Award winning photographer Michael James O’Brien visited Hurtwood this week to inform our students about studying Art overseas and the different creative utopias in America.

Currently working as Associate Chair of Photography at SCAD (Savannah College of Art and Design) , O’Brien also showed students a sample of his photographs from his extensive portfolio of black and white portraits taken in New York, London and Paris over the last 40 years. Both the famous and the infamous have posed for O’Brien: Jude Law, Quentin Crisp, Andy Warhol, Keanu Reeves – the list is endless. He talked to our students about working with some of the biggest brand names in fashion such as Longchamp and Polo Ralph Lauren and having work commissioned by The New Yorker, Vogue, Rolling Stone and The New York Times. The opportunities were evident as his previous students have gone on to photograph Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish and President Biden.