The Man on the Bridge

[Tronhard]

A charming Irish Doco on a prolific street photographer who occupied a bridge in Dublin for decades and amassed an enormous body of work - around 130,000 images.

It's a great documentary... and an interesting character study of a man who sought refuge in photography

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voH7wmeJykQ

[Shadowman]

Nice link, as I watched I wondered if his subject matter would be all smiles but he did at least record a bit of the discord of the city.

[Rufus]

There is dedication to photography and then there is the obsession of the Man on the Bridge who took photograpghs 365 days a year over several decades. One is left still wondering what drove him to do this.

His archive is scattered among is hundreds of thousands of customers and a project has attempted to locate some of these and copy them as a photographic history. The customers have their own stories to tell.

[Tronhard]

As I looked at the documentary I observed that:
a) He didn't need to work that hard by any means - he was making a huge wage by the standards of the time
b) He had mental health issues. I suspect that they were there from his childhood, but losing his beloved brother tipped him over the edge. I think he could not deal with any change in his original family. Hence his rejection of his children's weddings, births and other family events; and his desire to have his married children live with him etc. The eventual death of his wife I think was the last major blow. He was truly a man alone who I think could no longer reach out.
c) He was very selfish (because of b above) and drove his wife to do the usual household chores plus the developing and admin of his photos.

Being Irish myself, I saw much in the film that took me back to those times, and the people. The fact that there is a concerted effort (which seems to be bearing some fruit) to assemble his work, and the stores of those touched by the moments he captured is certainly one of my favourites parts.