:: F2 Freelance Photographer ::

Richard Young

The UK’s top celebrity photographer, Richard Young started out in the 1970s. Working on location with small format cameras, without the use of makeup artists or elaborate lighting, Young has photographed virtually all this era’s top celebrities, from Elizabeth Taylor and Madonna, to political figures such as Fidel Castro and Nelson Mandela. One of the keys to his success is that from the very early stages of his career, he has made it his business not just to be polite to the celebrities, but to extend this courtesy to the doormen and security guards with whom he came into contact with as well.

“When I left school”, he says. “I worked as a salesman in various menswear shops around town. One was called John Michael, another was the Squire Shop, although photography had been around me in various shapes and forms for a long time before I picked up a camera. The photographer Brian Aris was a school friend of mine. Watching the way he conducted himself, the way he worked, and how he progressed, was a big influence on me.

“I went to Paris in 1968, and started working for advertising and fashion photographer John Bishop. I spent nine months at his studio, not taking pictures, but learning about setting up studio shots and lighting, which obviously didn’t do very much for me, because I don’t use studio lighting now … I don’t even work in a studio! But it was interesting to work around a photographer, and something obviously rubbed off. Then I lived in New York in the early 1970s and another big influence on me was my girlfriend at the time, who was the photographer Flo Fox.”

Back in London from spending four years in the States, Young was working in a bookshop on Regent Street, whose owner wanted to publish a book about Thomas Hardy country, and needed photographs to illustrate it. “I bluffed that I could take the photographs”, says Young. “He gave me a Nikon F2 with a Photonic head, and off I went. Unfortunately, when I came back the results weren’t useable.” That experience, though, was enough to arouse Young’s curiosity, and he spent the next few months working out how to use the camera.

“One day, I was introduced by some friends of mine to Paul Getty Jnr. “Paul had recently been released by Italian kidnappers, minus an ear, and virtually every newspaper in the world was looking for him. I took my camera along, and photographed him and his fiancée. A few days later, the picture appeared in the Evening Standard with my byline on it. The next thing I knew, the Evening Standard started calling the bookshop where I was working, sending me on jobs.

“Celebrity photography was a very non-productive industry in those days. It didn’t really exist at all, or in such a small way that the Evening Standard only called me two or three times a week, asking me to cover parties and book launches – that kind of thing. There were no photographers hanging around outside the doors of the clubs and hotels … until I came along.

“In October 1975, The Evening Standard asked me to cover a party at The Dorchester which Elizabeth Taylor was holding for Richard Burton’s 50th. It was only because I gate-crashed that I got in. I got all these amazing pictures of them kissing, blowing out the birthday candles, dancing, and then I got thrown out. It was my first major world exclusive.

“The celebrities I was photographing in those days were mainly Americans who were passing through town. There was a flyer that went to the papers each week called Celebrity Bulletin, telling us which major stars were coming to London and which hotels they were staying at. The Evening Standard would show it to me, and I would doorstep that hotel or - being me – I’d go and sit in the lobby. Why stand outside if you can sit in the lobby? I only had my Nikon camera with me, and no one really knew who I was or questioned what I was doing.

“When I gave up my day job, which was after I took the Taylor and Burton pictures, I bought myself a Leica. Up until then, I was still shooting on the Nikon F2 Photonic, mostly in available light, sometimes with flash. Around about 1976, Bailey’s people rang me and asked if I would like to work on his magazine, Ritz. This was Britain’s first ever gossip magazine – a kind of forerunner to Hello! I worked on it from 1976–82. It gave me access to a lot of wonderful parties, and people that I was interested in.”

“By about 1978, other photographers were getting wind of what I was doing, and I began to have a bit of competition; although by that time, not only was I associated with The Evening Standard but, when one of its picture editors had moved to The Daily Express, and I went with him on a freelance basis.

“The Daily Express and Ritz magazine were really the making of me. There was this wonderful collaboration, whereby Bailey and his partner David Litchfield would ask me to photograph the most exclusive parties in town. The deal was that they wouldn’t pay me, but that I could give the material to my paper. So I’d walk into The Daily Express at 9.30 in the morning every day with this fantastic exclusive material. And they didn’t have a clue where I’d got it from, because they never knew about the parties that I was covering. I had pictures of all these wonderful A-list people like Bianca Jagger and Andy Warhol partying at Mr Chow’s, and premiere parties, at which there were people like Jack Nicholson and Warren Beatty, and they’d get used in these great spreads. This went on for about five or six years.

“I first noticed the impact of digital photography in 1991, when I was given a case containing a primitive Apple laptop, scanner and modem, by The Daily Express picture editor. It was really complicated in those days, especially when you had to transmit through a regular telephone line that wasn’t a digital dial up. It took hours to download even a 10MB picture. I started shooting digital when Nikon brought out its first camera, around 1998. I began by playing around with them, and then went straight into the D1, D2 and now the D3.

“These days, I have two or three photographers that do commissions for me. I get sent invitations to everything going on in this town, and around the world. It’s very difficult to plan my diary. Take last night for example. There were eight or nine different jobs going on in one evening.

“I always take my technician to download my images on site, as time is of the essence. We shoot Jpegs for ease and speed. I can’t mess around with Raw files. I need pictures immediately. When we were shooting on film, we might have shot a maximum of maybe eight rolls a night – about 300 photos. Now it’s more like 1500-1600 pictures a night, because digital’s so easy to shoot with.

“Shooting digital enables you to review your shots mid-evening and go back to what you were doing earlier. You see a picture where a couple were standing together, but you might want a variation on it, so you can go back and shoot it again. My agency, Rex Features, syndicates my material all over the world. I’ve been with then for 33 years, and they do a fantastic job.

“I’ve retained the copyright of all my material over the last 35 years. I don’t just do an edit and throw the rest away - that would be suicidal. It’s all stored on hard drives and DVDs. I have a team who archive all my images for the website, future books and exhibitions.

“When I meet people trying to get into the industry, I always encourage them, talk them through it, tell them where they should go and steer them in the right direction. It’s all down to personality, character, contacts and trust. If people trust you, you can build up good relationships. A sense of humour is vital. Laugh with people and don’t take yourself too seriously.

“Much of my work these days is commissioned, parties and gatherings for corporates like Ralph Lauren and Vanity Fair. I can’t remember the last time I gate-crashed a party – probably not in years. My whole attitude now is: if I don’t have the invitation in my hand, I don’t go. Nowadays, people get upset if I don’t turn up at parties they invite me to. The chaser has become the chased!”

“My wife Susan and I have recently taken the very exciting step of opening a gallery. It’s a really lovely intimate space just off Kensington Church Street, we will hosting many exhibitions, some of which will include my archival images which have never been seen before we will also feature guest curators and other photographers works. We are also looking at featuring some young, graduate photographers at some time in the future too.”