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Counted in one hand among the greatest photographers in the world, Lord Patrick Lichfield has captured some of the most memorable moments, iconic people, historical figures, rulers and royals as no other photographer in England has. Today he is undoubtedly more famous than most of the subjects he captures on film - except perhaps the British royals who he still portraits. While others caught on Kodak for headlines, he created history. A memorable conversation with the man for whom all seasons look better when caught on his new digital camera. By
P.Ramakrishnan. Portrait by
Paul Morgan. Other images courtesy of Patrick Lichfield.
Photography captures a slice of life, a sliver of time and, in essence it can be done at the right time and right place with a mere click. Pressing the correct button in a fraction of a second for a picture that can last for centuries. And yet there are few who’ve captured people and places the way Patrick Lichfield has (within minutes of greeting, in a kind, avuncular manner, he asks us to forget the formality of addressing him as Lord).
Not only his lordship, but his studio itself is a landmark, coated in fresh white paint and brocaded with navy blue patterns. The home hyphen studio among rows of uniform, redbrick houses stands out from a distance. An edifice that has greeted the most famous faces on the planet, as they bypass the paparazzi and enter the private enclave of his studio, only happy to be clicked and caught on his camera.
Heading to his office, the corridors are lined with portraits of people that need no further introduction; Nicole Kidman, Dame Edna, Queen Elizabeth, Naomi Campbell, the late Princess Diana…
In his office, not even an inch of the wall is visible. Maps of the world studded with pins marking all the places he’s shot (everywhere except the Arctic and the South pole!), family pictures, friends and colleagues from shoots around the globe, calendars and notes on pending work and evidence of his most memorable ones, private notes penned by the enviable and the elite, all mounted in paper-mâché like montage of his incredible body of work.
“Yes, its been a good life,” he says with a chuckle, patting an encyclopedic volume of his best pictures, a collector’s edition of shots in a one-and-a-half inch thick binder, filled with colour and black and white photography, a book that’s currently out of print.
It’s hard to pinpoint what he’s most remembered for, so we meander through every possible subject related to photography and in essence of the rich life of a nomadic chronicler of our time.
First off, places. Starting with his home.
“London is wonderful to photograph as its basically a city of contrasts, and its at its best, very early in the morning. Most people don’t get up and bother to do that. The light is always interesting at that hour and I tend to shoot all my street scenes very early and the mixture of architecture, because the city has evolved for so long provides so many choices," says Lichfield.
"It’s difficult to say London has a look, like Hong Kong has a look but it certainly has a feel. London’s a great place to shoot pictures… if you don’t mind the rain! There are certain locations like, by the Thames, which are shot often by tourists and they wonder why it doesn’t look as good as it does on postcards – for the simple reason, they don’t get up early and shoot it in the morning!”
The rich timbre of his voice is interrupted by a chuckle.
“It has wonderful parks, which as a photographer, I use all the time. You’ve got country in the middle of London,” he says, reminding me of the digital picture he took of Dame Edna, having tea in a garden, a striking image of contrasts between her (or his!) bubblegum purple wig and the lush verdant grass that escapes into the background. “That was a fun feature, I got him to dress as he was, and then the persona of Dame Edna and we morphed it together – as though he was serving tea, well, essentially to himself! A challenge, but tremendously fun.”
When in search of character and colour, Lichfield says he has a fondness for markets. “I particularly go for the markets in Portebella road. They’re quite used to being shot so they don’t really mind. The problem most people have with photographing strangers is that, people don’t find it offensive and, well, if they do create a fuss, then just move on. When you see a particularly interesting person, I shoot them from a long lens and then move in, they just might say no when you get closer.”
Your average Joe on the street might not blink at being captured on film, but there are some infamously difficult subjects that, well, ever the gentleman, Lichfield refuses to list.
“I’ve shot many actors and politicians and of course models. The main thing is to tell people what you want to do and then be quick. Speed. I have a rule, which is to be ready for anything. When you’re going to shoot a person, the Queen for example, you want to get there a couple of days before and just look at the location. When they’re with you, you don’t waste a second. I do this for everything. Even if it means, travelling abroad, look at the location, come back, then go again with all your equipment and then shoot. That’s probably my army training, being prepared.”
As he leans back into the chair, just beyond his halo of silver and peppered hair, there’s an unpublished shot of the Queen of England. How does one appease someone, routinely hounded by the photographers?
“There are tricks to helping people relax. I suppose the most obvious one is explaining to people what you’re attempting to do, after all, the photographer is only half the picture. The person has to collaborate with you and cooperate with you to make it work. Sometimes you get a person who just isn’t prepared to do that. Trying to get Bob Geldoff to smile, I just don’t know how to do it! I’ve tried, and I’ve tried and tried.”
Chuckling at the memory of his failed attempts, even he knows he’s captured the Irish star skilfully… smile or no smile.
“Its often worth looking at pictures that other people have taken and see what you can get, not to copy but just to get an idea to see the face, to see if its interesting in one side or another, if you need animation or need something quite solemn. Geldoff was solemn!”
It can get rather defeating if you’ve got two strong individuals, unwilling to compromise. There is the infamous David Letterman incident, when, at a shoot with Richard Avedon for GQ magazine, Avedon, a stickler for perfection and no less eccentric than his subject, asked the American talk show host to get rid of the gum in his mouth. Letterman said he’d hide it in the back and refused to spit it out. So vexed was the legendary photographer, Avedon walked out.
Cracking into a smile, Lichfield is all too familiar with that tale. “Ah Avedon. I knew Avedon, he told me about that incident. There have been others. How he had a terrible time with Duke and Duchess of Windsor. He went outside, invented a disaster and came back behind the camera, told them what he had seen, which involved their dogs getting run over. Just as he told them that, he clicked and captured their look of horror and grief. I don’t…", he pauses, derailing his train of thought and continuing.
"I try not to do that sort of thing! If people are simply not cooperating, I would do the same thing, I wouldn’t walk out but, I’d tell them, you’re wasting my time, I’m wasting your time.”
Ever the pacifist, the 40-years of experience in the field has brought a Zen like calm, which doesn’t seem to shake when things don’t go according to plan.
He explains, “It is terribly important to see it as a joint venture. The trick lies in engaging the subject, telling them what your ambition is with the picture. See that picture – points to a portrait of Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip – well that was just four shots on digital and they were so excited about it. I’d take a shot, put in up on the computer and they would see it, then we’d take another shot, they would rush to the computer to see it crop up. It was the most exciting thing they had seen, at the time! Digital to them was quite new as you can imagine.”
But when the tables turn, when Lichfield himself is being shot, he’s all too familiar with the game. "Oh I hate being photographed... the nose. The horror."
Everyone in the room erupts in laughter. “The most difficult thing, when I’m being photographed, the most difficult times are when people haven’t had a chance to look around, they don’t know what they want. When someone really knows what he wants to do, then, that’s fine.”
Do you enjoy being photographed?
“Not much. But I can tell what tricks they’re pulling. I tend to run when people put on a wide angle lens because I know how big my nose is!”
Other than his legendary photography campaigns, in particular the ones he’s done for the Mandarin Oriental, there’s something rare and exquisite about the faces he captures. Even the most benign and mundane head becomes interesting in his light. What makes a face interesting to you I ask?
“Bone structure is what they’re born with, lighting is what you add to it. You can altar people’s faces by a number of means, lighting is principal one, choice of lenses can work for you or against you. For portraits I tend to never shoot with anything less than a 90mm lens. Not beyond 200 because you tend to compress too much. Eyes are what really matters. The first thing you connect with people is the eyes, if the eyes are strong in the picture, it draws you to it.”
Do you prefer taking black and white (bw) pictures?
“I grew up taking bw pictures and there was very little colour shot in the ‘60s. it was a bw era and that’s when I started. I tend to look at things in a way that young photographers now aren’t trained to do because they see things only in colour. You have to learn to see in bw, it has for me a nostalgic magic. If you take the great books by the best photographers, like the ones done by Avedon, I can’t even think of his works in colour. He did the Beatles in amazing colour but his iconic pictures are in bw."
Looking at the posters of his most famous shots, in each image, the person captured attains an aura, an aesthetic persona which begs the question, does everyone look good or better in bw?
“No, not everybody does but you can give a different feel to a picture, very often its more livable with. If I’m doing portraits now, I’ll show somebody the black and white on my screen and give them options and its amazing how often they’ll choose the black and white.”
“Just see that picture of my children,” he says pointing to a framed trio of youngsters perched in miniature table between two chaises in his office. “If you had that same shot in colour, it would not be so peaceful. Therefore, it would jar. The other thing about bw is that it doesn’t date!”
Even before I’ve completed the question, Lichfield responds to, 'Have you ever been nervous dur… ?'
“I’m nervous every time I shoot. If I wasn’t nervous, I wouldn’t take good pictures. I’m not absurdly nervous but I get a bit tense. I’ve got to try there’s always a chance that somebody’s not going to like a shot. I might just get people wrong and I don’t think anyone always gets it right. There’s no fail safe. Even Tendulkar can’t score a 100 every time!”
We’re both quick to agree as the Indian cricketer (one of his favourite sports) has had a streak of ill-fated games recently.
“One of the marvellous things about photography is that, even if its digital, it’s a split second before you see it. And it isn’t always the same as you’ve just seen it in the lense. When its suddenly two-dimensional on a screen or a page, it is different. The other reason I’d never gone back to film is the risk factor.”
It may seem eons ago but flip the calendars back a little, and the possibility of drawing blank sheets of white paper in a lab, after a lengthy session was not uncommon.
“One of the biggest problems we had travelling around the world, hauling our equipment and shooting everywhere, you never quite knew what you’re got. Polaroids were a wonderful new thing when it happened in 1971. It basically gave you the idea that your lights were all working and the exposure was all correct, you had an idea of the sharpness of the image but when it appeared on paper, it was a bit of surprise to everyone. Myself included. Now, I shoot it straight to a computer.”
“The risk factor’s gone down and also the airport problems of anyone spoiling your film. I can manipulate the pictures so that in a way it makes you lazier. If you’ve got a perfect Taj Mahal shot and you’ve got one guy sweeping leaves in the distance, wearing a fluorescent jacket, we used to have to wait and wait or bribe him or something to move away. Now you can disregard that and just Photoshop it. Its too easy now for young photographers.”
At a stage when he’s in his own bracket and beyond rivalry and competition, Lichfield is generous with praise and fondness for many a photographer in the field. Recalling a memorable lunch with his colleagues and contemporaries, he punctuates his final anecdote with a healthy laugh;
“I was in Paris with 11 other photographers, all much more famous than me. Avedon, Annie Lebowitz, David Bailey, Parkinson and so on. And we were all walking through the park after lunch. We’re strolling along. And a pair of English students recognised me and they came up to me and said, ‘Excuse me guv, can you take my picture?’
So I said, ‘All right’, then took a picture and then said, ‘Look there’s a guy here who’s much better than me and he should take a picture.’
I turned around, said, ‘David, come here, take a picture.’
Then David shoots and then he says, ‘Actually, there’s someone else who’s better!’
And then he gives it to Helmut and then the same thing happens and he calls Annie over and she takes a picture.
‘Hang on’, the kid looks up and says, ‘That’s our f***ing film you’re wasting!’
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