The way I approach a subject and the reason my images, I think, look like they do in terms of lighting, depth of field, facial expression is because I come from that cinema background. I like photography but I’m not as interested in it as I’m in – like if you asked my favourite people they’d all be directors. And when I had to think like, how am I going to photograph Rosie, I wanted it to be really natural and I always go back to cinema.
With Rosie I was thinking of these Italian, ‘fifties, quite strong women. ‘Cos after reading her book, I thought, ‘This is like one of the strongest people that I’m ever going to meet’, ‘cos she’s incredible. And I just thought I want her to look really strong, like she’s owning her own, you know, self and her own power. It seems really in-depth for what’s a very simple photograph, but in my head, I saw that kind of Charlotte Rampling strong type of woman and having a photograph and I just wanted it to strip down and be really simple.
And when she got here, her eyes were incredible, ‘cos she always wears glasses and I hadn’t really noticed she has these really, like, crystal blue eyes – just so blue. I just said to her when she sat down, I said, ‘Oh How about we try without the glasses?’ And I think she said, ‘Oh, that’s how people kind of recognise me.’ And I said, ‘Well let’s just try without because your eyes are incredible, why would we not take advantage of it.’ And we didn’t do any shots with the glasses at all because I just thought she just looked amazing. And she had this kind of power, even though she was quite relaxed.
There was no conscious decision, I didn’t want to make her look vulnerable or exploit the situation, I just wanted her to be herself, because she’s strong and she’s funny. She’s so light-hearted. I wanted that side of her to come through but just in a really naturalistic way. And Rosie had such a good energy when she sat down and I think you can see that, you know, she kind of exudes it when you meet her.
