The world of photography with hugo bernand: from palaces to personal moments

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Arthur: [00:00:00] Today's guest is Hugo Burnand, the iconic photographer. Hugo you've taken photos of countless people people who will, of course, brought you many memories and bring you back to many rooms and occasions. All the way from Victoria Beckham to Nella Lawson and for a long time, worked for Connie Nast.

You've had so many different experiences in photography. What's it given you?

Hugo: Oh, what's it given me my entire life? I owe everything I've got to photography everything emotional, everything physical. It's given me my entire life. I love it. Absolutely love it.

Arthur: And you picked up your first camera when you were seven?

Hugo: Yes. I was given one by my grandmother who was an artist at seven. And it was a good moment because I took a photograph of a horse and we had horses at home. And when the [00:01:00] film came back from the chemist, pre-digital days.

I noticed that the adults were reacting to two of the photographs I'd taken in a way, which at that age I couldn't verbalize it.

But I sensed that they were reacting in a very positive way and, looking back at it, I realized they were going, oh, the guy can actually see a picture. And what had happened is I'd climbed up a fence and I was bouncing on top a fence. So there was level with the horse's head, and I'd got the horizon in the right position and the horse was alert, his ears were going forward.

To me, it was just obvious. That's how I wanted the horse to look. But actually anyone who's tried to photograph a horse, it's incredibly difficult. They've got such long faces, they often look distorted. They never really stand how you want their ears and they're in, so just to get it showed that I understood the mumo [00:02:00] critique.

And then there was another photograph which was, that's just a bicycle leaning against the side of the stable, but the lines and the circles and the triangles, and actually all good photographs. Oh, not all, but nearly all good photographs have shapes within them, be it triangles or s's or the rule of thirds and all those things.

And so that photograph showed that I could see design and shape. I'm talking about it as if I knew what I was doing. I just, had a camera

Arthur: 'Cause at the moment, you do a lot of things with a camera. What do you get when you take a photo that gives you a big care?

Can you explain the, the nature of the satisfaction and where that satisfaction comes from? Because, it's hard to imagine what the process is in some ways. Maybe we'll have familiarity with the camera, but it's different for you in the complexity

Hugo: yeah, it is

Arthur: interesting.

Hugo: I had a brush with mental health. Not [00:03:00] deep, but it was the first time in my life that I actually thought, I think I'm depressed. I honestly think I'm depressed. And I spoke to my middle daughter who's a photographer about it. And I said, I've got to verbalize this because I don't really know what's going on.

And she said, why don't you put a role of film in that twin lens camera that you have, and go out and take film pictures, not digital pictures that are for you, not necessarily for anyone else. And try and photograph how you feel and see what that does, which is an absolutely incredible piece of advice because, lots of photographs. And sadly, if we look at Instagram, in the winter months, I have to say this hit me by the way, in the depths of winter, which is not unknown for artists and photographers 'cause we rely so heavily on light. Light is everything. Light and shade. [00:04:00] And when you've just got these endless dark days and such a short window of natural light, it does play heavily.

And I've lost my track already. Oh. So all these pictures on Instagram, people on beaches and yachts and sunshine, they've gone off on the winter break and so I wanted to photograph the opposite. And I photographed rain falling. I photographed plant or flowers that were in a jug, which should have been thrown away ages ago, but I didn't have the energy to throw them away 'cause I felt that sort of down.

So there was almost like a sort of Dutch old master, but of dead flowers and petals on the table. And then I find it very difficult to sleep, although I spent hours in bed, I couldn't get outta bed, which is when I knew that's one of the signs of depression. And so I photographed my bed with all the sort of pillows and everything all in a mess.

And this book. And I'd been trying to read, but I just couldn't focus on reading and I couldn't sleep. [00:05:00] And I took all these photographs, which were, as I saw life then and the creative. Juices that were made to flow the serotonin that was released within me when I took a shot and I knew I'd got it.

And there was one of the curtains. It was daylight, but I hadn't even bothered to let in that two hours of daylight. And they were just slightly open. And my two dogs were standing by the window looking out and I photographed them from behind and let us out. Let us out.

And and then I was getting into it and I knew that the release was working and I wasn't I just wasn't depressed and I knew that 'cause I went and I photographed the lu and I closed the lid and I put a lube brush in it sticking out. And I put two rolls of lu paper with the. The hollow bit.

And it looked like a face with a smile of the lid and a sort of cigar coming out. And I was like, fuck it I'm [00:06:00] not depressed anymore. Wow. So it does do something hitting the button at the right moment. And when you know it, it's great. I love it.

Arthur: I imagine there's very varied emotions and senses of reward that taking photos can give you. And we will move on to what you've been doing so far, we are fortunate to live in a world where there's so much that is accessible online.

Is there part of this world that you feel is under photographed or that you feel like photographers or people in general are not using a camera to capture in a certain way? Because you just said a fit, an amazing example around how it's brought you to see the words.

It's like completely flip your whole view on what's going on.

Hugo: Big question. And I, again, I dunno if I'm gonna answer it properly, but photojournalism is something which is so important and has been [00:07:00] ever since photography was invented. Really reporting crimes against humanity with a camera enabling people to actually see what.

They might have read about, might have heard about it, but to see it actually happening is incredibly important. But unfortunately right now, we live in an age where AI is still so new that we can't trust anything. And I think photo journalists have an incredible responsibility at the moment to report genuine facts through their imagery.

Which means not over theatricalizing, if that's a word what they see, but trying to just photograph it as it is and letting the world make their own decisions and judgment.

Arthur: The mind is foreign because you're making us realize just how powerful [00:08:00] cameras are.

Telling stories. Protecting people shining the light in great places, but also places that need a focus. Yeah. Is there a story that you can think of where that could not be more true, that's quite unique?

Hugo: I'm thinking of two war photographers at the moment.

Don McCullen and Lee Miller. Lee Miller was a female photographer and she did a lot of photography. Actually she had the most fantastic career in photography, but she did incredible stuff during the war. She had been working for Vogue. She had been a model herself. She became a photographer.

She went out with Man Ray. They experimented together photographically. They think they fell out because for many reasons. But one of the reasons was who was already the author of these photographs. And man Ray was always putting his [00:09:00] name on them. And I think she took some of the ones that we think are Man Ray photographs.

I dunno. They also had very different ideas about Fidelity, which didn't help. Not in the way you're probably thinking, but anyway. But during the war, she started off photographing in, I think it was Vogue Magazine. She was photographing, basically yoga sessions and saying, you can do this at home to keep yourself fit.

That, that doesn't sound particularly amazing. But what she was doing was multiple exposures. So you could see someone lying on the ground and then the same person, you could see their knees lifting up, and then you could see their legs going straight up in the, for example, all in one frame. And that was a very experimental photography.

It was multiple exposures on the same negative, which showed such a fantastically creative imaginative mind. But that wasn't enough for her. Then she went around photographing women who were doing fantastic things in the war, be it the [00:10:00] res, be it the nurses, be it a Polish war photographer, be it a pilot.

There were so many female pilots. She just wanted people to realize that it wasn't a man's war, it was everyone's war. And she was championing women long before, we all really thought about it as much as we do now. And then that wasn't enough for her. So then she actually went into the front line as much as she could, and she couldn't bring herself to actually photograph a slaughtered soldier.

But what she did is their boot, which had been blown off. She photographed it in the rubble and she had like a belt of or cartridge of bullets. She put that coming out of the boot, almost like gut and trails. So she did use theatricality, but she got her [00:11:00] message home.

This is about death and killing and it is metal killing, humans. But then when she got to Dakar and the prisoner of war camps and the German concentration camps, she then did start photographing what she really saw because it was just too awful and she needed people to know.

And actually there was a film made about her by Kate Wins. Oh, Kate Winston. And I haven't seen it, but apparently it's very good. But she implored people to publish her pictures of what had been happening. And I, it was a real struggle for her to get them published. But she had a sense of humor and she got to Hitler's home.

He was no longer there. And she was with a Jewish photographer, compat of hers, and she composes photograph with her Jewish [00:12:00] photographer friend in Hitler's bar. But apparently he was a cleanliness freak and they did things like they put muddy boots around the bath 'cause they knew that would annoy him.

And then she got into the bath and the Jewish photographer took a photograph of her and that's one of the most photo famous photographs of Lee Miller in Hitler's bath. And it's like shocking that she could do that. But the irony is that she didn't actually take that photograph, but I say she did 'cause she'd composed the whole thing and the amazing thing of putting a Jewish photographer in Hitler's bath and it transpired that they were taking those photographs on the day that he committed suicide.

So it's extraordinary how powerful all that is. And that's a photojournalist who was pushing out the truth for everyone to see in whichever format they liked.

Arthur: Yeah. Wow. Talk about zooming in and out and being able to just, sway different [00:13:00]historic times. Is there a photo that you are really keen on taking, I'm not you yet to,

Hugo: I have this thing, there are certain people I always want to photograph 'cause I admired them, but they keep on dying before we get there. I adore Aret Franklin's music. I think she was a fantastic singer.

I always wanted to photograph her, but anyway, didn't get there in time. Gabrielle Garcia Marquez wrote those wonderful books, like Love in the time of cholera and I thought they were so fantastic and I wanted to get to photograph him. Didn't get there in time. But then someone asked me a variation of that question the other day, which I quite liked, which was, if you could take a selfie with anyone from a history, who would that person be?

And actually didn't think about it very long. 'Cause I know who I want to take a selfie with. It's the king. Yeah. Yeah. Because I have [00:14:00] photographed him for 20, 25 years. We get on very well on our respective sides of the camera. We take some great, I think they're great pictures. We have fun, but there are no pictures of me and him together.

Although I have all this evidence of photographs, I'd like a picture of us together but I really want it to be a selfie. I don't. A press photographer to take the photograph. I want a selfie of us. That would be so fun. That would

Arthur: be so fun. Do people often take have photos taken at their wedding day or if they're very fortunate, they might be able to have a professional photographer like yourself to take maybe Christmas photos.

Yeah. Or whatever it might be. Is there anything that you should, you feel people should adopt in terms of taking a photo of their family or maybe it's moments?

Hugo: The Christmas card photograph fashion I've, a client slash friend, and maybe I should say a friend slash [00:15:00] client and, said to me once when we were doing the family, their family Christmas photograph I should say, go back a step. If you are taking a photograph for a family Christmas card, I think it should fill one of three criteria.

It should have a Christmas message somewhere in there, whatever it be. IE not on a beach in Schultz. It should be a really if it's going to be a portrait, it should be a seriously good portrait that warrants being sent out. Not a too much of a happy snap. And in a way it should have a sense of humor to it because it's a, season of goodwill and joy and all that sort of stuff.

If you can get a, an amusing Christmas message that is also a beautiful photograph you're winning. [00:16:00] Anyway, this friend of mine said it's so important that you hit as many of those targets as possible because by the time you've gone through either the expense of time or the expense of money, of getting everyone together to take this photograph, then you decide which one it's gonna be.

And as a parent, you decide what everyone's wearing and so much goes into it. And then you have to write, dear Jane and John so many times with love, and if you've got more than one child, you have to write this name out thousands of times. Then you've gotta put an envelope, then you've got to lick it.

Then you've got to put the address on and remember what the postcode does. Then you got put the stamp on, and then you've got to post it. When they open it, you want them not just go, oh yeah, you want 'em to go? Oh, fun. Pretty joyous Christmasy. So you have to put effort into those family Christmas cards that will come out when the people open the envelope and feel good.

Arthur: What a great [00:17:00] insight. When, you know you've got the opportunity to take a photo of someone, how much about taking the photo and the photo that, that, that you want is already there before they come into the room? And how much of it is it based on what you know about the person versus you're in the room with them?

Victoria Beckham, for example. Yeah. You know what I mean? I don't know what the situation was there. Or, another portrait you've taken. Take and,

Hugo: I think my a good portrait in my opinion is a cab, a collaboration between the sitter and the photographer. I was very happy the other day.

I'm gonna drop this one in there. Someone was comparing me to Cecil Beaton and they said, Beaton creates an aura. Demand reveals the person. And I like that because let's say you are coming to my studio to be photographed. I [00:18:00] will do some research. I won't over research it, but I'll think what is appropriate and then I'll have two or three ideas.

But then I would like when you arrive. Or if we're privileged enough to have the time and the opportunity to discuss beforehand what ideas we might do. Should you be in a suit? Should you be in t-shirt and jeans? Should it be dark and moody? Should it be brightened, airy? And then come the actual shoot.

It's incredibly important that you give me as much energy as I give you. So then the eventual portrait is really a collaboration of both our ideas and how I see you, how you see yourself, how you would like others to see you, whatever. And it all comes through. That's a good portrait, a collaboration between the viewer and the sitter.

Arthur: And is there an attitude that you feel is really helpful from someone? Imagine what you are suggesting there is that people have to be quite open [00:19:00] with you and I you show the vulnerability. Is there something that you'd like to pull, pull out from people to get that great photo?

Hugo: I don't think about that too much because bizarrely I think I have is it the right way of saying it, an innate ability to read people. And I'm not, it all depends who's commissioned the photograph because if it's a magazine that wants to do a hatchet job, I've got to dig in a completely different way as if you've come and said, I want to picture off of my granny's Christmas present.

Arthur: So it

Hugo: really depends on who your commissioning individual is. But I worked out quite a long time ago that I was reading things in people that they weren't necessarily either telling me or even aware of. And I found it quite scary, and it almost sounds [00:20:00] like I'm psychic. I'm not psychic and I'm not a scary person.

But for example, I could tell when people were ill before they knew they were ill, and it really upset me because I, twice I got it. I knew this person hadn't much time left to live, and it was so upsetting to me and it changed how I felt. I should photograph them on at the moment. A less dramatic one was two very good friends of mine who had been photographing for years.

And I couldn't get them to work in the photograph. It just would not work. And I went home and I said to my wife at the time, I said, I've lost the knack. I've lost the skill. I couldn't get the photograph today. And about two weeks later. The wife came round and burst into tears and said, the buss left me.

And it, she suspected it might happen, but she didn't know it was gonna happen. He obviously knew it [00:21:00] was gonna happen, but hadn't told her. Yeah. And I could pick all that up. They hadn't even discussed it. They hadn't even discussed it, but I picked it up and I couldn't penetrate. So this is weird. Weird but useful.

Arthur: Yeah. You are making us think around how, when you're taking photos of someone, there's this there is big connection, between you and the person, the individual, and also the, the camera. How does that affect people? And do you, is there a way

Hugo: Oh, I don't, I would never tell anyone if I saw or felt something like that, I'd never tell them.

And no, I try and keep it all relatively. Lighthearted. And I'm generally a positive person and I like the positive things in life. . So that's what I try and portray. But I don't lie about it, it is, I think that's problem when I read too deep is I then know that I have to lie and I don't like lying.[00:22:00]

Making

Arthur: sense? Yeah. Yeah. I imagine when you are, at a party or wedding, what's going through your mind when you want a good photo of people having fun?

Hugo: I love I love that whole thing. Luckily I do, 'cause I worked for Tatler for 25 years, but there were so many things really ill at an event and event photography for me for, it was a bit like playing contact sport.

School, you have to keep your eye on the ball be it football or rugby ball or whatever, and you have to follow that ball. And as a photographer, there is it's almost like an imaginary red dot. That bounce is around the room and that the energy is moving around and you have to stay on it.

You have to stay on it. And then occasionally you lose it and you're like, where's the energy? Where's the energy? And then you see it over there, so you have to go over there. And it is it combines with portraiture because a good event photograph will speak to you in a way [00:23:00] that makes you either feel you are a part of the event or you really are a bystander at that event.

So it's the twist of a shoulder, the turn of a head. The height at which a glass is being held, anything like that. And those things happen in a split second. And a good event photographer will know when, not predict when it's gonna happen, but when it happens, be ready to take the photograph. And then you take that into portraiture.

If I know instinctively within seconds at an event where I have no control over the people, hard to capture that moment, I'm, way ahead of the game when they come into the studio because I can engineer that moment, that twist of the shoulder, that tilt of the head. And so a portrait session with me doesn't take for hours because.

I want a certain amount of energy. And in order to get the energy, you have to [00:24:00] give the energy. So I give a lot of energy. They give it back. And the resulting photograph has a sort of natural adrenaline in it. And you can't, no human can keep that up for very long. So you don't want hours and hours of photographs.

You just end up getting boring photographs. I have this great thing about boring photographs are boring to take, boring to process, edit, print, and boring to look at. So don't take them. Yeah. So put energy in to the photograph. So that's one thing. Now then you've been chasing this imaginary red dot, bouncing around the event for God knows how long, and then you are exhausted and you can't see it.

So another great thing is then just sit down, pick your sport within reason, but sit down. You'll see pictures come to you and it's amazing. You'll just be sitting maybe, very obviously you might be sitting on the edge of the dance floor and then this absolute goddess [00:25:00] comes and starts dancing in front of you and you don't even have to move there.

We are. Or there might be a discussion taking place and it gets suddenly animated and it's happening in front of you and you haven't had to move. So they come to you. So long as you put the energy into, go and chase the ones that are right there.

Arthur: God you, I'm, you are getting a question that and then I'm suddenly imagining this sort of

Hugo: the party scene.

Yeah. The party scene. The party scene. There's a great photograph, which I didn't take. And this is an annoying thing for assistants. If a photographer employs an assistant at an event to take photographs. Their photographs go to the client under my name.

So it looks like I took the photograph and I had a new assistant and we went off to a rave in a forest or wood and there was a marquee and it was all crazy and it was all fun and it was all so many different sort of themes come together, [00:26:00] obviously fancy dress. Anyway my assistant took this picture. It was rather like what I just said about sitting down and waiting for the pitch to come to you.

He was on the side of the dance floor and he wasn't really a photographer in those days, and so it was quite new and he took one frame and. I think he was bouncing his flash off the top of marquee. So it has a rather nice lighting, that sort of soft, gentle lighting, which allowed all the colors of the disc attack and the candles and everything.

Everything. You could see all these guys, but the six people in the photograph were all freeze frame doing something extraordinary and one had danced with a cocktail glass, traditional and the drink that had come out. And it was literally these drops going up into the air. Another girl had danced like this and slightly more than she, maybe she [00:27:00] wanted her reveal and best, but you could see much more than you normally would've seen.

And then there was a guy and he was just grooving away, making complete as something, and they were it was like a painting actually. It was fantastic. I didn't take that picture, but I admired it and it went out with my name on it.

Arthur: That's fantastic. What's the top of the mountain look for you when you're taking a photo of someone, what do you most want to get of them?

Is that them feeling sexy? Is that It depends. Connected with themselves in the room with you? Yeah. No,

Hugo: it depends. So depends on the commission and who is commissioning it because at the end of the day, the photographer, you want to get paid. . And so if you are, for example, if you're photographing a wedding, who is paying you your fee?

Multiple. Normally mother of the bride, which means you need to get out there and photograph the mother of the bride's friends. Like they're probably the godparents of the bride. They might just be very close friends, but. [00:28:00] It's easy to be swept up by the bride and groom and all their bright young thing friends, and all their friends are peacocks and we naturally photograph the peacocks.

But if Mummy gets this album of photographs and not one of her friends is in it and it's cost her an arm and leg, she's just gonna think it's a bad job. So you have to be aware of who is your boss that day and keep them in mind. You can't not photograph the peacocks. They're a part of the event.

But that, that's important thing. And it was another thing I was gonna say about sort wedding at photography and event photography. Which I always tried really hard to get published on the pages of Tatler when I worked for them, but they didn't always understand what I was trying to say.

When you are at a party, some of the editors were brilliant and some of them didn't get it the way I did. Which doesn't mean they weren't brilliant, but when if you go to a party, you [00:29:00] yourself you'll be talking to someone like you're talking to me quite close, but that person over there, you never actually get to see them to talk to them, but you are aware of them and they're doing something fun and interesting and you see it.

And those are two extremes, which I'm trying to give you. So when they publish a page or when you present photographs to your, whoever's, commissioned you, it's important to have some photographs that are upfront faces as if you're talking to them. And it's important to have some bystander shots of way over there of the scene going on.

Because if you only have those distant photographs and it might be from the other side of the hill of the marquee with all the lights on, I don't or it just might be. 10 people further away from you if you only have those pictures. When you look at the photographs, you don't feel engaged in the event because you're such a bystander.

Arthur: Yeah.

Hugo: Whereas if you only have pictures [00:30:00] of faces and faces, it feels like a meat market. And you're like, oh, I feel suffocated by these people. Whereas the So you have to, look at it as a party, goer yourself and try and replicate what it feels like. And it might be a photograph of the cocktails.

Yeah, the glasses of tap water. But all those things tell the story. Yeah. And I suppose really that's what we're doing at the end of the day as photographers, we're telling a story, be it a photojournalist be it an event photographer, or be it a portraitist. We are telling a story.

Arthur: They're really intimate moments you must have particularly when it's just you and the subject you are, you're taking a photo of, do you feel like you can that you can get a real depth into who people are from taking pictures

Hugo: pretty quickly?

Yeah, pretty quickly. And sometimes, just for example, sometimes people. At an event do not want to be photographed for whatever reason. They [00:31:00] might not be feeling good about life and don't want to be portrayed. They might be there might be a scandal about to break about them and evidence or I dunno, whatever reason.

And I'm not going to go and ruin their day by photographing them. It's not so important. Let's say it's a wedding.

I will try and photograph every single person that attend wedding, but the people that don't want to be photographed give them a respect their opinion. But if you go to a party sponsored by Tatler and you are paid not paid, but you've been invited to drink their champagne and take a goody bag home, I think you should allow yourself to be photographed.

And there was one particular author who refused to let me photograph them, and I thought, and they were quite rude about it. And I said, please let me take your photograph. I'm reading your book at the moment, and I'm really enjoying it and I don't want what's happening now to stop me reading it.

[00:32:00] And she, that's what I'm gonna tell you, was so rude to me and didn't let me photograph her and walked away. And I said to Tom, I'm so sad this happens. 'cause I was really enjoying that book. . And they said, how far did you get into the book? And I said so two, two thirds of the way through. And they said, don't worry.

Went downhill from there on. Which is probably not true, but it put me at a little bit of ease that I hadn't been able to get a picture of this person, but I felt it was, you gotta sing with your supper.

Arthur: Yeah.

Yeah. If you're getting a goodie bag, you're at a nice event. Good drink. Yeah.

With the world being so connected, beauty is in, in some ways everywhere that we have this false idea of what people look like, et cetera, et cetera. And a lot, many people don't seem to really appreciate the beauty that they do have. I think you put it that everyone can be photogenic.

Yeah. Yeah. Based on your observations around taking photos, ha have there been moments you've really taken joy [00:33:00] from turning someone around from not feeling great to fitting incredible, do you have a view around how do we bring a culture where people feel great and, don't have this sort of fear-based sense of what it is really

Hugo: annoying, isn't it?

That we are oh. Impressed by conventional ideas of what it's okay to look like. And if you don't look like that, then, in a way or a failure. I hate that. 'cause I do think that everyone has beauty inner beauty, exterior beauty, whatever. It's the, but what's it's emotion?

I suppose it's emotion really, isn't it? You're trying to get that sort of the true person to reveal themselves. And I suppose there's beauty in that. I mean that, when I was growing up, there was an actor called Marty Feldman. He was not good looking.

He had quite poppy eye [00:34:00] eyes and, he was a comedian and he was taking advantage of his less than ordinary looks, but he was a very funny guy and a very endearing guy. I've never met him and I've never photographed him, but I always thought, that's an example of someone who's not being allowing themselves to be controlled by conventional ideas of what makes a good person.

It's not about the physical, it's about the emotional.

Arthur: I'm often surprised by people who, on the face of it they just are factually very good looking. They really don't feel it. And actually they're feeling great in yourself is something that seems to be maybe not a big focus.

Yeah, generally I'm

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Hugo: not I'm not a doctor. It's not my job to lead their life for them. But if I can show a beautiful version of themselves to them, I will definitely do it. . And from that moment on, it's up to them what they do with it.

Arthur: It must be enormously satisfying. Switching people feel, being nervous to feeling incredibly confident.

That's something huge. You must give a lot.

Hugo: I know it's quite funny when they said this talk I did, which was titled Beaten to Bernard, I said I think I'm much more Mr. Bean than Mr. Beaten. But it does. It's not it's not a trick of my trade. It's not in my toolbox of things to, but

i'm not overly technical. I'm [00:36:00] not particularly proud and I don't really mind how a shoot goes. And sometimes if you trip over a tripod or things don't go quite according to plan, it doesn't matter because you are breaking the ice if the person's nervous or whatever. But it's definitely to be a good portrait photographer.

You have to be able to read people a quickly and b, instantly during the shoot so that you know which direction they're going if you need to stop that direction or encourage that direction.

Arthur: Has there been one standout moment with a someone who's a who's very well known, where you've really seen eye to eye?

Hugo: Oh, I think I see IHY with messing. I thought you were gonna ask the other question that I fell out with. I did fall out with a footballer once and his PR person and my assistant had to [00:37:00] come between us because I think he was gonna punch me. And what was funny was, oh, it wasn't particularly funny at all.

I dunno what I said or did to trigger him, but he absolutely lost it. And I knew he was coming for me and all I could think about was the safety of my camera. But the, his PR and my assistant knew that things had gone completely off the rails. Dunno why I still to this day, dunno why it was, I have photographed him since, and all friends and all good.

So maybe just, yeah, it was on a donor. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. Bit of a come down from a, I don't know. But that doesn't, that's very rare. Which is why it's so easy for me to remember that one. But no, I don't there was a pop singer once who was quite aggressive I think maybe felt threatened by my ability to dig deep.

[00:38:00] And they got very defensive and aggressive verbally. I can remember being very shocked by that. Yeah. Bizarre. But that's not my, there are some photographers who, they are confrontational. With an aim of getting that reaction. It's not my style. Not my style. K did that brilliant thing with Winston Churchill walked around and took the cigar out of his mouth and then took a photograph of Winston Churchill and t which, is one of the most famous photographs of Churchill.

The look of complete sort of surprise and whatever. I photographed Margaret Thatcher once and I did the same thing. I took a handbag away. I have no idea why I did it. I've literally no idea why I did it., In my mind, in my memory, she said to me, you've made a mistake there. And I dunno whether she did say that or not, but she was pretty [00:39:00] opinionated in our photo.

I worked for her for 10 years. Wow. And I was very obedient.

Arthur: Can you think of any other sort of quirky moments?

Hugo: sometimes I stand there going, this is only happening to me because I'm a photographer. This moment is utterly extraordinary. And one that just sticks out in my mind is I was on the south side of the Mara River and for two days I had been watching Wildebeest Gather on the north side, waiting to make the break and then come charging over the river.

And I was there photographing it for a travel magazine. And I had a writer with me who was writing. And the thing is that wildebeests don't want to cross the river 'cause there's a lot of crocodiles there. And they gather and they gather and it looks like an army. 'cause they've got the sort of gray [00:40:00]uniforms with sort of horns and gray helmets.

And this army gets bigger and bigger and they're pushing from the back. And the ones at the front are saying no, not yet. Not yet. And then suddenly, once they break. They're like if we all go, the crocodile can't get all of us or whatever. And there's this awful frenzy at the beginning, but then once it's broken it, they just charge and charge.

And it's like never ending. I'm talking tens of thousands of animals galloping towards you and I have the Jeep behind me. So they automatically split in front of me and it was one of the most amazing things I've ever witnessed in my life. And I don't know how many people would ever get to witness it, because most people probably, if they're in that era, they might witness it from a Jeep.

I was on the ground. And maybe, if you're traveling around you'd can, you afford to spend two and a half days waiting for the break to happen. But I had to get the shot [00:41:00] and it was incredible. There's been other moments, but that was amazing. Can I tell you a royal one? Yeah, please do.

Please do. When I photographed William and Catherine's wedding we were in the room behind the balcony at one stage. And there are curtains so you can't see in. Anyway, me and my assistant both peel back the neck curtain, and there in front of us was the mal, and there were union jacks and there were more people than you can imagine.

And the swell of noise and enthusiasm and everything. And I turned to my assistant and I said to God's sake, pinch yourself. Remember this moment, pinch yourself. And we both pinched ourselves. And about three days later, it wasn't that long later. I said, can you remember standing behind the window of the balcony room?

And he said, yeah. And [00:42:00] I said, can you remember pinching yourself? And he said, yeah, I can. And I said, and what do you remember seeing? And he said, nothing. I can only remember pinching myself. And I had the same thing. I can visualize my head myself going like that, but it was so vast what we looked at that neither of us could compute it.

Yeah. Isn't that weird? That's

Arthur: so bizarre.

Hugo: Really weird. So bizarre. Another strange moment which is unique and Israel is I grew up in the world of horses, race horses, breeding horses, racing horses. And I've always had a love relationship with horses.

I've ridden all my life. I actually haven't ridden for about a year now. But I have ridden throughout my life, all my children ride. None of us have ever owned horses, so we ride a lot of different horses, which actually makes us quite good riders because it's not like we're on the same horse.

Same [00:43:00] thing. We actually have to know how to ride these animals. But I used to work for various trainers in new market in Lambo. Anyway, when we were preparing to photograph the coronation for the king and the Queen we were doing dress rehearsals of what we wanted to do. Buildup. We spent three days setting up the lights and getting everything in place and had to take various portraits.

So I wanted each portrait to look different and unique. I didn't want just the set up and lights and everyone stand there click, move along. So I wanted each one to be a portrait. So it's a lot of organization. And then you do the first dress rehearsal and something went diabolically wrong which is slightly unnerving.

And I know that the people who'd employed us, the people within the palace, I know the expression on the face which was why have we employed these clowns? [00:44:00] How are they ever gonna go make this good? But that's the point of dress rehearsal. You have to get the issues out.

Next dress rehearsal, something I went. Even more wrong. I was like, oh my God. Anyway, the third dress rehearsal was while the coronation was taking place in the Abbey and we were still trying to recover from dress rehearsal one and two being disastrous. And so we're doing the final, I'd want to dress rehearsal number three to, the one where we got it all right to have happened the day before, but here we were still doing it and suddenly I heard the sand of horses whose coming into the courtyard of bucking palace.

And I looked up out of the window and there was the gold coach with the king and queen coming in under the archway bucking palace. And that really lovely, familiar to me sound of [00:45:00] horses hoops. And I just turned around to the team and. Showtime at what had happened in dress rehearsal number three. 'cause I had about seven cameras on different tripods so that when we'd done photograph A with one camera on one tripod and one set of lights, we just turned those lights off, moved to camera number two, turned those lights on.

Everything was at the right values and everything like that. And that's how we moved through the line. So we never moved cameras or lights. It was a matter of switching on. Switching on from, and camera number three, re rehearsal number three. No idea why. Still to this day, don't understand it. Just auto self combusted.

And most people might have panicked at that stage, but for me, there was something comforting about the sound of who's coming into the palace. And I was like, it'll be all right guys. Showtime, let's see what happens.

Arthur: If you were to sum up the privilege of [00:46:00] being a photographer, you the biggest privilege you connect to, what would that be?

Hugo: It would have to be not my own words. I'm feeling really guilty 'cause someone wrote me such a lovely letter and I've misplaced the letter and I want to write back to them and I don't know who to write back to 'cause I've lost the letter. But they were thanking me for taking such emotionally revealing portraits for the nation and the world to view and understand our monarch.

I was like, wow. That's a really beautiful thing to say.

And you can't deny that's a privilege to have been able to do it. [00:47:00] Bizarrely I don't have a sense of pride where I go into these portrait sessions thinking I have a responsibility to this. Yeah. I this is because they have trusted me for 20, 25 years.

So when I photograph them, I'm photographing them as, I don't want to claim things that, but as friends, you can't have a working relationship with someone for that long and not have a friendship. And so my duty is always to them as my. Friends, clients, whatever. And I never thought about the bigger impact in such a way, although, obviously I know it's there and I have to do my research when I'm asked to do milestone portraits.

But anyway I hope I find that LA letter and I can thank the person for pushing into words, something which I didn't really know. Have

Arthur: you ever walked past someone on the screen like, oh my God, I, do you mind if I take a photo of [00:48:00] you?

Hugo: When I was younger and I think maybe too young for you, but do you know how I, by Dame Edna, Barry Humphreys, it rings a bell, but he was a comedian and Barry Humphreys was a comedian and he had a persona called Dame Edna. And she had pink hair, almost like ice cream swirl and she wore ridiculous dresses and she used to interview people and her sidekick was called Mag and Maj only had one job ever.

And when someone famous, be it Richard Gere or anyone, doesn't matter who it was, tennis player, whatever. As the famous celebrity sat down to be interviewed, dam mad, they would say, where's the ma? Where's the badge match? And Madge would have to stick a bright yellow sticker on the person, say the king, or it might say Elvis or whatev, whoever the person was.

Julia Roberts. Julia. And it was so funny because to see these, a-list celebrities . [00:49:00] Being reduced to a badge that said their first name on it. But I sometimes want to go up to people and put a badge on them and say, you'd make a good photograph. Yeah. Because you do sometimes just see people.

So language or they've got such great bone structure or for just the way they move. It's just almost like we need to photograph that and share it with the world. That's what I said. Almost like

Arthur: different people tell a different story with how they look. Yeah. Yeah.

Hugo: So Hugo, you're now gonna show us some photos starting with the, really moving well, I dunno, you might disagree, but but that talked, that you were talking earlier around photos that took you out of fitting the Yes.

So get, taking photographs of how my mood was at the time. And this was one which was some flowers, which probably should have been taken outta the jug and thrown away.

Long before I did, but they made quite a beautiful sort of [00:50:00] structure and dead flowers to me. So I tried to do some self-help. I love food and I did this photograph of me trying to make soup. And I quite liked all the circles within circles and the sort of 1, 2, 3, and the everything. And I also found actually the sour cream in the soup had almost like a sort of brain flare to it.

And then I couldn't even be bothered to get outta bed and take my dogs for a walk. And this idea the light on the door and the curtains open and the expectancy of these dogs of wanting to go out. And then the inability to sleep and the inability to read and the inability to read myself to sleep I thought was conjured up in this image here.

I just want to check that. I'm not gonna show you the funny first. Okay. Ah, how it and then there were two, this one here. Was just rain raindrops. Wow. And the consistent persistent rain and the way these bubbles of [00:51:00] rain and the thing. Yeah. And then there was this the snow drop is a symbol of hope in the language of flowers.

And there's just this two little snowdrops in this sort of darkness of winter. And I knew I was doing okay when I took this picture. Which just makes me laugh every single time and just proved I no longer needed to take depressing photographs.

Does that work? Amazing.

He is quite funny, isn't he?

Amazing.

Really fantastic.

Okay. So this photograph here, actually I have printed up very big. And it's called Wife and four Children to Support by Hugh Bernard.

But this is one of maybe the most important photographs to me that I've ever taken. What happened is one of my children got ill with a very rare cancer and it was a terrible shock to everyone in the family to ourselves. She was [00:52:00] very young and survival rates weren't great. When this was diagnosed, which was in about 2000.

But anyway, she had a five hour operation and she survived and she's very much alive. But we went on a holiday afterwards. And when I say holiday, it was just like trying to regroup and get some semblance of family life back together. We just needed the time. And the children used to clamber on my back when I was on the beach and my wife took photographs and I said it was completely unfair that we.

Didn't have her in the photographs. So we recreated this scene, which had been happening on the beach in in Isia. But it looked weird with us wearing sewing trunks and bikinis in the studio. And I took it with a self-release cable hidden under here. And so while there's a sort of schoolboy T family lying on top, it actually if you can see the scar on my [00:53:00] daughter's stomach there.

Which goes from one side of her Tommy B all the way round her back. It is actually representation of a family that overcame a certain amount of trauma. Yeah. So it has deep meaning for me, and it almost looks sculptural like something you might find in the Natural History Museum. A dinosaur.

Yeah. Extraordinary The way. Almost the way that the background seems so soft with the floor and how Yeah. You really seem connected to almost what's around you. Yeah. I don't know how I was afraid to explain that,

But extraordinary. It was on a film camera and I only had 12 exposures.

And as soon as we started giggling, of course the pile collapsed. Yeah. But I got the exposure that I needed. Yeah. So I was very happy with that. Wow. This is a photograph of my mother. I think it's taken by Aire. It says Aire on here. My mother was unfortunately killed in a car accident that I was also in [00:54:00] when I was one, so I have no memories of her at all.

I have maybe created my own memories, but this is the only image I have of her. And. It's very important to me because it also illustrates to people how important photography is. They are family heirlooms. They're not just bits of paper. They are this has more emotional value than any financial heirloom that I could have.

And I think people need to respect. Photography. I'm not saying champion, you must respect photography. But what they need to do is respect their own photographs as being important to them and to their family and people around them. And Annoyingly Aire had such a distinctive style that nearly everyone looks like they could be related to each other in a graph.

And so I don't feel that it's the [00:55:00] best photograph I could have of her, but it's the only photograph I've got of her. Thank you for sharing these ones. Should I? What about this one? Yeah, let's do it. This photograph is important to me because it makes me smile. There's lots of people fooling around.

But with my assistant Louis Nia, we set up a wildlife conservation charity, and when we launched we sold a series of portraits of indigenous tribes, which we had been taking in the. Rainforest and jungles of Panama. And we sold these portraits to raise funds for the charity, but we didn't know if anyone would buy any of the pictures.

I got my children and my children's friends dressed up as Jaguars in these Jaguar suits, and they went round asking all the guests who'd come to the party if they would like to contribute. Now it helped enormously that the Duchess of Cornwall agreed to be our [00:56:00] patron for the night at this gala event.

And thanks to her and thanks to the energy of all these jaguars. We raised 250,000 pounds in one night through the sale of pictures and donations, and have made a considerable impact on wildlife conservation as a result. So it's a happy picture. It is a slightly wacky idea. It's a fun bunch of people who are all laughing.

So there we are.

Amazing.

These are on my children's birthdays. What I decided when my children were first born is I wouldn't photograph them every single day of their first year of life. In fact, I would photograph them once a year, which was on their birthdays, so that I had a gradual progression of each child growing up.

And I've got an example of each child here. This is Fergus, who's actually our eldest [00:57:00] child. And I love this. I don't, stupidly, I haven't written how old he was 'cause I thought I'd never forget. But I think he's about nine here and he's a very outdoorsy, loves nature, loves horses. Always riding, getting up for dawn, and I felt this was a good image of the health of summer for an outdoor young boy.

So I was very happy with that. Then my next child is Lily and before she went to university, she went on a gap year, which she didn't really want to do because she actually just wanted to get to university and read English. But she, I took this photograph just before she went. Trekking and unfortunately for all of us there was an earthquake in Nepal while she was there and we lost track of Lily for four days and it was very tense time of our lives.

And a great relief that, obviously she was [00:58:00] okay. But it has impacted her life for many years. It's impacted our lives as well. So this is so important. Photographing them every year on their birthday and this was a picture of her then. And you can't get away from the importance of photography as an heirloom.

And the great thing about doing them every year on their birthday is that my style has changed over the years. And as has their contribution to the pictures. And at this stage una, my second daughter, was thinking of being an actress and I wanted to do her with as little artifice as possible so that it would only be her that came through on the.

So the dark background and the sort of sheet of black Vel that she's wearing was intentional so that you only see the person. Ironically, she's now a director and a photographer and never wants to be on the other side of the camera. Again, [00:59:00] nothing to do with my photograph, I'm sure. And then this is Maya, who's our youngest, and, I wouldn't say she's a rebel but she's very much her own individual. Everyone is an individual. She, in this picture here is the cherry on the top of the cake. But she's helped refugees get safe homes from Ukraine. She set up an environmentally friendly product cleaning company. She created her own app to help people in adolescence and puberty.

And she's now a photo journalist and recently shaved off all her hair and it's a very short she looks very striking and she's been scouted by model agencies endlessly. Although that's not really her bag again, but again, it's lovely to have this picture of her when she looks like a sort of innocent flower girl hippie.

Very different. So anyway, I think birthday portraits are a lovely way [01:00:00] of photographing your family growing up because that is when they were a certain age. It gives the photograph more value. I obviously should have written the age on the back. But the other thing is, they know it's gonna happen every birthday.

So they think about what they're going to do, and we have a really nice relationship because we talk about these things beforehand and afterwards. And the successes and the failures. But also it is not just their development, it was my development as a photographer and how my styles changed and stuff like that.

And this card. So this is a Valentine's card. It's not my picture. I dunno who took it. I've looked, and it doesn't say who took it. It's just called a tool kiss. But I love old photographs. Because there is a purity to them. They were shot on film.

You didn't know what it, you were going to have seen for maybe weeks depending when you ended the film. And the romance of this. I just love, love, love the romance [01:01:00] of that. I do want to, if I can show you a photograph, which I acquired just the other day, fantastic. From a photographer called Martin Par, who is very famous for the way someone described him to me is basically he's a street photographer.

But they said he's actually a wildlife photographer who has chosen the human species as his species to photograph. And if I said chips are the sea front seagulls, people sunbathing in cloth caps and metal deck chairs. That was the sort of world, or that is the world that he photographed and is incredibly famous for.

And they're not necessarily flattering pictures. And as a real street photographer, he always is. And no one sees him. He's almost like the invisible man. And they're very colorful, his pictures. But in his early days, this was a photograph I'll take you outta the, so maybe it doesn't have any [01:02:00] flower on it.

This is a photograph was a very early photograph of his taken in Ireland. I think it was in Dublin. And it's this man. Fixing the glass above his door, but the framing of it is so fantastic and the way his foot is hovering in the air.

One on the step ladder. And I speak about shapes within pictures. Obviously the shapes in here are triangles and squares, but it just, I don't know. He walked past, he saw it, he took it, he carried on walking. It's just a talent. He's a genius. Martin Power. Absolute genius. Thank you so much for showing that,

Arthur: We're gonna move to the quickfire questions.

Three things that give you joy.

Hugo: Food family and dogs and horses.

Arthur: One unusual thing that gives you pleasure

Hugo: dancing in the kitchen.

Arthur: What am I, what are you listening to when you're dancing?

Hugo: Oh, I don't dunno. I'm a great Spotify user and I quite like [01:03:00] when it goes off somewhere completely strange.

Arthur: Throw us into, a genre of music that you think people under a beater, a beat. Just a beater. A beater. Beads. You can add one thing to your bucket list today. What would it be? Oh

Hugo: God. One thing to my bucket list. Oh God. I'm about to do something on my bucket list, really? So I don't know what the next thing is.

I am going around the entire world, starting on January the sixth and getting back to England on February the 22nd.

Wow. And I am visiting some really fantastic places.

And I'm doing it mainly by ship and by plane.

That's on my bucket list. I, and I'm going to Australia. Wow. I've never been to Australia. Wow. And yeah. I'm old enough now to say, oh God, I'll never get there.

Arthur: Are you going to the West Coast? To Australia?

Hugo: Sydney and Melbourne.

Arthur: Melbourne. Wow. What a city. The world works in a certain way today. What do you want to change about it?

Hugo: If I was Prime [01:04:00] Minister,

Arthur: yeah.

Hugo: I would. This is annoyingly long answer, but it's really relevant and I'll change it if you want me to.

When people leave school, I think they ought to be made to do four things, they ought to do. And we're just gonna take 10 months, not a year, but not six months. They've gotta do 10 months national service for their country. Doesn't mean fighting as a soldier, but it means doing something for the country.

Could be in the catering, core signals call, tank, call, whatever it is then, and they have to learn discipline and what discipline means. Then they have to do the next 10 months doing a fine art. What's a fine art degree, the first thing you do at art college where you learn to paint with mud and sticks, it's like the opposite of being in the army.

You have to complete, open up your mind, and you are just creative and you are allowed to. Get out with the sun and go to bed with the moon. But you've got to be creating [01:05:00] things. It doesn't matter what you might be really brilliant at being a sewing bee or whatever. You just have to do it.

It could be with food, it could be with anything. Then you have to do 10 months community service, which might mean working in a developing or third world country and you have to give yourself to charity to help others. It might be within England, but after you've been taught how to live within a very structured society which sometimes seems completely bonkers, then you've lived in a very free artistic society where anything goes and creativity can go forward, and then you've learned how to give to others, then I believe you would be a good citizen and human being and could do.

Great things in the world.

Arthur: Yeah. Really thought provoking. Thank you.

One thing that is in for you right now and one thing that is out,

i'm

Hugo: reading a book, which I'm completely into and I've [01:06:00] refound the joy of reading. And I find that it's really important to stop scrolling and read. And I'm reading a biography of a photographer called Sally Mann at the moment.

It's also fascinating. So I'm reading about someone who has the same sort of thought pattern as me. And what I love about that is she also grew up in the world of horses and is now a photographer and family and children are really important to in tune that and what am I out with?

Online banking,

Arthur: it sounds

Hugo: like it needs to change your provider. Oh God. When you ring up and then you have to go through all your passwords and your mother's maiden name, and then they put you onto someone else and they do it again and again. Dog's name. Oh, and then by the time you're talking to the fourth person, I've just lost it.

Yeah, lost it.

Arthur: Yeah. Thank God we're not we're not delivering much right now. It's been such a pleasure to have you. Thank you so much.