Arthur Fields (photographer)
Arthur Fields (born Abraham Feldman; 1901–1994) was an Irish street photographer, who took more than 180,000 photographs of pedestrians on the south end of Dublin's O'Connell Bridge for more than 50 years.[1][2]
Background and career
Fields was born into a Ukrainian Jewish family who fled antisemitism in Kiev in 1885, and later settled in Dublin. Fields originally ran a sound studio where people could make a recording of their own voice, but later began his photography when he bought a box camera.[1] Fields switched to a Polaroid instant camera later in his career. Field's brother was also a photographer on the bridge.[1] Fields' extensive photographs are recognised as a social record of Dublin from the 1930s to the 1980s, depicting the changing fashions and shopfronts of the city.[1] Nelson's Pillar often featured in Field's photograph until its destruction by Irish republicans in 1966.[1]
Fields took an estimated 182,500 photographs of pedestrians on the bridge from the early 1930s until 1985.[1] Notable people photographed by Fields on the bridge included the playwright Brendan Behan, the actors Margaret Rutherford and Gene Tierney, and Prince Monolulu, who claimed to be a chief of the Falasha tribe of Abyssinia, and who wore a headdress and a fur coat.[1][2] Fields lived in the Dublin suburb of Raheny, and would walk seven miles to and from the bridge each day to work.[1] Field's modus operandi would be to "pretend to take a picture of a passer-by and, when they stopped, he'd take the real one. Then he'd give them a ticket and they could collect the photograph from a nearby studio run by his wife. She developed all the photos."[1]
Legacy
An interactive online documentary, Man On Bridge: 50 Years as a Photographer on O’Connell Bridge, is being made about Fields by El Zorrero Films.[1][2] In addition to the film, the film-makers are encouraging people to submit their photographs to an online archive. The film-makers are also competing for a €50,000 bursary from Arthur Guinness Projects for the film.[1]