Porn Hurts Everyone
Niall O’Brien

This body of work is an insightful and respectful look at the lives of individuals and communities struggling to thrive in the, often grim, political and economic landscape of contemporary America. Struggling – and sometimes failing – to resist succumbing to the racism, bigotry and extremism that can bubble away beneath the kindest and most generous of personalities, stoked by the propaganda, claustrophobia and the, sometimes desperate, desire to be free that O’Brien found to be a common factor in each of the small-towns and rural outposts that he visited.

Although unplanned, the timing of the publication of Porn Hurts Everyone is noted by the photographer, “It’s been an interesting time to look back on this project. I wasn’t conscious of the political side of what I was shooting but that sense emerges through the book. I was exploring these small towns that are filled with wonderful, welcoming people, offering me bed and board, but it was what was beneath that, when we started talking, that really fascinated me. That’s what I feel emerges in this work and it gives us an understanding of the people that played such a big part in the current changes in American politics.”

Born in Dublin, Ireland, photographer and filmmaker Niall O’Brien studied fine art photography at the Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology. Niall has exhibited widely in a number of continents and continues to exhibit. He is currently working on a number of personal and commercial projects.