Today our presence is graced by Karen (Lamond). Back in 1990 she winged it with me on an assignment to Romania. She had me under false pretenses, she said she was going to be my assistant. Karen brought her unique qualities to the role. Duties that jeopardised feminine poise, such as pushing and lifting, were the privilege of the photographer. I'd been commission by LIFT to travel to Romania by invitation of their Ministry of Culture and Religious Affairs. The assignment was to photograph 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' by the ironically titled 'Comedy Theatre of Bucharest'. The artists were now free of censorship and the prescriptive humour they were forced to perform under the dictatorship.
 By the time we got there the population had been served Nicolae and Elena Caecescu for Christmas. Whilst their son Nicu was banged away we had the run of his pad and the sheets were still warm. This was the caotically assembled headquarters of the newly formed Ministry of Culture and we were their first guests. Nicu had led the playboy life-style and his vulgar pretensions spewed over everything. The bedroom was circular, the bed was round too. When the door was shut it disappeared in a vacuum into the gold flock wallpaper. Above the bed a chandelier of crystal stalactites threatened to impale it's occupants at the flick of a switch. On arrival we were met by the night-porter, a gnarled curmudgeon coming to terms with the seismic upheaval to his life. With a chalk finger he drew our attention to the lampshade. He could swear it quivered. 'Bucharest has a terrible history of earthquakes'.
  Before we could give our hosts the gifts we bore from Scotland, it dawned on us that these perishables were to become our stable rations. At the International Hotel, the only place to eat, the vegetation had been wrestled from a mollusk- gastropod gastronomy. Karen was going through her pescetarian phase. The dishes on offer were a smorgasbord of grey, meat-based gelatinous knackerbrod. Anything would be better than this. So, Karen attempted to barter a tin of caviar from a waiter- Klass. These were the unique qualities she brought to the role of assistant. At night the city lights were extinguished to conserve power. The demonised gypsy population flooded the streets, besieging Bucharest until day-break. Curfew in Bucharest with Karen was a diet of smoked salmon, Drambuie and laughter. The things we brought fi hame.

  The shoot was grueling but an invaluable education in the healing properties of laughter. On our last night I had a kilogram of banknotes and no possible way of spending it. I offered the cash to the theatre but they refused it, preferring to democratically blow the lot on a party- fair do's. Two of the staff were elected to get the drinks: one to carry, the other to make sure he didn't take off with the money. They returned peering over stacks of crates. The party took place in the committee room at the rear of the theatre. A beige cell lit by a bank of migraine inducing fluorescent tubes segregated by a monolithic table. At one end of the room an exhausted upright piano slumped against the wall. Karen asked for a change of lighting- good call. Moments later the lights were killed and a chicane of gold candelabras lined the length of the table. Her next request- some music. They happily obliged with a pair of guitars and the full Beatles back catalogue. An official with an uncanny resemblance to Adolf Hitler frisked the piano and played "Boowgee Woowgie". "Does madam require anything more?" they gleefully pressed. "Two Pink Elephants" she replied, hurling the gauntlet squarely back at their feet. They came pirouetting back from the props department, trussed in pink hobby (horse) elephants. What a party!
In the intervening years she has become a successful and sought after beauty director and photographer. Karen learnt an important lesson; she'd need to change out of her Manolo's if she was going to travel down my path.

 1st of April, perfect timing for a session with comedian, yoof TV and 'Never Mind the Buzzcocks' presenter Simon Amstell. Thankfully he leaves the razor sharp wit he employs to ruthlessly dissect his interviewees, outside the studio door. The twenty-something Essex boy is a squeaky clean, totally tee-total, drug and caffeine-free Vegetarian. His body is a synagogue to satire and repository for emasculated young men, too feeble to escape his raffish grip.

 Throughout the day we explore every angle to find images for his PR and tour campaign. Portraits of a wide-eyed, aloof Amstell in his grunge counter-couture were chosen.

 In short, they showed his stage personality.
Of course Simon’s not one dimensional. The other images were perhaps too intimate or too revealing for this campaign. Perhaps in some I had portrayed him as his conquest, the hapless lover he wanted to entrap?
Maybe one day he'll let me show them to you. We'll have to wait to see.

Death and the King's Horseman

 January - another day of monotone. The sodden nap of winter's fire-blanket had long extinguished Autumn's pyrotechnic displays. Feeling seasonally maladjusted and in need of spiritual re-orientation I dial Javier. Whatever mood he's in, his irrepressible effervescence always lifts mine. Things start off well; his Latin temperament is cursing him for subjecting it to the Great British weather. Then he slips a Mickey Finn into my tonic, apologising that he'll be boarding a plane to Nigeria to research Yoruba dance and culture. To rub salt into my anemic wounds he tells me he'd be travelling with friends Rufus (Norris director) and Katrina (Lindsay costume designer). They were working together on the play 'Death and the King's Horseman' by Nigerian writer Wole Soyinka. And as if that wasn't enough, whilst there they'd venture out of Lagos to meet him. The leaden sky was now pouring acid. When I eventually caught breath from the blow to my solar plexus, I realised that this presented the perfect opportunity:

I was first introduced to Wole Soyinka’s work in 1992 when shooting a campaign for Talawa Theatre Company’s production of his play ‘The Road’. Shortly after, when making ‘dis’, I had the youthful temerity to ask Wole if he'd write me a poem. I had created a photograph that I believed only his insight and vision could seal the marriage between image and word. Despite his perilous circumstances he humbled my adolescent arrogance with a poem of terrifying beauty, profound resonance and perfect symbiosis. I never met or spoke with Wole, back then in 1993 the only way to communicate was by fax. At the time of correspondence he had sought sanctuary at the Sheraton Lagos, before fleeing Nigeria for the USA. More than a decade later I have this chance to safely repatriate Wole’s poem with a print of the finished artwork.

 Skip to now. It's mid-March and the intransigent sky is still resolutely grey. Rehearsals are scheduled to start for Death and the King's Horseman when I get a call from Jenny(Jules). Over the years I have come to see Jenny as a wonderfully errant sister. She's an extraordinary talent, a gifted actor and stuff, but when we get together our senses of humour strain to be let off the leash and go bounding off in to the woods. She purrs she's got a lead part in a play at the NT. Enough, basta, comprendo, capiche! I get the message and catch the next train.

Rufus is the Zidane of the stage. He paces the action with the stealth of a predator, preying on the smallest indiscretion that strays from the script.

The role of King is filled by the imperious presence of Nonso Alozie. Standing in at a 6'6" he can quake the stage with the force of Ogun, or defy his mass and float with the light touch and agility of a bird.

Rufus's all black cast is a reassuringly welcome sight, peppered with familiar faces from past projects. Above them a newspaper advertisement hollered down. The Evening Standard is already stirring things in the direction of the box office with the headline 'Black Actors White Up at the National' -a provocatively cynical reference to Olivier's performance as Othello.

 My fee is redeemed before the shutter is depressed. No price could be put on sitting in on rehearsals, watching an apprehensive cast find their way under Rufus and Javier's masterful stewardship. No money is exchanged, the equation is simple: I get access to remarkable subject matter plus a unique insight into inspirational artists at work -

I was royally paid.

 

The opportunity to shoot the cast in full costume came during dress rehearsals. The only available space was off-stage in rehearsal room 6; a windowless casket of coffee stained cream walls and plastic stacking chairs. It could be have been a waiting room or reception you'd find anywhere - Lagos or London. I resisted the temptation to neutralise it and opted to work with its... banality. The contrast of the actors, extraordinary in Katrina's exquisite finery, set against the ubiquitous sterility of their surroundings could be made to work to my advantage.

 In Yoruban culture everything, including inanimate objects, has as spirit. The lampshade girl represents this 'Jinn' and she reappears throughout the sequence as a reminder of this belief. For the following six hours the session is a frenetic production line of masquerading black peacocks, priests, servants, musicians and African Royalty - real and fictional. Full dress rehearsals are a time of palpable panic, eyes in headlights stuff. I had between 90 seconds and 15 minutes to shoot each actor before they were spirited away, back on stage.

(footnote) The poem made it safely home to its maker. The present was received with joyful surprise- one more of Wole's lost poems had returned to the fold.


End of The Road. End of story.

 The re-scheduled shoot with Nick Cave was 3 hours away. My challenge was to get from my adopted home in West London, weighed down with kit, to Brighton by public transport. I'd worked it all out when Lee suggested that the family tag along. He'd drive us to Brighton and while I worked they'd eat fish 'n' chips and potter on the beach with son Ravi. Grandmother, son, grandson, childminder, buckets, cameras and me, packed into a groaning people carrier. On the M25 grandma Chander punctuated the jollities with howls of incredulity. She was keeping up with events from the motherland, scouring her newspaper for any reports from India. She delighted in systematically deriding the political, judicial and caste systems with unquestionable authority. Once in Brighton the satnav guided us to Nick's basement lair with air-traffic control precision. Nick greeted me tentatively and made the first move with the offer of a cuppa. I set up studio in a spare room at the back of the flat, penned in on all sides by racks of suits, keyboards, guitars, more guitars and a bed. The Nick I encountered two decades before was a brooding stupor of mistrust with eyes of dark-matter black. The revised Nick had crystalline pupils and could walk without the aid of a wall. I asked if he remembered the session? No. The location? No. Could he recall me asking him to stand in the corner of the room and how he then proceeded to flap his arms like a snared crow? No. Did he recognise me? No, no, no! Did he agree that the photograph was irrefutable proof of our encounter? Yes! He pleaded mitigating circumstances- the drugs.

90 minutes later and outside the family was still braving the February squall. Timing was perfect, any longer and we'd both be suffering from photo-fatigue. Back at in London I asked Chander if I could take her photograph. She took my hand and placed it on firmly on her head saying "bless me."

 Nick chose 11 shots from the session, heaping unbridled praise on one image and blessing me with a quote worthy of my epitaph- 'LOVE this photo. One of my favourite Nick Cave (over 50) photo's. Hey, I'd fuck me!' 

London is pristine in paralysis and everyone's going nowhere. Marooned by an tsunami of snow I submit to this freak of nature and postpone todays shoot with Nick Cave. Before returning to Edinburgh I meet up with publisher Jamie Byng to discuss the rescheduled shoot.

  Jamie is a maverick rookie turned publishing colossus who's illustrious career is matched only by his lustrous mane. This lexicological gynecologist tenderly nurtures his artists through every stage of the creative birthing process. His vision has transformed Canongate from an esoteric publishing house to world contender. Jamie's publishing accolades include the Booker Prize for 'The Life of Pye' and the most audacious publishing coup of the decade- Barack Obama's trilogy:'Change We Can Believe In', 'Dreams From My Father' and 'The Audacity of Hope'.
  Nick (singer, songwriter, musican, author) Cave has written a new novel and Jamie needs shots for inside jacket and press. The brief is wide open as the session is likely to be dictated by the mood of the subject. I shot Nick over 20 years ago and I'm told that he continues to view most photographers with contempt and derision- my kind of challenge.