O'BRIEN, Michael

Life's work

Early work

Michael 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. A turning point came when he 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, he had amassed a substantial portfolio of black-and-white photographs.

At 'The Miami News'

In 1973, 'The Miami News' hired him as staff photographer. On the evening of Richard Nixon's resignation speech, August 9, 1974, 'The Miami News' sent out all its staff photographers. Michael O'BRIEN was sent to Duffy's, a blue-collar bar in Coral Gables. 'It was a dark bar, but I set up strobes and used a Nikon with Tri-X film. During the speech I saw three men at the bar with their backs turned as Nixon resigned. Their apathy summed up the mood of the country.' The Miami News used the photograph the next day for their front-page story. In 1975, he developed a documentary feature about homelessness. After seeing a man camped out under an overpass, he stopped his car and met 57-year-old John Madden. The men developed a friendship, during which, with Madden's permission, Michael O'BRIEN followed and photographed him for six months, where he documented Madden waiting in food lines, drinking with friends, sleeping in public spaces, and getting booked into jail. His 'vivid and empathic chronicle of homelessness' won a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award. In 1977, he won a second Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award for 'Culmer: The Tragic City', a photo essay of Miami's downtown ghetto. Michael O'BRIEN has described his six years with 'The Miami News' as 'the favorite part of my career.'

New York

In 1979, Michael O'BRIEN moved to New York City and began his career as a freelance photographer. In 1980, LIFE magazine published his ten-page black-and-white photographic essay capturing the heroic efforts of Nurse Charlotte Sheehan at the Burn Center in New York Hospital. The following year, LIFE featured his photographs of the deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill at Northampton State Hospital for its story, 'Emptying the Madhouse: The Mentally Ill Have Become Our Cities Lost Souls'.
Michael O'BRIEN photographed subjects such as coal mining, Australian portraits, river oaks, and birding for feature stories in the National Geographic. In 1985, LIFE sent O'Brien to Austin, Texas to photograph Willie Nelson. He returned to Texas in 1989 to shoot a cover story on Austin for National Geographic. The results helped National Geographic win a National Magazine Award for photography in 1991.

Advertising

In 1988, he took on his first assignment for a major advertiser, photographing athletes in a Philadelphia locker room for Nike. He went on to work for such clients as Kodak, Apple Computer, Visa, Wrangler Jeans, and Bank of America. Michael O'BRIEN stood out for using real people rather than models in costumes. For Apple's 'What's on Your Powerbook Campaign', he photographed incongruous pairings of people holding laptops, including Todd Rundgren and Jesuit priest Don Doll. The result earned a CLIO Award and was later named by Photo District News (PDN) one of the best ad campaigns of the last 25 years.

Portraits

Michael O'BRIEN is most acclaimed for his portraiture. Notable subjects photographed by him include LeBron James, Steven Spielberg, Samuel L. Jackson, Bill Cosby, Al Sharpton, Philip Glass, Don DeLillo, Warren Buffett, Chris Evert, Troy Aikman, Larry McMurtry, Sissy Spacek, George W. Bush, and Donald Trump.