Mike Bunn

Mike Bunn studied figure drawing at Camberwell Art School, but took to photography early. En route to Australia in his late teens, he bought a camera in Hong Kong, and immediately relinquished sketching in favour of photography. In the 1960s, he worked at a diner in Chelsea, and could count among his friend Joanna Lumley and Rod Stewart.

A fly-fishing trip to Lough Arrow in Sligo in 1968 prompted Mike Bunn’s decision to move settle in Ireland, and began a passion for the country that has continued throughout his long life. Preferring to call himself ‘a visual interpreter’ rather than a photographer, Bunn has been drawn to a wide variety of subjects, though he is perhaps best-known for his fashion photography – he has worked with John Rocha, Philip Treacy and Michael Mortell, among others – and portraiture. Portraits Bunn took in the Hindu Kush in the early 2000s inspired his subsequent shots of Lainey Keogh’s knitwear. Over his decades in Ireland, Bunn lived in Leeson Street, Dublin, Lucan and Carrick-on-Shannon with his partner Betty Wall, to whom he had been introduced by fellow photographer Tom Collins, and who died in 2020. Bunn’s Florida-based brother is also a photographer, while his late sister was also an artist.

An exhibition at Farmleigh entitled ‘Mike Bunn: The Man Who Sees Through Shadows’, marked Bunn’s eightieth birthday and featured his portrait diptych of Brian Friel.