A Different Dublin: The 1960s through the lens by Bill Hogan is a photo book of what Dublin was like in the photographer’s early 20s. Hogan’s inspiration stemmed for the “daily life of city people, from the homeless to the flat dweller… This was the soul of the city”.
The book opens with an introduction by the author talking about his journey into the past to make this book. As a young man he loved to capture the everyday life of Dublin city with his camera during the day, as he worked as a projectionist in the cinema at night. But, as he got older, family life and children became his focus and his photos were confined to the attic for many years. Now rediscovered, his photos read as a time capsule of the small, but extraordinary moments in the city centre in the 1960s.
Hogan explored the photography concept of ‘decisive moment’, a term by Henri Cartier Bresson, by knowing precisely when to click the shutter; he displayed this through unconventional angles, focuses and subject matter.
The subjects are often candid and things are constantly moving. There is not only a face to the photos, but a story; from the old woman disapproving of a gang of teenagers to a boy struggling to mount a pony, there is interaction with the world around them. Included are poems by Alyson McEvoy; sparsely spread through the book, the poems are paired with photos that remind the reader of the casualness of life; they compliment the photos as an elaborate caption.
By compiling these photos into one book, Hogan is able to represent “the way we were. And the way we were makes us what we are today”.
A Different Dublin will be launched on Thursday, 30th of May 2019 at 7.30pm in the Parish Centre, St. John the Baptist Church, Clontarf Road, Dublin 3. Guest speaker will be Eileen Dunne, RTÉ Newsreader and presenter. All are welcome. Please RSVP to anais@columba.ie
If you would like to buy your own copy of Bill Hogan’s A Different Dublin: The 1960’s through the lens you can click here.