Michael O'Brien (photographer)
| Michael O'Brien | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
June 27, 1950 Memphis, Tennessee |
| Nationality | American |
| Known for | Photographer |
| Website | www |
Michael O'Brien (born June 27, 1950) is an American photographer noted for his portraiture and documentary photography. Over the past four decades, O'Brien has photographed subjects from presidents, celebrities, and financiers to small-town Texans, including ranchers, beauty queens, writers, and bar owners. O'Brien has completed three books: The Face of Texas: Portraits of Texans (2003), updated with 24 new photographs in 2014;Hard Ground whose portraits of homeless individuals are paired with poems by Tom Waits (2011); and The Great Minds of Investing (2015), a collection of 33 portraits of famous investors such as Warren Buffett, Charlie Munger, Joel Greenblatt, and Bill Ackman, with accompanying profiles written by William Green.
Michael O'Brien was born on June 27, 1950 in Memphis, Tennessee. In high school, he set up a darkroom in his grandmother's basement with his friend Chris Bell and started photographing his close friends Alex Chilton, Andy Hummel, Jody Stephens and Bell in a band called Big Star. O'Brien has stated that because he "lacked the musical talent" to join the band, he picked up a camera instead.
O'Brien graduated from Memphis University School in 1968, after which he attended the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, Tennessee. At college, he pursued a degree in Philosophy and became a photographer for the student paper, the Daily Beacon, earning four dollars for each published picture. That money, together with occasional freelance jobs, helped O'Brien put himself through school. A turning point came when O'Brien met Jack Corn, a staff photographer for the Nashville Tennessean, and saw his documentary photography series on the coal mining community in Appalachia. By the time he graduated as a Philosophy major in 1972, O'Brien had amassed a substantial portfolio of black-and-white photographs.
...
Wikipedia