EIZO Interviews Clive Booth

In conversation with Mike Owen, Head of Marketing at EIZO UK

Clive Booth is a commercial photographer who has worked for many world famous iconic fashion and luxury brands. He has photographed celebrities around the world and shot films for global names. He is a Canon Ambassador, who is constantly on the lookout for what is new and has recently been working on VR-content. Content to tell immersive stories, content to empower, content to engage but most importantly, Clive creates content in any form, to build emotion in the viewer.

I have known Clive for many years as I was part of the team at Canon Europe that added him to the Canon Ambassador programme; a role which he proudly holds today. In fact, I was lucky enough to be given an incredible print of one of his images when I left Canon and we have kept in touch ever since. So, when I arrived at EIZO I was pleased to discover that Clive was a long-term user and fan. I was excited because I knew from experience that he would become one of our most public cheerleaders.

When I first spoke to Clive about the possibility of doing an interview on behalf of EIZO, I thought I might get the chance to talk to him from his Derbyshire home, so when he offered to come down to our Ascot HQ to conduct the interview in person, I was blown away. For Clive to then inform me that he would be joined by his long-term agent and friend Mark George, I felt really honoured. Mark George has been Clive’s agent since his early days as a photographer and has represented some of the world’s biggest photographers including the legendary Richard Avedon, and he still represents the indomitable spirit, photojournalistic legend and incredible man, Sir Don McCullin. So, for me we are talking about photographic royalty.

Sir Don McCullin

“Mark George represents both Sir Don McCullin and Clive and this has brought many opportunities for the two to work together, their last collaboration was a film directed by Clive of Don shooting the street people of Kolkata.

Even though I’ve made many films of Don over the years I have only ever shot one portrait that I feel happy with, this one.”

A Master at Work: Sir Don McCullin Kolkata

In interviews I usually go through the pre-amble of getting to know the subject but given the fact that I had known both Clive and Mark, I threw that straight out of the window and it may be apt that I am writing this article (even though it will not be published for a while) during Mental Health Awareness week, given the fact that I was talking to a photographer who is by his own admission an emotional photographer, a photographer who wears his heart on his sleeve, so I jump straight in and ask Clive about how emotion shapes his creativity, he responds “Where do you start? OK, let’s start right here, I’m completely open about this and transparent about this, I’m a very sensitive person, but Mark will tell you this probably the most sensitive photographer you represent.” to which Mark interjects “By A long shot since the beginning, since I started representing (photographers)”, but this response is not said with any hint of negativity, the response is so matter of fact that you can tell that Mark and Clive have had many conversations on this area previously.

Given the very open response I received from Clive on this subject I wanted to delve deeper. Many photographers talk about the ability to connect with their subject, which highlights an ability to communicate and empathise with them, so I wanted to understand whether Clive has always had this ability to empathise with whoever he is photographing, or if this is something he has developed over the years. Clive tells me, “As a kid, I was incredibly sensitive. I mean, I was the kid who would cry when Cat Stevens ‘Morning has Broken’ was played in primary school, I would hide my tears, because I knew the other lads would probably get me in a fight or something. I remember my first day at school, I hid under the car seat, didn’t want to go to school, cried all the way through weeks of school and the only way that the headmaster could stop me crying was to put me in my sister’s class and sit me next to her. All my life I’ve suffered with this, heightened sensitivity, which for want of a better word, you might call anxiety. But I guess it’s a double-edged sword, isn’t it? On the one hand you’re incredibly empathetic, sensitive, but on the other hand, the payback is that you get upset easily. As Mark will tell you, whenever I’ve done a shoot, and I’m thinking back of all the shoots that I’ve done, I remember nearly all of them.”

Karen Gillen

“The A list Scottish model, actor, director in Cannes pre Hollywood, Cannes 2012. Such a huge talent, so beautiful and great fun to work with. As she was about to move to Hollywood I came up with the idea of her peering into the Villas pool as if looking into the future. Reaching out and touching the waters surface was all Karen.”

Karen Gillan

Remembering a shoot for a photographer is no different to a footballer remembering a match or a sales rep remembering a deal, but what is probably less normal is the post shoot reaction. As Mark elaborates, “Every time he does a shoot I wait for the ‘call’. It comes at the end of the shoot, ‘I don’t have it. I screwed it up here. This is the worst thing I’ve ever done. This is absolutely terrible. I could have done better. This didn’t work. I don’t know why I wasn’t prepared. Look at the results, terrible’. I respond, yes Clive. Then the next day he’s beginning to like these. A week later, this is the best work he’s ever done!”.

Clive shoots back “It’s genuine, that feeling is genuine, I have this terrible need for everything to be perfect and that is probably the worst thing of all. Even beyond the sensitivity, because you are just trying to achieve perfection, you just procrastinate. I’m the world’s greatest procrastinator.” The back and forth between Clive and Mark continues with Mark retorting, “You can’t achieve perfection in photography anyway. You can’t. I don’t know any photographer that doesn’t think I wish I had another two days to do that shot because I could have tuned it in a little bit better. But actually, it is great for photographers to learn when to stop tuning something in and take the picture. You can’t go on forever because it’s just not practical, and there comes a point when you go overkill on a picture, and it looks like they’ve been trying too hard.”

Is Mark, right? Can a picture be too perfect? Can the contents of a picture be overkill? A picture can lack in emotion, a picture can be too sterile, does that stem from the subject or from the photographer or a combination of both? Clive provides his thought on the matter, “You will see it in their work, when a photographer picks the camera up and shoots purely on instinct. I have a theory, that we don’t trust that instinct enough as human beings, and we should. I teach young people, and I talk about learning to trust your instinct. There’s a great book on this called ‘Blink’, from the 90s. It talks about instincts and working with instinct and how we carry a huge amount of information. There’s a great story, that I hope is not an urban myth, because it is so damn good, about Cartier-Bresson. An advertising agency commissioned him to do a shoot. He then spent a week with the art director, just looking at a particular street scene. The art director asked if he was going to take a picture, and he didn’t. He waited and waited then on the last day finally he bought the camera took a handful of pictures that became the great picture for that decisive moment, he observed and absorbed, but the shot itself was instinctive.”

Len Goodman

“A rare editorial shoot for You magazine, I was one of the first photographers outside of the show to be allowed back stage for Strictly Come Dancing. I shot many of the stars but my two favourites were Len Goodman and Bruce Forsyth. Len wasn’t wearing any trousers and I’ll always regret not shooting a wider portal!”

Clive Booth – Strictly

Cameras can freeze time in thousands of a second, but the action of getting ready to be in the right place at the right time, with the camera set exactly right and then pressing the button takes years of practice to be able to do it consistently. Young and inexperienced photographers may be able to do it sometimes, but the experts will be able to do it again and again, because they will have developed that instinctive nature. The instinctive nature of photography is one element alongside the technical requirement of using the camera, but Clive’s ability to observe, emphasise and engage with his subjects really stands out to me. Clive outlines an experience when shooting the famous British actor Terence Stamp, “I want to capture the person, that person’s character. My best example of that was when I met Terence Stamp in a Berwick Street tearoom. It was one of those times in my life when you get this urge that you want to photograph someone, he’s got this shock of white hair, and an incredible face. Many times, you have a fear of being rejected, and I think as human beings, we all suffer from fear of rejection, whatever it might be. I wasn’t there to photograph Terence. I was actually being interviewed by a producer to be represented for directing commercials. So, Terence Stamp was sitting there and he’s talking to people, and I could read from his body language and the way he was talking to people that he was receptive to a conversation.

Terence Stamp

“I met the legendary British movie star in a tea shop in Soho, plucked up the courage to say hello and then persuaded him to come back the next day so I could shoot his portrait.”

Tea with Terence Stamp

Here’s the important point, and this is the point I make to all young people I work with, is that so much of being a creative is not about the camera. It’s not about the technology. It’s about interpersonal skills, particularly if you’re going to be a portrait photographer and work with people. You’ve got to really develop those interpersonal skills, and you’ve got to be able to read people. I approached Terence and had a brief conversation during which he agreed to be photographed.

So, we met at the tea shop the next day and rather than bringing the camera up as a barrier, we first talked about his time working with Tim Burton and Steven Soderbergh. About 40 minutes in, I asked do you mind if I take some pictures, and shall we keep the conversation going. And as we talked, I would bring the camera up, shoot some pictures and then put it down again. We carried on talking and I would take out the camera again. Terance was talking to me, but he was also talking to the lens of the camera.” It becomes clear that something that Clive has in spades is emotional intelligence, which is so important for a photographer who photographs people, and intimate scenes, small groups and events.

Clive starts to explain about a photographer called Jane Bowen, “Jane Bowen was one of the great newspaper photographers. The way she worked was that she would go somewhere where all the other press photographers would turn up and there would be a sea of lenses and cameras. But she never had a camera in sight.” Mark picks up, “Her camera was in a bag, and she always stood at the back. With all the photographers saying, ‘over here, look at the camera’, sort of stuff. And then they’re done, and they all split, and the subject would look up and see this little woman standing there with no camera. The subject would wonder who is this and ask why didn’t she take any pictures? Jane would invariably respond ‘Well, all I was going to get is a picture of the back of heads”. And every time they would ask, ‘Do you want to take some now?’ She always got the shot that won the awards. That approach made her a top photographer; she knew to use the camera after she had made contact.”

Clive continues, “The thing is, what she did there was that the subject she went to photograph had an empathy for her in that situation. Mark jumps in, “and that was when she began shooting.” There is a famous story of when Jane Bowen was shooting The Beatles, she was asked to leave at the end of the shoot, but Ringo Starr insisted she be able to stay, some of these images were used in Jane’s obituary on the Guardian shortly after she passed away in 2014.

Robbie Brown

“Robbie Brown was 9-years old when I shot this portrait and I was there to photograph his dad, Scott, who was an RNLI volunteer. Robbie would keep appearing on a quad bike and try to get my attention. Suddenly, he appeared with a puppy and a lolly. I looked and didn’t say a word, brought my camera up and took this picture. There was something about the composition, his shirt and his lolly, and it was just one of those moments in time. I really empathised with him wanting to be part of it all. Tragically, his dad died four years later of a heart attack, so I often think about Robbie and his dad who became a very good friend of mine, as did his whole family. It’s a picture that has become very important to me.”

Painting pictures with passion and purpose

Islay Lifeboat

“For several years I have followed the Royal National Lifeboat Institution volunteers of the Hebridean Island of Islay. I’m fascinated by these extraordinary people who put there lives at risk often with young families to save the lives of complete strangers. I used dyptic portraiture to illustrate the volunteers in their day jobs and then in RNLI crew kit.”

RNLI Celebrating the extraordinary commitment of the thousands of volunteers who make it possible