Good Rats: by Niall O'Brian.

art
2/5/2010

Good Rats.


by Hynam Kendall


As a huge Shane MacGowan fan, Niall O’Brien’s title choice for his punk photography exhibit at Art Work Space was simple; he would name it after the MacGowan collaboration with Boston-Irish punk rock band the Dropkick Murphys: ‘Good Rats’. “That song has a resonance for me,” he says. It is also fitting in other ways, because of their behaviour and how they look, the boys featured are seen as rats by most people, though, Niall assures, “they are a good bunch regardless of what they get up to!"


It wasn’t easy getting in with the group; that process did take a lot of time. In the early days they were quite apprehensive and just ended up ignoring him; that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, as it’s important that the group are unaware of the camera for the pictures to really be honest. But it’s also important for them to be natural, for them to accept the process. 

About two years into shooting, things started to turn round for Niall. There was an incident where he had to take the rap for a break-in that they committed, and after that he started to gain their respect. One minute he was some random bloke in his twenties hanging around with this group of teenagers taking pictures, and the next they saw him as someone that was willing to stick his neck out for them. 

That respect helped him to enjoy a greater level of access and, as a result, the pictures are more natural for it. He could get amazing pictures posed for in a studio or in the kids’ bedrooms, but that’s not what Good Rats is about. It’s not necessarily true that a picture is only ever good when the person lets you into their world, it is just that, for Niall, and concurrently his solo debut at Art Work Space, there was an artistic interest in achieving a sense of the voyeuristic. “I want people to look at a picture and feel the moment,” he tells Ponystep before The Hempel Hotel’s Niall O’Brien reception. “Regardless of whether or not the group is aware of me being in the background, that split second, when they’ve forgotten about the camera being there is what I’m looking for. I’ve always been into the idea of using photography as a tool to capture the spontaneous moment. That moment when nobody’s aware of the lens is special and it’s actually quite rare.”   


Hynam Kendall: Niall, I know you’ve been doing this exhibit – a collection of photographs of South-West London punks – for years now. How long exactly has this project taken you from concept to completion?

Niall O’Brien: The project is in no way complete, and that’s after four years of shooting.

Hynam Kendall: Then why have you chosen to host an exhibition of the pictures now?

Niall O’Brien: These kids are great and it’s very hard to take a bad picture with the places that they hang out and the way that they look. But I’m sitting on a huge stack of pictures that aren’t really that dissimilar, so I think it’s important at the moment to take a break. There’s still so much to capture though. It’s only in the last six months that I’ve noticed some of the guys breaking away from the group and that interests me too as a separate project. There’s still so much potential there.

Hynam Kendall: Even after you’d integrated into the group, were you still The Outsider? Obviously you were different from them, in many ways, no matter how long you’d been hanging out as part of the gang.

Niall O’Brien: It’s only recently that my relationship with some of the kids has grown a little bit more. I’ve kind of realised over time that I didn’t fit in during the earlier shoots. I’d be welcomed when I walked up to the kids that knew me, but the others would question me being there. That’s changed with time. Last summer I went on a trip with them to Berlin and I’ve never felt so accepted amongst a group. I turned up and there were all these older, potentially volatile punks, and to look at me you might immediately not think I fit. But the minute that people realised I was with the guys I was entirely accepted. Now I feel as though I fit in quite well. Essentially for these kids it’s not a matter of what you do or what you wear – as far as they’re concerned if you’re cool, you’re cool; but if you’re an arsehole you’re going to get kicked out of the group.

Hynam Kendall: When were the best results happening, the best pictures being taken? At the beginning of your project when it was still fresh? Towards the end, once you’d been initiated?

Niall O’Brien: I’ve never once come back from the lab unhappy. In fact, sometimes that’s to my disadvantage. I might get five great pictures per roll and the cost for printing them has got to come from somewhere. I went with the guys to an abandoned mental asylum a while ago and the entire shoot was no more than 15 minutes before the police showed up - there were police officers all over the show and a helicopter circling the area - but there are rolls and rolls of quality pictures there.

Hynam Kendall: How honest is your representation of these kids?

Niall O’Brien: I’d like to think the honesty comes across in the finished product. To be frank they tell me stories of what they get up to when I’m not around that are far more dark and potentially interesting than when I am. But that’s more a case of timing and I don’t think my presence is discouraging anything they do. My skill as a photographer in this project doesn’t come from composition or direction, it comes from having the ability to keep a distance without being obvious about it. Once I get into a situation with the kids I just button my lip and shoot as much as I can. I hope the honesty that I’m trying to portray comes through that ability to keep a subtle distance. I need to interact with them but 80 percent of the time I need to disassociate myself and be conscious of not having an influence on the group.   

Hynam Kendall: I also ask about honesty, because this project came about as an offshoot of a film you were doing called Superheroes.

Niall O’Brien: A few years back I was commissioned to make a vox-pop film about youth – but the film was a documentary and I don’t believe there’s ever been any fictional element to anything I’ve done with the group. My original idea was to find a group of friends that all had something in common and originally I thought about a group of skateboarders. Then a colleague of mine met this incredible looking punk kid with a foot high Mohican and leopard-skin head and he agreed to be in the film with his friends. Everything else was born out of that meeting really. Once I’d documented these kids I realised I’d been given some kind of key into that world, one foot in the door of this group of youths and, as a photographer, I knew I couldn’t let the opportunity lie. Everything has grown organically out of that. I’ve always been intrigued to see where they’d end up – which has pretty much signed me up for a long-term commitment.

Hynam Kendall: Is this project about preserving youth?

Niall O’Brien: In a way this project is about coming back to my own youth. I’ve been there – not as a punk but the situations are similar. I’ve always felt that what they get up to, the drinking, the scraps, everything is in an effort for them to conquer this sense of boredom that’s a part of everyone’s youth. I’ve been given this incredible opportunity to relive a sense of my own youth through these photographs, to capture something that I’ve lost. I wish I’d had a camera when I was their age – perhaps this project is not only a chance for me capture, but also to recapture in some way.

Hynam Kendall: So if you weren’t a punk growing up, where did your interest in punk stem from?

Niall O’Brien: I never had a love of punk – it’s just not a scene I was into. I’ve grown to love punk music but only in the past four years that I’ve been working on the project. It fascinates me that people focus purely on the punk element of the project though because that’s never been a conscious decision on my part. As far as I’m concerned, these could be a bunch of kids from anywhere. It definitely gives the pictures a great aesthetic but, for me, the project is more about the personalities at the heart of the group and the nature of who these guys are.

Hynam Kendall: It’s odd because the notion of punk, and even sometimes the photographs and their content, seem somewhat dated in a way…

Niall O’Brien: I don’t really think that’s the case. When I was skateboarding as a teenager my parents’ friends would point out my board and ask whether they were still making those things. I think you have to be involved in a scene to be aware of it. What I’m photographing is true to the present and I think that makes it entirely current.

Hynam Kendall: Throughout the exhibit, the story and its characters change. They grow from adolescents to young men, as is the case with 4 years in the life of any teenagers…

Niall O’Brien: I’m not sure I agree. Between the age of 16 and 19 there might be a slight sense of growth. But their actions are pretty much the same only with a greater sense of knowing. One thing I do realise now that they’re adults is that everything they do becomes more serious – there’s more jeopardy, more chance of arrest – but essentially the intent remains the same.

Hynam Kendall: What’s next for the Superheroes project, for which Good Rats obviously stemmed from?

Niall O’Brien: For now it’s all about Good Rats. I haven’t seen the kids since before Christmas while I worked on getting the show together, but we’re still in touch. The project has its own timeframe really and there’s no full-stop in sight at the moment. Recently I’ve been looking into the possibility of developing a feature film with a friend and writer called Martin Forsyth, which I’d direct; the screenplay would be inspired by some of the experiences that I’ve had working on this project. 

GOOD RATS runs from February 1 to March 11 at Art Work Space at London’s Hempel Hotel. 

www.artworkspace.co.uk 

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