You know, I'm highly dyslexic and my way of learning was to directly interact with people and hang out with them and I found that once I did a few portraits, I thought, wow, this is like a licence to stalk people, you know, people are really open and want to be a part of it and I get to know people. And when you get to know people, you learn so much from them. So I think I just became interested in people.
So Hugh asked for me to do his portrait. We actually share a lot of mutual friends, but you never know, it’s like going on a blind date with someone, you meet up with them and you actually have a real great connection. Photography’s a big part of the portrait to me and I normally film people and just base the portrait on all my images and film so I can see those moments. Hugh’s son is very into art and quite creative and he wanted to bring his son along for the photo shoot. So I had a plan up my sleeve that I was gonna ask his son to talk to his Dad and pull the trigger on a camera. And then the virus hit. And then Hugh called me up the night before he was coming to do photographs at my house and said, ‘If I don’t jump on a plane tonight then I’m gonna get shut out of the U.S.’ And his family was there, so they had to fly off and that didn’t happen. And then I made a video for Deb, Hugh’s wife, on how to shoot the portrait and I think because Deb took the pictures there’s this beautiful look in … The painting’s quite different to the photograph because I made it black and white and added my own touch to it, but there’s a look in Hugh’s eyes and you can tell it’s a conversation with someone that he knows and trusts, it’s not a GQ photo shoot which is probably great images as well. But I didn’t want that; I wanted that intimacy we spoke about. So I think there’s a love and intimacy that I think I’ve got.
