When I’m commissioned to do a shoot, I usually have a particular idea in my mind that I hope will end up coming to fruition. Sometimes things fall into place and that plan works out, sometimes it doesn’t. The time I got to photograph Elton John was one of those occasions when it did.
Ironically, I wasn’t commissioned to shoot Elton at all. In December 2010, I was asked to shoot portraits of the Canadian film producer and former advertising executive David Furnish for The Sunday Times magazine. He had been in a civil partnership with Elton since 2005. I had previously photographed David, in 2001, for a business article in ES Magazine. This time, the pictures were going to be taken at the Old Windsor home he shares with Elton. I hoped it might be possible to photograph them both together.
As a celebrity photographer, there are certain choices you can make that make it more likely you’ll ultimately get a good result. One of them is choosing your assistants wisely. In this case I went against my usual approach and hired a male assistant, Yousef Eldin, who’s a filmmaker and who also happens to be very handsome. I thought if I was going to meet Elton it would help to create a good atmosphere if we were all guys together.
It was arranged that I’d be photographing David in some buildings in the grounds of the main house, which were basically private art galleries. He and Elton have an extraordinary collection of art, including a fantastic collection of photographs, and walking around these spaces was like going into the Tate Modern but with nobody else there.
I introduced myself to David and after reminding him of our earlier shoot, began taking pictures. He was very compliant, helpful and professional. Then, when we’d been shooting for a little while Elton came along to hang out with us.
He was then 63, and a couple of months earlier had released a successful collaborative album, The Union. I had been a fan of his music in my teens and 20s and he was a big part of my cultural experience in that period, so it felt quite intimidating to meet him in person. However, as you might expect, he was approachable and very down-to-earth.
I introduced myself to him and took the opportunity to show a selection of my images on my iPhone. As soon as he saw my 1997 photo of INXS front man Michael Hutchence he asked if I’d done a limited-edition print of that photo and I felt flattered when he asked if he could buy the first print in that edition.
Showing the portfolio had not only resulted in a print sale but had enabled him to see I was a decent photographer. That made him more open to my suggestion that I do some shots of both him and David.
It wasn’t a situation where I was able to get a wide range of shots in different locations and we took them all in the gallery. I was shooting with my Canon EOS 5D Mark II and an EF 50mm f/1.4 lens and I set up a big softbox to one side of them. If you’re not blessed with things happening spontaneously, you have to resort to setting things up, and that’s what I did here.
Photographing two or three people can be tricky. Giving equal weight to them in the picture can sometimes work, but compositionally it’s much more striking to have an opinion and go in on the main subject or point of interest and let the other elements of the picture fall where they may. Usually, the others get in line and things work out organically.
In this case, I put Elton in the centre of the frame and David to his left. I then posed them in more detail, for example asking David to kiss Elton on the cheek, while asking Elton put his hand on his chest and have a pleasantly surprised expression in some shots, or his eyes closed. In other shots I asked David to lean his head on Elton’s shoulder.
To give some variety in the images, I also asked them to pose behind a Damien Hirst artwork showing a single white dove suspended in formaldehyde between two large sheets of glass. I positioned them either side of the dove. When the Sunday Times picture editor subsequently chose the images for the magazine, this one was chosen for the cover, while other images from the shoot were used inside.
Four years later, in November 2015, the Sunday Times magazine was again looking for a picture of Elton and David to go with a different interview feature and they called me to ask if they could use the picture of David kissing Elton on the cheek. I readily agreed, meaning I’d had two magazine covers from the same shoot. The ‘kiss’ image has been published elsewhere a number of times over the years and has developed a life of its own.
The images were contrived, but what wasn’t contrived was the good rapport between David and Elton – you can see they’re both happy and relaxed. They liked me and Yousef and there was a very convivial atmosphere on the day. I capitalised on that atmosphere and the shoot worked out every bit as well as I could have hoped.
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