Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Fashion photographer known for glamorous, iconic portraits of celebrities like Madonna and Princess Diana, making subjects look great.
On the island
Eight records
I like the irreverence of it, I think, and the idea that you can actually go for anything and do it.
Fina EstampaFavourite
It's a song I grew up with, and it's sung by Caetano Veloso, who is a friend of mine from Brazil.
David Bowie really changed my life. I think he made me realize, without and I didn't know him just from his record covers, that I wasn't so much of a freak and that maybe being a freak wasn't so bad.
And these are my party years. You know, I just thought I'd give you a feeling of how it used to be going to the Embassy Club in Monkberries in the seventies and early eighties.
When I lived in the hospital, this is what I used to listen to and I never will forget arriving home and we were lived in the second floor and I could hear this song from downstairs'cause my roommates we were all mad about her.
Bebelle is a friend of mine. I guess I chose this particular one because when I was seeing her at Somerset House, she screamed out loud, oh, this song goes to Mario, and I was so embarrassed.
And this to me represents a period of when I lived in Covent Garden and Soho started to grow. And they had a nightclub called Gases in a little attic, which we went every single Thursday.
Not that I speak any German, but I've been going a lot to Berlin and I'm obsessed by new, new, new. You know, I like discovering things. And Berlin is my city of choice at the moment, and this is the band I found there.
In conversation
Presenter asks
5:44How were you different [during your upbringing in Lima, Peru]?
Oh, I wore flowered trousers with platform shoes of two colors. I had an afro and I, you know, I was in fashion and the hippie movement was the thing.
Presenter asks
5:53Did people laugh at you in the street [in Lima]?
Oh yeah, and screamed abuse. I mean from very early on I had to use my little allowance…'cause I couldn't take public transport… Either I was beaten up or I… wore what I wanted to wear.
Presenter asks
20:14How did the commission [to photograph Diana, Princess of Wales] come about in the first place?
You know, I I got a call from a lady called Meredith Etherington Smith, who I had worked with at Harper's and Queen at earlier on, and she was working at the time with Christie's, and her job was to special events. She looked after special events, and they had gotten together with Princess Diana to pro to sell her dresses. And they had thought of maybe promoting the dresses through photographs of her wearing them.
The keepsakes
The book
Hermann Hesse
which was one of the first books that really touched my life and made me think differently.
The luxury
You know, I thought a lot about it and I think at the end I was thinking of a camera and I was thinking, you know, if I'm gonna go to an island and there's not a lot to do, I'll take my pillow. Be comfortable, comfort.
Presenter asks
23:06What did [Diana, Princess of Wales] think of the photographs when you showed them to her?
Oh, I think she she said to me at the time that her children had said that it was the most hair they had seen.
Presenter asks
27:05Do you think that kind of life is too much pressure when someone like [Kate Moss] starts at such an early age?
You know, I couldn't be on drugs every single day. I couldn't drink every single day. But I might want to go one night and get really drunk and you know, because I need to escape because it's too much, you know, the the stress. And I think all of us are like that. I mean, there is a moment when everybody wants to just lose that little bit of control.
“I think if you take people into your own as if as if it was yourself, then nobody gets hurt and nobody thinks that you're taking advantage of them.”
“I like the tolerance of the people. Here you can be anything you want to be, you can do anything, and people tolerate you. And it made me think, you know, you can be you. And I guess that's a thing that England gave me that I shall never ever forget.”
“I think a photographer is a real documenter. We are obliged to document our times because I have learned about so many things from other photographers.”