Arthur Fields, street photographer BY LLOYD GORMAN
I
f a photograph is worth a thousand words then street photographer Arthur Fields is on a par with any – or perhaps even all – of the greatest writers to ever come out of Dublin. It is estimated in the more than fifty years he stood on the south end of O’Connell Bridge with a camera and sign around his neck that he took more than 180,000 photographs of people and the occasional celebrity, including Brendan Behan, as they passed by. Arthurs trick was to pretend to take a photograph to get their attention and if they stopped then he snapped the real photo, giving them a number and ticket for them to pay for it. Between the 1930s and 1988 the split seconds of ordinary life his camera captured the almost imperceptible but inevitable change from what we might think of as an old fashioned black and white world to a contemporary one in bright colour. The long gone Nelson’s Column and cars parking in the middle of O’Connell St were just some of the things spotted in the background of the portraits of pedestrians. He could always be found
24 | THE IRISH SCENE
in the same spot, plying his trade through sun and snow and whatever else the elements had to offer. Everyday he – and his brother who was also a street photographer – walked the nearly seven miles to his work from his home in Raheny to the centre of the capital. Arthurs wife developed all the photographs under the stairs in their house and also did all the administration and sorting out of photographs for customers. He became as much a part of the fabric of the city which was his family’s adopted home and it was said that Daniel O’Connell’s statue protected O’Connell Street, O’Connell Bridge was protected by Arthur Fields. He was born Abraham Feldman in Dublin in 1901 to
