The Ponytail Pontifications.

Cap De Formentor, Spain 1973.

Wed, 20 Feb 2013 11:55:04 +0000

2013 represents the 40th anniversary of the first time a photograph I'd taken appeared in print.

It's the one above (detail), shown here complete with the coarse half tone screen needed for newspaper printing. The photograph was used in a press advertisement for the Spanish Tourist Board. The headline on the ad was 'After 50 weeks of what you've been through, you need a break.'

I admit, it's not a very good photograph and, quite aside from the sloping horizon, there's no point of interest and nothing to recommend it at all. It shows an anonymous couple on what could really be almost any Mediterranean beach.

Nevertheless this is my professional photographic beginning.

I rather grandly say “my professional photographic beginning" but I wasn't actually paid for taking the photograph. At the time I was a 22 year old art director with a London ad agency called Maisey Mukerjee Russell and taking (or more normally commissioning) photography was part the job. I didn't get paid for any of my photography until the following year - 1974 - a set of live photographs of the singer Betty Davis taken for Island Records.

Regarding the deficiencies of the photograph above, I would say in my defence that I was simply asked to shoot a few stills to accompany the TV commercial we were shooting at the time and the main requirement was to keep well back and make no noise. At no time was I told my photographs would be used for any ads.

The happy couple in the photograph were both actors we'd hired in the UK. The TV commercial we were shooting took the best part of a week. I don't think the commercial was particularly memorable and the best thing Campaign magazine could say about it in their review was that it was "well made" which I suppose is better than nothing.

I was 22 at the time and although I was ostensibly the art director on the shoot, I did no art direction. Occasionally someone would ask my opinion about something and that was about it. I suspect I was only in Spain as a reward for working on the new business pitch that had landed the account a couple of months before. The night before the pitch, I'd worked all night on the presentation and was still hard at it as the big wigs from the Spanish Tourist Board were shown to their seats. Most new business pitches at that agency were like that, nothing was ever done a second ahead of time. It simply added an extra frisson of excitement to what was already a pretty crazy work life anyway.

Unlike the Madison Avenue world of the '50s and '60s, which has portrayed wonderfully in the TV show Mad Men, if they made a TV show about the London ad' agency world of the '70s, I don't think anyone would ever believe it. It was like Mad Men but much, much madder. Okay, maybe we didn't have all the suits and the Brylcreem but there were guns, knives, suicide attempts, skinny dipping and strippers. And plenty of Joan's.

I'll try to write a little about my experiences in the ad world of the ‘70s at some time in the future.

Lapine, Los Angeles 2012.

Mon, 4 Feb 2013 14:27:12 +0000

2013 will be the fortieth anniversary of my photographs first appearing, very gradually, in print. And, after 40 years, it's the first time I've ever been offered a show of my erotica.

Other than in a few coffee table collections in the '90s and the Model Mayhem website, it's work that hasn't been seen before. And it's certainly never been exhibited anywhere.

It's an area of photography in which I've always been interested but, until fairly recently, never had all that much confidence in myself.

Ten years ago I showed my erotica to the well known publisher Miki Bunge. He said it simply wasn't good enough. He also said there were too many bathrooms and he was sick and tired of looking at bathrooms in photographer's portfolios. Although I was left slightly bruised by his comments, I quickly came to see that he was dead right on both counts.

But I didn't give up and, since that point, I think my erotica has developed quite a bit. And I should probably use the qualification "erotica, for want of a better word" when describing my work. Some may even disagree that it qualifies as such and I don't think I'd mind that. There really isn't that much difference between my erotica and my portraiture. Other than all the photographs are of women and they are wearing less. "Naked portraits" might even be a more accurate term.

It sometimes takes me months, even in some cases years, to come to terms with some of the photographs I've shot. I think this is because I'm not in total control when making the photographs and it's intended to be that way, in order to make the best of any serendipity that fall my way. Most of my real control comes in my choice of model. After that they get little to zero specific direction from me. Some models don't like that approach at all but, usually, I don't like that kind of model either. I think the trick is to photograph models who live interesting and creative lives outside of being models (like the performance artist Miss Crash and Lapine above, who is a film student and keen photographer herself). After that, everything becomes much easier, not least in finding genuine reasons to make the photographs in the first place.

If the show is going to happen and things are still at the discussion stage, it'll be at the Society Club in Soho and in due course I'll post the dates on here.

Dennis Hopper, The Savoy, London 1992.

Mon, 31 Dec 2012 19:30:40 +0000

It may be different now but back in the ‘80s and ‘90s, in London, film companies would always book their actors into either The Dorchester or The Savoy to meet the press. Which would be great if you could ever get them to walk outside. But you can’t. Sometimes these sessions are timed down to the last half minute and you’re constantly being watched, so there’s just no chance of escape. And you’re left shooting them amongst the over-opulent chintz of an upscale hotel. Or dragging a whole studio set up, Colorama backdrop and all, into their suite. In my early days, I would always plump for this latter option, because at least it was something you could control.
Neither of these options would have been the way I’d ideally want to photograph Dennis Hopper. I’d have loved to have dragged him out somewhere in the East End and done something really dramatic. But that was never going to happen. I simply cropped in really tight on the face. That way, it could be anywhere.

The Rolling Stones, Earls Court, London May 1976.

Fri, 30 Nov 2012 22:58:48 +0000

I'm posting this previously unseen image of the Rolling Stones in celebration of their 50th anniversary. IMHO they've only been really good for the first 12 of the 50 but I guess I shouldn't be churlish.

Many apologies for neglecting this blog somewhat recently, I'm determined to try harder in future.

Sandie Shaw, Kings Cross 1984.

Tue, 4 Sep 2012 16:47:20 +0100

I don't think I made a very big impression on Sandie Shaw.
At least, not in a good way.

Unless I make notes, I very rarely remember the precise, word for word dialogue in any meeting. In this case, because there was so little of it, I remember every word like it was etched into my brain. Even nearly 30 years later.

During our abbreviated photo shoot, she only ever said 4 things to me. They were -

"Hi, I'm Sandie."

I admit, I did pause for a moment to consider a giving a witty response. Like "Well you should be more careful where you sit." But humour isn't really my strong suit and the moment quickly passed. And felt I it better to concentrate on what I was there to do. So I just rather meekly said “Hi, I’m Derek.”

The next thing she said was -

"How long have you been doing this?"

This is normally code for "You don't really look like you know what you're doing" and I've heard say "How long have you been doing this?" many times. Usually when I'm fumbling with my equipment.

My approach is very low key it's true. Imagine someone who is the polar opposite of the photographer in the film 'Blow Up' and you wouldn't be too far off. At least, I've certainly never straddled any of my subjects on the floor.

Her penultimate comment was -

"You're the most miserable photographer I've ever met."

Quickly followed by -

"I'm off."

And that was the last I saw or heard of her. She left me standing there.

Maybe I should have run after her and persuaded her differently but I was always more of a reactive than proactive photographer anyway. And if people want to walk out on me I'm inclined to think fine, I'll just be home quicker.

In the time she was with me, about 90 seconds, I took a total of about two dozen frames. None of them were very good. The above image is a detail of one of them.

She certainly doesn't look very impressed with me, does she?

I once mentioned this brief meeting to her ex-husband Jeff Banks and he simply said "Well, that's Sandie."

So if you ever read this Sandie, many apologies. Maybe we caught one another on the wrong day?

Bradley Wiggins, Twickenham 2012.

Wed, 1 Aug 2012 22:41:44 +0100

Hitherto I hadn't been much of a cycling fan. But when you have the chance to see Olympic history being made only a short walk from your house - and for free - it would seem a little churlish not to pitch up and take a few photographs.

Bradley Wiggins is seen here pedalling, for all he's worth, down Strawberry Vale in Twickenham, about five minutes away from becoming Britain's most decorated ever Olympian.

Everything But The Girl, Hampstead 1988.

Mon, 25 Jun 2012 15:04:22 +0100

In my last blog post I explained how I'd found someone with a rather formidable media reputation to be, in real life, friendly and utterly charming.

Unfortunately the opposite can sometimes be the case too.

In well over 35 years of professional photography, far and away the most difficult and unpleasant photoshoot I ever had to do was with Ben Watt and Tracy Thorn - collectively known as Everything But The Girl.

I’d been commissioned to photograph them for the cover of NME. It was in 1988 and still in the early years of NME printing colour covers. Until around 1984, the magazine had been produced on uncoated newsprint and the paper quality would not support decent colour printing. But by the time of my shoot with EBTG the paper had been upgraded and the then editor, Danny Kelly, was most insistent that all its colour photography should actually be colourful. All the more so for the cover, in order to better attract the eye on the weekly news stands.

(This requirement explains the approach I took to a lot of my photography in the '80s).

When I went over to Ben Watt and Tracey Thorn’s flat in Hampstead I found it to be very smart but completely colourless. It was all white walls and black and white tiled floors. Fans of EBTG won't be surprised to learn that they also had several black and white framed photographs of Louise Brooks on the walls. There was virtually no colour anywhere.

I said to them “We’re going to have to take these photographs outside.”

At which suggestion, they both flew into a hissy fit and point blank refused.

I then said “Well, fine but the photos probably won’t go on the cover then.”

On hearing this I received the longest and most sustained four letter word rant I’ve ever had to endure.

It would have been very easy for me to just walk out and leave them to it. I really wanted to. And I really wanted to give them back a few free opinions of my own.

But neither would have been very professional. NME would simply have commissioned someone else and it would have been a black mark against my name next time they wanted to commission some photography.

So I set up some lights and did as they asked.

I’m not exactly sure, even to this day, why they took the attitude they did. It wasn’t particularly warm outside but the weather was fine and it wasn't raining. I'm pretty sure it was Spring and at the end of their road was a massive park known as Hampstead Heath. They certainly weren't big enough names to worry about being bothered by people in the street.

But they refused, absolutely, to even step an inch outside their front door.

Maybe they’d spent all morning cleaning up their flat and they didn’t want all the effort to go to waste?

What's probably more likely is that they were rather proud of their flat and they wanted everyone in the music business to see it and see what a big success they'd become.

The photos came out quite well but, as I expected, there wasn't enough colour in them and so they didn’t go on the cover.

And I got paid around about half of what I would have got, if it had.

I once mentioned the above story to a guitar tech I met that had been on an American tour with Everything But The Girl. He told me that Ben Watt hadn’t managed to say “please” or “thank you” to him once for the entire tour.

In the July edition of The Word Magazine, in an interview with David Hepworth, Tracy Thorn talks about writing her memoirs. She says that she's had to go back and read a lot of her old interviews to remind herself of the person she'd been back in the '80s.

Maybe I can help her out with that.

In my experience, not a very nice one.

Grace Jones, The Dorchester Hotel, London 1985.

Wed, 13 Jun 2012 00:00:00 +0100

I was very pleased to see that Grace Jones' recent performance at the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Concert was received so well. It couldn't have happened to a nicer person.

I photographed Grace several times in the '80s and '90s and, though she had a reputation of being difficult, one would be hard pushed to meet a more friendly, warm hearted person.

And she's far more down to earth than one would ever imagine if one only ever saw her fairly eccentric stage show.

I photographed her in Milan in 1989 and after the shoot she was determined that the journalist, David Quantick, and myself accompany her on a tour of some of Milan's wilder night clubs.

In one she whipped her t-shirt off and danced topless. Being Grace Jones, she attracts a lot of attention anyway and that certainly didn't hinder matters in that regard. En route to one of the other clubs we managed to pick up a rather drunk hanger on. At one point he was half in and half out of the door of Grace’s limo, rambling on and holding everyone up. Grace Jones said "Look, if you want to come with us get in, if not get out." This didn't do the trick and none of the men in the car took charge including, I'm afraid to say, me. Grace Jones got out of the other door, walked around in her six inch heels and manhandled the guy out of the car herself. We drove off with him sitting looking bemused on the pavement. She can be quite a formidable woman.

The photograph above was commissioned by the NME and taken in the Dorchester Hotel in 1985. Initially I was picked to shoot her because I'd gained an entirely undeserved reputation at the NME as being a good photographer of difficult women. Possibly this was due solely to a couple of successful shoots with Bananarama but I wasn’t going to argue.

I almost always found that women who were considered "difficult" were in fact successful, intelligent women who simply had a clear idea of how they wanted to present themselves and resisted being pushed around at the whim of a mostly male music industry. I never once had a problem with strong female performers like that. Several times I had problems with the delicate, shy type who go through life fluttering their eyelashes in order to achieve their objective, but that's another story.

Believe me, Grace Jones is certainly not that type.