From Jack Kerouac’s personal account of his travels across America in the beat bible “On The Road” to Walker Evans’ decade-long photo project chronicling a journey around the United States, the American road trip continues to serve as a source of inspiration for artists and creatives even today. One inquisitor fuelled to document the spirit of such adventure through the famed excursion is Niall O’Brien, an Irish-born photographer who, earlier this year, released a photobook documenting his 4,000 mile trek across the American northwest.
Rising to fame for his honest depiction of adolescent subcultures, O’Brien’s work traditionally focused on skateboarders and the youths of the London’s punk scene. Entitled “Porn Hurts Everyone”, his Americana-themed photobook aims to capture the banal reality of the rural communities visited by O’Brien and his companions, Ryann Bosetti and James and Ed Pecis.
The serendipitous account of kids swimming in a lake, young lovers kissing on the banks and families shopping in supermarkets coupled with the interiors of stereotypical diners and an abundance of American flags subtly touches on the idea of Christianity in Republican societies – elements which the photographer has said are not always present in the pictures, but were constant undercurrents throughout his stay.
O’Brien’s most recent series is not just different in subject matter to his previous work, but also differs in terms of his approach: instead of becoming familiar with a particular group and closely documenting them, he chooses to shoot from the outside for “Porn Hurts Everyone”. Stating that he wasn’t necessarily connected to his newest subjects, O’Brien feels this work is mostly observational and stresses that it is not at all critical, regardless of the difference between his religious and political standpoints and theirs.
“I realised the importance of belief and opinion in small towns and rural America,” the photographer observes. “There are some influenced opinions in USA for sure, but the people I came across were inspiring and craved to know about us and from where we had come”. Although these images were taken pre-Trump era, the book’s release post election has unconsciously lead it to be perceived as a kind of “calm before the storm” – a pre-emptive illustration of what was to come when the polls came in. Niall O’Brien, however, says he simply wished to document the lives of those he wanted to learn more about, to revel in “summer breaks, drinking beers, diving off rocks by small towns” with the welcoming, friendly people he met.