The Spotlight Project - Maureen Lipman

A series of portraits where I reunite actors with their first ever headshot.

Little did I know as I pulled up to Maureen Lipman's house that this shoot would end up being so traumatic. Not due to any thing she did; as with all the actors I photographed she was warm, welcoming and makes a fine cup of tea. No, it was the hardware that was to cause the stress. As I set up my stuff in her garden (at the bottom of which, as you can see below, she has a London postbox and old red telephone booth- perhaps a kickback from those BT ads) I had no idea that my camera was suffering a fault. I know everyone has gone digital these days but I'm a bit old fashioned in my use of film, chemicals and paper. What this means of course is that there's no way of checking as you go along that everything is working perfectly. To cut a long story short my lens only actually opened on about ten of the pictures I took, so I was greatly relieved that I got anything usable for the project.

Maureen pointed out that she thought she had one portrait earlier than this which I have since found so perhaps if we get the chance we could try again with my now fully functioning camera. Which also provides the perfect excuse for another cup of tea.
Click on any image to see a larger version.







Click here to see other portraits from The Spotlight Project.