sure that he got what I was doing.”
But just weeks before he died, Colin was touched to learn that his emotionally restrained father thought more of his work than he had always assumed.
“He came to an exhibition at the Morley gallery and he wrote in the comment book: ‘I am very proud of my son, these pictures are wonderful.’ It was so nice to see that.”
Colin was raised in Clerkenwell, known back then as “Little Italy”. Despite his deprived upbringing, he insists it was a fascinating place to live.
“There were lots of Italians and kids with no clothes or shoes and we would all use the bombsites as vast playgrounds. Then there were the Roman Catholic schools with nuns that knocked the living daylights out of you.
“I went to one as an infant, but I cried most days because I just hated it.”
Eventually he found happiness at another school, although he left at 15 with no qualifications.
A warning to Hackney Hipsters
He thinks his upbringing has helped him as a street photographer, and has a message for the hipsters of Hackney.
“A lot of young photographers from various colleges on Brick Lane market poke their cameras into people’s faces as they’re trying to sell their wares. It’s not the way you do it. You embed yourself into the community.
“Students ask me: ‘how do you get so close to the ‘outsiders’ , but they’re not outsiders to me. Students say they’re living on the fringe, but they’re not. There’s hierarchy and aggression there.”
Veteran of photography
After travelling around Europe, he obtained a degree from Westminster University and settled into the world of teaching at the London Institute, all the while persevering with street photography.
Now 73, Colin possesses an archive of over 10,000 negatives. He insists that he is not against change, but as I admire his 30-year-old Nikon FM camera, I’m unconvinced that he welcomes it. Rather, much of Colin’s later work is a reflective catalogue, recording what will soon be gone and documenting ordinary people reacting to upheaval.
“Looking back, a lot of the stuff I’ve done in more recent times has been the last days of things. The day before the smoking ban for example I went around with some tobacco and visited some pubs while people smoked for the time.”
Credit: Colin O’Brien
Meeting new people
But he is as drawn by the process of street photography as much as the result. A gregarious man, Colin enjoys the excitement of meeting new people with new stories.
“I just have this urge to talk to people. I’m interested in their everyday life,” he explains. This is not difficult to believe. We met at a London university where he often gives talks and he stopped so many times to chat to passing friends I wondered if we would ever get to the interview.
While showing little interest in recording glamour or showbiz, Colin did work extensively for the King’s Head Theatre in the 1970s and the Bishopsgate Institute recently restored over 6,000 of his images of actors.
“We’re hoping to put on an exhibition with the National Theatre. I think it’d be great to get John Hurt back after all these years. I remember bossing him around on the stage telling him where to stand, that was good fun.”
The beautiful shots in London Travellers emphasise genuine affection for children. When I ask about his own family, he sighs and reveals that he and his wife of 40 years were unable to have kids.
“We tried, but it didn’t happen. It’s amazing because I’ve photographed so many children in my life. Maybe it’s compensation for not having any of my own.”
Hostility
But his book also reminds him that changing attitudes have made street photography difficult.
“Future generations won’t see the kind of images I produced with Traveller’s Children… because people are too nervous about why you’re taking the photo.”
He scrunches his face. “There’s more hostility now, which is strange because everybody is always taking pictures. People think it’s illegal to take a photo of you.”
Increased hostility is a recurring theme and he clearly feels there is too much distrust nowadays. Nevertheless, Colin’s passion is unwavering. He currently records life in Hackney, where he has lived for almost 30 years. As he talks about upcoming exhibitions, I ask him whether he’ll ever hang up his Nikon FM.
“Two things will stop me doing street photography. Either I die, or London stops changing.”
