Interview 24
Photography News Issue 22 absolutephoto.com
Terry O’Neill I don’t really like cameras While the legendary photographer
professes to not like cameras, he certainly knows how to use them to good effect. Feted for his portraiture, Terry O’Neill tells us about the pictures he made and the pictures that made him In a world of tiresome, truculent micro celebrities it’s really great to find someone who is, at the same time, deserving of their fame and also one of the nicest people you’ll ever meet. That person is Terry O’Neill, who despite being one of the UK’s most iconic photographers, is as free with perspectives on his career, his subjects, his successes and failures, as he is with London travel advice (“you want a number 14 back to the West End from here”). The foundations of Terry’s reputation were built in the 60s, and his style brought an exciting documentary edge to portraiture. This came, in part, from embracing new 35mm format cameras that would allow quality shots to be taken outside the studio, but mainly from his unintrusive approach. Here he discusses his early years and the experiences that formed his approach. Before the celebrity shots you’re so well known for today, you had a ‘proper’ job as a photographer with BOAC at London Airport (later Heathrow). What did that involve? Yeah, it was in the Technical Photographic Unit. I wasn’t into photography at that stage; I wanted to work for an airline so I’d get to play in jazz clubs on stopovers in the US. I was glazing prints and assisting people photographing the interior of aircraft. I was so bored by it, but a guy there got me interested in photography proper; he brought in magazines and books, and I slowly picked it up. As part of the job, we had to go to art school once a week, and as an assignment I got sent down to the airport to do some reportage; people crying, going home or coming back, or whatever… that’s when I got lucky and got this shot of Rab Butler [Home Secretary, 1957–62]. That’s the shot that got you noticed by the papers? What do you think was so special about it? And do you still have it? No, I’ve looked for it, but that whole bloody library has disappeared. I wish I still had it; it was a great shot. It was in the airport, and Rab Butler was dressed, as usual, in a suit and he’d fallen asleep amongst these African chieftains, you know with the hats and the robes on… It was a great contrast, I suppose. A reporter saw me and sent it to his picture editor. They looked at my roll of film and loved the way that I took pictures, so they gave me a job covering the airport for them every Saturday. Do you think it would still be possible for someone to take the same route as you did today? Or have stars these days become too guarded, making situations like this a thing of the past? Well, not exactly the same, no. In those days it was all just a lot more natural. What many people forget is that London Airport was just one terminal and everything happened in that one place; when you went through there in those days you got straight onto the plane. There wasn’t all this segregation. You had movie stars sitting there having coffee and getting ready; all you had to do was keep your eyes open. What made my pictures different from all the standard airside shots of people going up the stairs or waving goodbye – what made me successful – was I couldn’t get airside because I didn’t have a pass. I had to work with what I had. Do you think you need a natural instinct for reportage? Well, I just saw things; I mean, not to start with because before I started getting into photography I’d never really looked Interview by Kingsley Singleton
Awardwinning Terry O’Neill photographed actor Faye Dunaway, who he married six years later, at breakfast by the Beverley Hills Hotel pool the morning after she won an Academy Award for her role in Network, in 1977.
at things in that way. But when I started reading these photography magazines I’d see pictures of kids or people crying – real stuff with a story – and I used to go looking for that type of picture. I don’t know about instinct, but if you knowwhat you’re looking for, you find it, funnily enough. Other photographers would go there and they wouldn’t see a thing. But I used to hone in on people and if I saw someone rushing up to someone, I knew they’d laugh, or embrace, or burst into tears. I knew there’d be a moment and I’d be right there to capture it. That’s not necessarily the kind of thing you can learn in art school though. I can honestly say that I learnt nothing at art school – nothing useful anyway. It was just a lot of stuff that held you up and stopped you taking pictures, like you weren’t supposed to use colour film below 40°F… I just pressed on and filled the frame. That was my whole thing, and I learnt it very early. If you want to be a good photographer always fill the frame. So that when
Terry on getting close
Could you get access to megastars, like I did, in the modern world? I don’t think so. The movie stars have changed it all, the paparazzi’s killed a lot of the trust and there’s nothing like Life magazine that publishes good reportage these days. You’ve got to get into people’s lives, but now the stars won’t even let you near their house. If you did get in, they’d want total control; it’s not the actors or actresses or their personalities so much, it’s the publicists and the managers; they want to be in charge of everything. They even want control of the copy now. They get the photos and they say you can only put this photograph here and that photograph there. I don’t know whether it was me or maybe it was just the time when I was starting out and getting successful, but it was a lot freer. Whatever it was, it was a real golden age.
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