32 29 June 2019 I http://www.amateurphotographer.co.uk I subscribe 0330 333 1113When Harry Met...
Thurston
and Grace
Harry Borden looks back at a
delightful shoot with former Picture
Post photographers Thurston
Hopkins and Grace Robertson
Grace and Thurston photographed in a beach café using natural lightALL PICTURES © HARRY BORDEN
I
n February 2004, I was
given a commission
by TheSunday Times
to shoot a portrait of a
famous photographic couple:
Thurston Hopkins and Grace
Robertson. Thurston was then
90, while his wife Grace was
a relatively youthful 73. Both
talented photojournalists, they
had met while working on
Picture Post in the 1950s and
had married in 1955.
Thurston was about to have
a major exhibition of his work
shown at the National Theatrein London to mark his 90th
birthday, titled ‘The Golden
Age of Reportage’. I was asked
to shoot a portrait to go with
an interview by arts journalist
Waldemar Januszczak.
The brief I was given by The
Sunday Times’s picture editor
was very specifi c. ‘Thurston has
lived very happily for over 40
years with Grace, the equally
brilliant reportage photographer
of the ’50s... I would like you
to capture this harmonious
at-home atmosphere with them
both, perhaps with Grace in thebackground... It would also be
great to get them outside in the
sea-spray... Please just create
something beautiful and tender.’
So on 1 March, I headed
down to their home in Seaford,
East Sussex. I was still
shooting fi lm at that time and
took all my cameras to cover
every eventuality: my Pentax
67, my Hasselblad and my two
Fujifi lm rangefi nder cameras,
one 6x7 and the other 6x9.
I took rolls of Kodak Tri-X
black & white fi lm and some
Kodak Portra 160 colour fi lm.
Their home was a picture-
perfect cottage, not far from
the sea, and when I arrived
Waldemar was still doing the
interview. I remember it being
mentioned by Thurston that
Vanity Fair photographer
Annie Leibovitz had been
in touch with them and had
cited Grace as an important
infl uence on her work, which
was pretty cool.An aff ectionate couple
Although Thurston was the
subject of the interview, I was
conscious that it was important
that I included Grace as much
as possible. They were exactly
as I had expected from the
picture editor’s description:
an aff ectionate couple who
were both talented and
successful in the same fi eld.
Unfortunately, I also learned
during our discussions that
Thurston didn’t own any of
the negatives he had shot for
Picture Post. Many of the other
photographers had their own
darkrooms, but Thurston had
used the magazine’s fi lm and
darkrooms. When Picture Post
suddenly closed in 1957, they
were deemed part of the
company’s assets and the rights
to use them were sold on to
various companies. When I met
Thurston, they were owned by
Getty Images and they were
letting him make prints from
his own negatives to provide
him with some income.
After a chat and a cup of
tea, we began the shoot. As is
always my preference, I worked
using only natural light and
we started by taking some
shots in Thurston’s studio. He
had, by then, largely given up
photography and had returned
to painting, which he had done
in his youth. From there, we