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When Harry Met...
Tom Daley
Harry Borden looks back on two shoots with the Olympic
diver, TV presenter and national treasure, Tom Daley
Harry took this family portrait in 2008 on Father’s Day, three years before Tom’s father died of a brain tumour
ALL PICTURES © HARRY BORDEN
I
n the mid-2000s I was
working on a series
of portraits called
‘Contenders’ which had
been commissioned by The
Observer Sport Monthly. The
series went on for several years
and I probably photographed
about 25 people. All the
subjects had been identifi ed
as the possible ‘next big thing’
in their specialist sports and
some of them went on to great
success, including young
footballer Fara Williams and
sailor Ellen MacArthur.
One of the subjects was a
young and virtually unknown
diver called Tom Daley, who I
photographed in June 2008,
when he had just turned 14. He
had been diving since the age
of seven and specialised in the
10-metre platform event.
His father, Robert, had
arranged the shoot and I had
been given a half-hour slot on a
Sunday afternoon at the family
home in Plymouth. I remember
arriving with my assistant and
looking out into their modest-
sized back garden. You could
hardly see the ground becauseit was almost entirely fi lled
with a trampoline that Tom
used for training.
Even at that young age, Tom
had something about him. He
had striking dark eyes and was
quiet and intense. I took shots
of him around the house,
including some of him with his
mum in his bedroom, which
was a very small box room with
his diving medals on the wall.
One of the shots I arranged
was a family photo with Tom,
his two brothers and his
parents sitting on a black
leather sofa (below). It was a
poignant shot because it was
Father’s Day and Tom’s father
died three years later from a
brain tumour at the age of 40.
Tom achieved national fame
when he competed in the 2008
Summer Olympics. He won the
FINA World Championships
in 2009 and 2017, as well as abronze medal in the 2012 and
2016 Olympics. He also
became a TV presenter on
shows including the celebrity
diving show Splash!.
Tom came out as gay in 2013,
and two years later announced
his engagement to the
American screenwriter, fi lm
producer and director Dustin
Lance Black. In November
2015, I was commissioned to
shoot the fi rst portrait of Tom
and Dustin for the cover of
the glossy, large-circulation
American LGBT lifestyle
magazine, Out.
Tom’s status had changed
enormously in the eight years
since I had last photographed
him and the second shoot was
a much bigger production than
the fi rst. It was an all-day shoot
and the magazine hired a
venue – an atmospheric old
pub near Mile End in the East
End of London. It was almost
completely unmodernised and
half falling-down, had lots of
creative possibilities and
interesting light.
I was also able to hire a stylist
and chose to use a friend of‘Tom seemed quiet
and diffi cult to read,
but at the same
time very likeable’