Arca

London, Primrose Hill, 14 April 1993

MH: For whom did you take the picture? The camera is a Nikon F3, right? Did you really use it for 20 years? Isn’t that amazing?

KC: The photo was taken for Vox magazine. A short-lived monthly »from the makers of NME«. Yep. One of my cameras was worn down to the brass in part. It’s still the best model I’ve ever used. It was so intuitive. I knew every scratch and mark on it.

MH: What do you remember about the shoot?

KC: I’d already asked Björk if we could take the photos on Primrose Hill. Some of my favourite images by other photographers have been taken there. Bill Brandt’s 1963 shot of Francis Bacon is possibly my favourite portrait of all time. I have a lovely David Bailey print of Marianne Faithfull on Primrose Hill and Gerard Mankowitz shot the Rolling Stones there, too.

MH: How important is the location for you? We’ve already discussed the Morrissey photo where one could say that the location was very important. With this image I’d say that it basically could be any bench anywhere in, erm, Britian. Is this bench typical for the beautiful Primrose Hill area, so could you say that a Londoner would immediately recognize it? I’m asking because I know Primrose Hill and I know that quite a lot of famous people live there. So, what I mean is: Does the bench maybe say more than one would first imagine? Is it saying that Björk had already made some money in 1993 and was living in a posh area of London? Or is that me overinterpreting?

KC: Location is sometimes important. I realise I could have probably shot this photo in any park in Britain, but I enjoy the knowledge that’s it’s taken in a part of London where some of my favourite photos have been taken. I’d taken an earlier shot of Björk – in The Sugarcubes days – lying on a bench in a park in San Francisco. This picture is a reference to that one, too. I like the idea that there’s some kind of lineage to a series of photographs. The next time I photograph Björk, it will have a similar theme.

MH: Someone sitting on a bench, looking dreamy – isn’t that a subject that we all know too well? I like the photo, I’m just trying to wind you up. Could you say something about ›typical poses‹? How someone should or must avoid them – or not?

KC: Well, I tend to let my subjects more or less do what they want. Occasionally I direct them, but I’m happy to shoot the personality they want me to see. If I don’t feel it’s working, or if I don’t feel we’re connecting, I might make a few further suggestions. Ultimately I want you – the viewer – to see Bjork in the picture. I don’t want it to be an over-stylised photo of what could be anyone – I’ll leave that to other people with cameras. Obviously sometimes it’s impossible to get the kind of shot you want. Then maybe you have to fall back on a few tried and tested poses, locations etc. Ultimately you are only limited by your imagination.

MH: When we met a couple of months ago in Manchester you took a photo of Bernard Sumner for us and he was someone you had already shot in the 1970s. Is it sometimes maybe more difficult when you’ve known someone for such a long time having already taken e.g. 20 different photos of her or him? Or is it easier?

KC: It’s not really easier or harder. It’s different. I first photographed Björk in 1988. She’s very beautiful. We always had a good professional relationship. One year I wanted her to be photographed with Evan Dando for the NME Christmas issue. Evan had recently been wearing floral dresses on stage. I thought it would reference the great British pantomime tradition of cross-dressing, if Evan wore a dress and Björk wore a man’s suit. She was happy to trust me and run with the idea – even though, at the time, she had no idea who Evan Dando was. It’s different whoever you photograph – unless, as mentioned earlier, you are the kind of photographer who has one technique and who, maybe by default, makes every band look similar. This kind of picture  tells you nothing about the subject and everything about the photographer. But ultimately it’s a vacuous style, masquerading as art.

New Bingley Hall, Stafford, 22 June 1978

MH: For whom did you take the picture and what camera did you use?

KC: It was taken for the NME to accompany a ›live‹ review. Camera: dunno. Nikon FM probably.

MH: What do you remember about the shoot?

KC: It was the first Bob Marley gig in the UK since his four nights at The Rainbow in London the previous June (1977). It was his only gig in the UK in ’78. Consequently anyone from London wanting to see Marley had to travel to Stafford – around 140 miles away. Bingley Hall was a huge shed in the middle of farmland. It was usually rented out for livestock and farming expos. The acoustics were terrible, but at that time, there were very few venues in the UK capable of hosting a gig for around 8,000 people. There was also only one small road into the venue. Traffic jams were inevitable. I drove from Manchester and got there early, but two of the three coaches bringing all the journalists and record company people up from London didn’t arrive until midway through Marley’s set. I think the record company coach driver gave up on the outskirts of London. The headline for the disgruntled review of the gig that appeared in the following week’s NME was: »Babylon by Bus«. Marley liked this so much that they appropriated it as the title for the live album of the tour.

MH: Coming back to Nico, as mentioned below: This is definitely a live photo. Were you on stage? How many photos did you usually take when you shot photos live? More than in a studio? Less? And is there something you’d like to add re. the challenges and difficulties shooting in a live environment?

KC: I shot from the audience whilst standing at the front. The angle was less acute than if I’d been shooting from the ›pit‹ directly in front of the stage. I shot for the whole show. These days there are too many restrictions place on photographers at gigs. ›First three numbers only‹ is the norm. If that ›rule‹ had been in place for this gig, this photo wouldn’t exist. I’d have just got a few fairly average shots of Marley in murky light whilst his set was warming up. Few musicians give you a blistering first three songs. It takes a while for the gig to get going. We’re now in an era where everyone is taking a camera of some sort to a gig. It seems anachronistic to restrict professional photographers thus forcing us to attempt to capture the essence of a live show in under than ten minutes. This is why there is so little good concert photography these days.

MH: Marley’s fist and hair are what make the photo special and captivating to me. Did you know in advance that it might be good to focus on his hair or on his hands? I mean: Do you generally think in advance about the special features of a person so you can concentrate on them?

KC: This was a coming together of all the elements that make a photograph special. I have a sequence of him throwing his head and dreads around, but this is the only one where his fist was in the right place for me. I knew I’d got the shot I wanted as soon as I pulled the trigger. Capturing the decisive moment on film is like scoring a goal in football. The adrenaline soars. I couldn’t wait to get home to process and print it in order to make sure it was exactly the shot  I imagined it to be.  I guess with digital you lose some of that. Every gig is different. If it was a band I’d seen in concert previously I’d have an idea where I wanted to stand in order to get the best shots. Once the gig starts it’s difficult to move from your chosen position. You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometime… you’ll get what you need.

MH: Marley’s sweater looks like a football shirt but it’s some sort of ›tour sweater‹, isn’t it? The Wailers are mentioned… 1978 was the year of the FIFA World Cup which Argentina won – could you talk about Marley’s fascination for football? Did you ever meet him and talked to him about football? You yourself are quite a big football fan, too…

KC: It’s a tour jumper. Britain in June probably felt cold to a Jamaican. I never met Marley. With hindsight, maybe I wish I’d had the nerve to go backstage and talk to him about football. The final group games in the World Cup were played the night before this gig, so we knew that Netherlands and Argentina would contest the final. Remember, I’d only been shooting professionally for a year or so. I was quite shy and nervous when I first started working with ›famous‹ musicians. I felt that I shouldn’t really be there sometimes. That I hadn’t paid my dues. I didn’t choose my career path in order to meet famous people. I’m not a groupie. I loved music, I didn’t collect autographs. My rationale was: I loved going to gigs  and if I could earn a living shooting them for a few years then it was better than getting a real job - whatever that was…

Manchester, 3 April 1978

MH: For whom did you take the picture and what camera did you use?

KC: I shot it for myself. I probably used a Pentax Spotmatic 500 (I think that’s what I used for the first couple of years out of college).

MH: What do you remember about the shoot?

KC: Patti Smith came to Manchester to perform on The Old Grey Whistle Test at the BBC on Oxford Road. For some reason it was occasionally filmed outside London. Paul Morley (NME writer) and I were obsessed with Patti Smith - we were devotees. We managed to convince her record company PR that we were going to do a feature for a Manchester ‘What’s On’ Magazine (New Manchester Review). This was to enable us to get into the studio just to watch the performance. We watched the band rehearse two numbers: ‘Til Victory’ (I think)  and ‘Because the Night’. We then asked her if we could take some photos and interview her and she agreed. I was very nervous though. I hadn’t really shot many people outside of my comfort zone (i.e. my Mancunian contemporaries).

MH: Could you give us some more details about the location? What did you like about the white wall?

KC: It was shot in a corridor in the BBC in Manchester. A fairly bland 1970s office/studio block. It was shot using available light - strip lights on the ceiling. The white walls helped to reflect some light back onto Patti’s face. I wanted a shot that would have a (photographic) studio feel, without it being too anaesthetic.

MH: Did you ask her to take her coat off? Did you make sure that one could see the two badges? Did she have a stylist?

KC: Yes. I shot a couple with her jacket on but I hoped that by asking her to take her rather large shapeless jacket off she’d look more feminine. I gave her the Buzzcocks badge that she is wearing at the bottom of the lapel. She then wore it on the show. Paul and I were really into Buzzcocks and I felt that it was a way of promoting them if I could get the great Patti Smith to wear their badge on such an institutional show. Patti Smith didn’t need a stylist. In fact I think the only artiste who had a stylist back then was David Bowie.

MH: How old were you in 1978?

KC: 24.

Manchester, The Haçienda, 24 February 1983

MH: For whom did you take the picture and what camera did you use?

KC: For NME. A Nikon F3 - which I continued to use until it finally died in 2004

MH: What do you remember about the shoot?

KC: I was quite nervous around them. They seemed slightly unhinged and aggressive. However I knew I had to control the shoot to an extent and I had an idea that I wanted to try with them. A lot of bands - especially bands with a charismatic lead singer - get upset if you concentrate solely on the natural front man. I wanted to shoot them in line - all with their backs to camera, with each band member turning his head into camera, frame by frame. Nick Cave of course didn’t settle for that and stood in front of the others as they lined up with their backs to me.

MH: Did you choose the place? I think many people only know The Haçienda as a house discotheque - could you tell me what you remember about the first years of The Haçienda? It really was more like a venue for concerts, right?

KC: The Birthday Party were playing at The Haçienda on the evening of the shoot. It was already dark outside by the time they were ready to do the photo session. I therefore had to shoot it inside. I could have taken them to my studio, which was a 10 minute walk from The Haçienda - but I thought it’d be easier to shoot them in the dressing room at the club. The room was big and well-lit  and I often used it as an space in which to shoot bands.  They were happy with this arrangement as it meant they didn’t have to go anywhere between sound-check and gig. It also meant that I had time to shoot more film. They were very insistent on my shooting them as a band though. When The Haçienda was conceived it was primarily a gig venue - with regular dance nights. It was only the gig nights that would fill the place. If the venue just had DJs on a Friday or Saturday night - there’d be no more than 30 people in there - and most of them were Factory Records employees and their friends. Tony Wilson credits the rebirth of The Haçienda to the Chicago House music explosion of the late 80s. Mike Pickering had a more pragmatic explanation: “It was Stella for a quid night that filled the place”, he told me. (Selling pints of Stella Artois for one GBP - this was almost half the price of Stella in other pubs and clubs in Manchester at the time).

MH: It’s not easy taking a picture of a whole band or would you disagree? Do you find it easier to shoot a group of people or a single person? Were the other three band members cool with Nick Cave being the only person facing the viewer?

KC: There were five band members including Nick Cave. Once I explained the concept of the shot to them they liked it. I also told them that it meant I would get five photos in the NME with the feature which would help to spread the feature over more space - thus giving it more prominence in that issue. The NME only paid photographers a reproduction fee (a fee based on the size of the photo as used on the page). By ensuring that they had to use five photographs I would earn five times the regular one shot payment. As I explained earlier, this was just one of the five shots from the feature. However it is the best one. It’s really difficult shooting a band shot. You can only concentrate on the facial expression of one or two people and you have to trust the others to be doing the right thing when you press the shutter. It’s also difficult to balance a shot with more than three or four people - especially when it’s ego-driven and some band members insist on standing a certain number of centimetres away from others in their band…

MH: Did Nick Cave have a hair stylist?

KC: No. He did his own back-combing.

Deeside, Deeside Leisure Centre, 12 September 1982

MH: For whom did you take the picture and what camera did you use?

KC: It was for NME. It was probably shot on a Nikon FM.

MH: What do you remember about the shoot?

KC: It was a live show but I wanted to try to shoot a portrait whilst she was performing. I felt that by framing it by cropping at the neck and tilting the camera slightly, I would achieve the effect I wanted. I also had to ensure Nico wasn’t too close to the microphone. It made the process of shooting live a bit more challenging for me.

MH: What is the Deeside Leisure Centre?

KC: It’s a leisure centre in Deeside - near the north Wales border with England. It was occasionally used as a gig venue - although it was an Olympic sized ice rink.

MH: It’s obvious that this photo was taken during a concert. Please explain the differences between taking photos at a concert and shooting someone in a studio-like situation.

KC: I’m surprised you think it’s ‘obviously’ live. You are the first person who has ever said that. Well when you shoot live it’s unpredictable. These days security and band management seem to want to restrict photographers to the pit in front of the stage and allow you reluctantly to shoot for two or three numbers. I’m not interested if it’s a health and safety issue. It shows a complete disregard for the art or craft of photography. Consequently you see very few interesting live shots anymore. I prefer to shoot live from the stage. That way I can include the audience in the shot. This makes it more atmospheric and locates it in time. Shooting in the studio is 100% controllable. The only unpredictability is whether or not the artiste will actually turn up.

MH: Nico is very beautiful. Do you sometimes fall in love with the person you take a photo off?

KC: Yes sometimes. I prefer working one on one. I never use assistants. I rarely allow anyone else to be in the room with me if I’m shooting a portrait. It’s too distracting. I think you sometimes almost have to make the subject fall in love with you for the few minutes you are working together. It’s a very intense process and occasionally the chemistry between photographer and subject works magnificently to produce a great picture. It’s easy to see on a photograph when that has happened.

On the bank of the River Irwell, Salford, 5 September 1989

MH: For whom did you take the picture and what camera did you use?

KC: Partly for Parlophone Records and partly for the NME. Hasselblad - but the camera isn’t important. I just wanted a square shot.

MH: What do you remember about the shoot?

KC: It was at the end of a full day shoot. Morrissey enjoys having his photograph taken so he tends to want to try a few different ideas out. That’s not to say that he directs me for the whole day; there’s room for my input too. Working with Moz is often a collaboration though .

MH: Did you choose the place? Could you give us some details about the location? Does the River Irwell have a special place in your or Morrissey’s heart?

KC: I chose the location. We’d been shooting around Morrissey’s home and garden. I wanted something more obviously Northern for the pictures. We walked along the Rochdale Canal then towards the River Irwell. I took some photos of him against the water as the light was fading. Then I spotted the slightly raised cobbled part of the towpath under the iron bridge. It had many of the industrial North of England elements that epitomise Morrissey. I wanted to shoot him in silhouette - almost statuesque - against the slate grey sky.

MH: Why did you choose this photo to be on the cover of your new book »Manchester - Looking for the Light through the Pouring Rain«?

KC: Because I wanted a photograph that was a generic northern image. Morrissey’s profile in silhouette is instantly recognisable without the picture screaming that it’s a portrait of the man. It captures the sense and strength of the heritage of the City whilst locating it in the present.

MH: Would you like to talk about Morrissey not liking you using the photos you took of him?

KC: I’m sure he does like them. I don’t shoot vanity portraits though so if he didn’t like it I’d be able to argue my case as to why it’s a great picture of him.