Hello and welcome to Out of the darkroom on AdoramaTV. I'm Ruth Medjber
and joining me on the show today is photographer and filmmaker Conor Horgan.
AdoramaTV presents, Out of the Darkroom with Ruth Medjber.
Conor, thank you so much for joining me today. So you have a film out at the moment, isn't that right?
Yes, my first feature documentary The Queen of Ireland, which is the
story of how one man and a dress is changing the world.
Yes, it has been in Irish cinemas for a while and is out on DVD as well.
Fantastic, now I haven't see it yet but I am absolutely dying to see it, because it was filmed over a time that
was amazing in Ireland where we brought in a new equality law. So what was it that drew you to that story?
I'd known Rory, who's the man behind the woman, Panti is the woman and Rory is the performer
behind Panti, I'd known Rory for this stage of my life for twenty years.
Because we's gone back, we did all of the posters for this amazing event that
he ran every year called the alternative Miss Ireland, so for 18 years and
February, we would all get together and we do these amazing photographs, which
would be turned into fantastic posters of Panti in various guises. So I think the very
first one was wearing an up Mayo t-shirt and a pair of hot pants, surrounded by
all these flying pink pigs, for a reason I still don't know why, but it looked good.
So it came out of photography in a way
and when I approached Rory I knew that Rory was always going to
be very engaged politically, always very active politically, a kind of
keen to help out, anything to do with social justice and then Panti was always going to be
wildly entertaining. I think because we had a pre-existing relationship he was
used to me pointing a camera at him basically. So it was kind of a natural thing.
He'd turned down a lot of people before us but when we came to him and well because I've been a
fashion photographer and I knew about lighting and a knew how to flatter people, I think he
kind of felt, well it will look good. You mentioned that you came from photography I mean
that was your main background right? Is that what you trained as originally, a
photographer? I did, you know when I was a kid, 12 or 13, I really want to be film director
I didn't really know what that meant, just you know I love'd the way the
film's affected me, you know I thought I'd love to be able to do that, I'd no idea
where to start and I kind of thought about maybe starting off as a clapper loader
and working my way up through through the ranks and various other things
happened, I ended up in London, after running away from home and buying a Pentax ME Super
off some guy in a cafe somewhere, and became totally obsessed with photography like
almost immediately and you know I was working at the time in a really badly paid
job and my one piece of disposable income a week would go to getting the
one row done in the local pharmacy and if I got kind of two frames out of the 36
that was a good week. So were you just kind of teaching yourself as you went
along? Did you have a mentor? I thought myself, I never went to college or art college or
anything like that. I did know of this guy called Tony Higgins who was kind of like
Ireland's Richard Avedon. He was the first independent fashion and advertising photographer.
He started in the 60's, he'd been a carpenter and then he'd fallen into photography.
And then again became totally obsessed with it. And I'd known him because he
had used me and my sister as child models when we were little blonde mop tops.
And I went back knocking on the door and you know he
didn't have a job I just kind of kept knocking, I started being his second assistant,
I'd borrow photography books off him, so I'd have a reason to go back and
give them back, and go Hi! It's me again.
And eventually his assistant left, and I was the guy who knew where all the lightbulbs were and he took me on!
I did 2 years working for him which was just the most amazing
education because as well as learning so much about lighting and about photography and
how to deal with people he told me how to run a small business which was invaluable.
So when you came into your own as a photographer, I mean you've worked for
some really big clients right? I mean British Vogue and also it's a lot of
commissioned portraits for a lot of the big magazines if they had something that
they need doing here, they'd often get in touch with me.
I did a lot of those kind of things and it was great. You'd often spend
you know a day or two traipsing across the country and bringing assistants, and lights and
backdrops and stylists and makeup and hair, and, you know you'd be the circus coming
town. So I was always a really fun thing to do, you can make the space your own when you
arrived and some way and get the best out of people.Tell me a little bit more about those
high production type shoots, I mean even in terms of where the initial idea comes from. I mean would
you sit down with you know the magazine and say this is what I want to shoot or
did they come to you with an idea. How does that work. The editorial thing was often left
really up to me, which was kind of great you know because you know editorial doesn't
pay as well as advertising. You know this seems to be a sliding scale and in
advertising you never have the idea, you are basically executing somebody else's idea.
It's also the part of photography that pays the best so in some ways you can
bring your skills, bring your technique bring all your experience, to bringing
somebody else's idea to life. The thing is I always felt even though I was
fashio photographer, I was an advertising photographer, I did you
know for years I'd go over to Miami and shoot kind of catalogues and and shoot kind of
lingerie catalog's every December and I be born across the Atlantic on waves of
jealousy from my male friends. But I always felt that my thing was really
portraits. It was just people, and people on the street or friends of mine
or whatever, it was you know, if, if was a successful fashion photograph, it was a
good portrait first and foremost and the clothes were always secondary.
So portraits really are your thing, I can tell that from your work, it seems you get you get
a look out of people that I don't think a lot of photographers, I couldn't get even
thinking about photographing the President of Ireland, Mary Robinson, you've got her giggling in a picture,
How does, how does that work you know it's something like a really professional portrait.
And there she is laughing away. I don't know.. I can't remember there was a fashion programme on RTE
for years, it was called Head to Toe, and they kept asking me, can we come and film you doing a shoot.
I just said no because in a way I didn't want to see what I was like those taking
pictures because you know I'm very much in the moment but something
as I've grown older and as I've kind of got better at what I do and I think
just a grown a bit as a person, there's some kind of intimacy that happens
between me and the other person, and I know that I'm playing a large part of
that I don't know exactly know how it happened but there's some engagement some level
of communication that then comes across in the picture and I find that
absolutely joyful I mean there is something and I know that the people, when they see the pictures or
are often very taken with that as well because there's communication going on.
You get something out of them that they probably aren't willing to give but when they do they're quite happy about
it, Yeah quite possibly, one of the things that I do when I'm photographing people is I almost
invariably make some kind of a fool of myself very early on
because you know in some ways because it happens. Intentionally? Well if I don't do it intentionally it will
probably happen. The thing is basically letting everybody in the room everybody on the set you know... it's ok to
get it wrong. It's not about we have to get something right
here you know, it's what kind of happens..happens. Maybe I should try that...ha ha..
And people are like thank god..
Maybe that's why things are good as well as you really get to know people, and they are at
ease with you. So they'll be more comfortable in the camera, I hope so, I
certainly you know, we, we spent five years chasing Panti and Rory, around, some of
the time, at the beginning, when there was no money, cause for most of those five years there
was no funding whatsoever, you know, at the beginning there was me on camera, and you
know and in turn, waving a microphone vaguely waving in the same direction as where the
camera was pointing and you know, we were lucky to get anything, but we did, and
then as things came along we we started getting production funding, there were more
camera crews and stuff like that. But I think you know there is a quality to being a very
attentive and present photographer, without imposing yourself on the situation
which I think really helps in that kind of documentary situation, where
people know that you're there butt they don't know what you're trying
to get, so you know so they're just happy to do whatever is that there they want
to do, you're not saying here do that again, you know, you're just...
you know, you're watching, you're there, you are very much paying attention to what's happening
It's almost like a dance in some ways, like you are kind of dancing with them, you know
they go there, you go there, and they can feel that and they know that you
know whatever they do, you will just match it. You know so that I think that gives them the
confidence as well, and that makes for good material. Maybe I need to come and film your work,
so I can see this magic dance in play and try and mimic it myself and see how I go.
Another thing mentioning dance...
I think my favorite piece of yours is not actually a photograph, which it should because I am mad about
photography. Is a film you did...
A short piece that you did with the deep end dance with is the mother
and the son, the choreographer son, underwater.
This looks like a logistical nightmare in terms of shooting it.
It's funny, it actually is the making-of video on vimeo as well,, it's funny, the making of video is about twice as
long as the actual video. It would have to be. And there's all kinds of stuff like cutting out lead sheet in the weight
In the template of the shoes and weights in the shoes, he is wearing a divers
belt at one point, but you know he's dancing at different levels of the water,
at some point he's kind of walking on the floor of the swimming pool, at other points he's on part
of the surface, so he's differently weighted differently buoyent and for all of those
different levels. I just thought it was magic.
Well it is magic and that's the great thing, this is the magic of film because
we've had some really clever people that really thought about it would not be
asking us these questions, like how did he hold his breath for six minutes? Because it just feels that it's a
continuous movement, and the cutting is kind of invisible, and they don't know
that every 20 seconds, David is coming to the surface and going (inhale)... I can even from my
And then going back down and picking up the action. I felt that - I felt kind of stressed towards the end of it.
I was like .. he needs to breathe, he needs to breathe..let him go...
It was fantastic .. really
Even from a camera point of view... how's that work? Well it while I started off above with a remote
feed from one of the cameras, in the pool we had a safe diver with two
underwater cameraman.1st AD, the safety guy and the two underwater guys were both
wearing suits and masks and everything. And I was up looking at this in the monitor and it just wasn't
working for me, so I put on the suit, as well and aqua lung and went down and I was
directing by you know kind of saying.. widen it.. move in.. move in. Of course cause you can't hear.
So I was hovering over Richard Kendrick who had the main camera looking down and he had a little kind of
monitor on the top of
the camera, so I could see what he was shooting, so that I was able to communicate
with them and then I would go up
direct David, then David would come up for air and go back down again, but I needed to be in
the space, and that is his sixty eight-year-old mother in the pool with him and
they are in the pool, where she was a swimming instructor for many years and
indeed where she taught him to swim when he was two years old. That's the same pool.
My god there's so much involved in six minutes..it's incredible I love that piece.
But I had been taking pictures, when I got the little Fuji, the XD 1 first, and I got a convertor from my old Nikon
lenses. Because I haven't be able to let them even though I hadn't shot film in years.
And I just started taking all these pictures of people, people I had just met, friends.
I'd go for coffee and I'd take pictures of people and there was some quality to these pictures that I
really enjoying, and other people seemed to be really enjoying and I'd post them online just for kind
of fun and my friends saw them and just liked them, and It just kind of helped inspire
an idea in her, to get me to do 50 portraits of 50 of her closest, her nearest and dearest people.
To mark her 50th birthday which is just a wonderful idea and then as the
thing progressed of course, she said we have to put so and so in, and so and so.. it ended up being 122 people.
And I travelled all over the world, 122 of them and I interviewed them all as well.
I interviewed them all and taped it all on my phone and then the interviews
became the captions for the photographs as well, and then created the book alongside your sister.
So it's a big thick book. Straight off when you see the portraits they are very beautiful and rich
colors and tones, there is also if I am
right, some light thrown in here? Occasionally but you know I'm kind of, you know where
I used to arrive, as I said, you know with the entire circus, I have a little kind of Hand Basher
And I got one of these, like it's about a meter and a half wide..
this huge umbrella with a white softener in the front and it's silver inside and
it's kind of like this size
yeah it'll go up pretty quick I'm sure. it goes up really quick and the light is just
gorgeous off it. It is just the most painterly kind of light you could possibly imagine.
And to be able to just carry that onto a plane, yes it's just remarkable.
That's the thing when dealing with portraits you have to kind of be quick so that you don't lose peoples attention.
Cause you want to talk to them. You don't want to be fiddling with lights.If you are visiting 122 people you need
something that pops us quite easily. They are gorgeous portraits. But this isn't your first book sure it's not.
I did a book on, I spent a winter in New York, I got a little
that's when I first came across the Fuji Camera, was like a little Fuji x10. I put together this book
It was about and A4 size book, the pictures just printed up beautifully. They are gorgeous.
I put it out on self publish and we sold like 150 / 200, loads of prints, people are still
buying prints
from my New York adventures. It's totally your New York adventures, we are walking through the streets of New York as
you, it's your point of view and I love that. I mean it's not just like a street
photographers book, there is everything in there. There's portraits. And form and shape. Everything.
It's like a little narrative of NY, it's almost a portrait of New York.
Thank you so much for coming to chat with us today. I could talk to you for hours and hours but
we have to end at some point Conor. Thank you, I look forward to seeing more of your work.
Well thats it for this episode, I hope you enjoy the show. If you want to start the conversation then please
feel free to leave a comment below.
Ireally do appreciate the feedback, if you'd like to brush up on your own
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Thanks and I'll see you again soon.
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