Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Fashion photographer renowned for his spontaneous portraits, including the Queen and the Dove 'Real Beauty' campaign.
On the island
Eight records
The keepsakes
The book
In conversation
Presenter asks
2:29Where is the power balance when those people walk into a studio? Even if they've had their picture taken hundreds of times, you're the person who has the power to make them look bad.
I do. And it's funny because my dad always said to me, Everybody's the same. Imagine it's the Queen. She has to do all the normal things that every other human being has to do.
Presenter asks
3:45Do powerful people want you to make them look powerful? Do beautiful people want you to make them look more beautiful? Do people just want a sort of bigger version of themselves projected through a photograph?
I think the best people want you to find something in them that hasn't been seen before, even if it's just a silly thing. Like blur, I said to Damon Alban, is they wouldn't photographed you blurred? And he said no. And I just thought, Oh, that'd be a really funny photograph.
Presenter asks
5:50Why on earth do we not see more women like us? Because women do respond positively to it.
Yeah, that's a very good question. It's hard to answer sometimes because it's like a vicious circle. If we don't see it, we don't know we want it. I think it's seeping into the normal every day more and more. But sometimes we do like to just use the good old luxury sexy photograph.
Rankin and Tuuli
Presenter asks
15:39What were you trying to express? [in the naked family self-portrait]
Just this is what I am, this is where I come from, this is I was very proud of my family, I've never been someone that's my embarrassed by my my working class background.
Presenter asks
19:46What made you wake up and look in the mirror and say that to yourself? Was it looking at the work and knowing it wasn't as good, or was it just suffering one too many come downs or one too many hangovers?
Um, it was a little bit of both, but I mean, it was I had I had my son Lyle when I was thirty, and I think by the time I was thirty four, thirty five, I started to realize that being a father was really important and what he would think of me as a person, and I mean, he saved me in a lot of ways from being an idiot.
Presenter asks
23:01Was it an experience that aside from taking the photographs of the survivors of this horrendous conflict and hoping that people take notice, personally, how did it affect you?
I always say it was probably one of the most selfish things I did because I went across there with as many good intentions as any human being that wants to help has. When you go to somewhere like that, you feel like your your life's amazing. You can't even describe the poverty. You can't imagine twelve members of a family living in a hut with one bag of seed a week. It's painful to be there. … I photographed the people in Goma twice, and I've never seen people respond more positively towards having the photograph taken. I made a really conscious effort to take a printer with me and go back to the camp and back to the village where we we shot and give people pictures. … One of your subjects said it was the photograph he wanted on his coffin. Yeah, and that really was amazing for someone to say that. I've never been to an exhibition of my own work where I felt more like, I've done something good. And, you know, I'll definitely be going back to the Congo.
“I really just started pretending almost like I was Austin Powers and saying, Ma'am, can you smile, ma'am? Please, can you smile, ma'am? And eventually I got that one big smiling shot, and that was it.”
“I think the best people want you to find something in them that hasn't been seen before, even if it's just a silly thing.”
“I always say it was probably one of the most selfish things I did because I went across there with as many good intentions as any human being that wants to help has. When you go to somewhere like that, you feel like your your life's amazing.”
“I've never been to an exhibition of my own work where I felt more like, I've done something good.”
“My parents said that, there's nothing, we're just gone. And that's it. And that that allows you to breathe and to kind of to accept it a lot more.”
“If you look beneath the gloss, there's something a bit dirty and something a bit honest underneath it all, so it scrubs up well maybe.”