Portrait of then chair of the British Fashion Council Harold Tillman CBE, English retail entrepreneur and former head of Jaeger and Aquascutum, in his office in London in 2010.
This retrospective is painful; there is only one frame that I like (two others are ‘ok’), the rest are simply not up to par. Overexposed, underexposed, out of focus, weird angles. I haven’t looked at these for a long time… what was I doing and thinking? Taken early in my photographic career I still had my (arrogant, naive, indoctrinated) military mindset of ‘I can do anything’ when I had no idea about direction or communication. I had done no preparation on Harold was and I think I just expected him to naturally visually engage with the camera with little input from me.
The metadata (the data that lurks in the background of a digital image) shows I was with Harold Tillman for seven minutes during which time he took a phone call. Given how I work today seven minutes is barely any length of time; today I would still be chatting, analysing his facial expressions, what he was wearing, how to use his office both in composition and also to give him more background context. And the light… the light in his office was a weird combo of various artificial yellows and oranges and a large window for natural light; hence, in part, a reason why my favourite frame from this session is such a close crop, as it minimises issues in regards to colour balance.
Interestingly, my favourite frame offers little context about Harold; neither the coffee table books or the photography on the walls (I recall he was particularly proud of a Kate Moss ad campaign image above a sofa in his office) both presumably from previous brands and campaigns for which he was responsible. I recall he was particularly proud of a Kate Moss ad campaign image on his wall
