subscribe 0330 333 1113 I http://www.amateurphotographer.co.uk I 29 June 2019 33
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.popped down to the seafront
and walked along the beach,
where they often walked, and
I took black & white shots of
them together.
Grace was tall and
statuesque, while Thurston
was quite short; in their prime,
apparently she was almost
a foot taller than him. So to
make them look a similar
height in an unobtrusive way,
I used the camber of the
beach to good effect. I asked
Thurston to stand on Grace’s
right, slightly higher than her
on the shingle, as it sloped
steeply down towards the sea.
Afterwards, I took some
full-length and close-up shots
of Thurston with the cliff as a
background. Then we went into
a beach café and I photographed
the two of them using some
great natural light supplied by
a long row of windows that
looked onto the beach. They
were both very photogenic
characters and very happy to
do whatever I asked them.
I had a lovely day with Grace
and Thurston, though didn’t
really appreciate what legends
they actually were until
afterwards. Thurston lived on
for another 11 years after I met
him and died in 2014 aged 101.
Grace is still alive and is now
aged 88. In 2017, I got in touch
with her via email and sent
her a high-resolution scan of
the shot The Sunday Times
used. Grace sent me a lovely
reply and thanked me, saying
she really liked the picture.
Looking back on it now,
aside from it being an image
of two important British
photographers, it seems a very
poignant image of a devoted
couple walking together in
a favourite place.
As told to David ClarkThe legendary couple
photographed by
Harry in March, 2004