subscribe 0330 333 1113 I http://www.amateurphotographer.co.uk I 5 October 2019 35
Harry Borden
Harry is one of the
UK’s finest portrait
photographers and
his work has been
widely published.
He has won prizes
at the World Press
Photo awards
(1997 and 1999), and was awarded an
Honorary Fellowship by the RPS in 2014.
The National Portrait Gallery collection
holds more than 100 of his images.
Visit http://www.harryborden.co.uk.I asked her to stand by the shed
and she picked up two of the
Rhode Island Reds that were
running around her feet.
I quickly took some shots of
her in this pose in natural light,
using my Pentax 67 with a
105mm f/2.4 lens and colour
negative film. She just looked
so classy holding one chicken
in each hand, like it was the
most natural thing in the world.
I’ve looked at that picture
since and thought that if I’d
been commissioned to take her
portrait by a publisher and
they’d drawn out that picture
to copy, it would probably have
been really tricky picking up
the chickens and holding them.
But this all happened naturally
and was a genuine moment.
By then, the five-minute shoot
she had suggested had lasted
about an hour and a half. We
had no hair and make-up artist
for the shoot, or any kind of
grooming – I just photographed
her in what she was wearing.
My ‘chickens’ picture was
later used on the cover of The
Lady magazine, in Harper’s
Bazaar, in various other
publications and is in the
permanent collection of the
National Portrait Gallery in
London. Deborah must also
have liked it because she
approved it for the cover of her
memoir Wait For Me! (2010).
She looked great in that
picture – her amazing blue
eyes showed up well and the
chickens were in the perfect
position. The best pictures
come together naturally
like that, and that’s why
photography is so thrilling.
It’s also why I have so little
regard for images that are
soulless and contrived.
As told to David Clark