John Minihan was born in Dublin and shortly afterwards moved to Athy, Co., Kildare. For the past 25 years he has been documenting his native town of Athy and has exhibited his photographs in various galleries. Minihan first photographed Bacon in Paris in 1977 during a show of his paintings and was then introduced to Burroughs, who had known Bacon for some years. After requesting to see Minihan's photographs, Beckett was photographed over several meetings in London and Paris in the 1980s.