FEATURE:
The Kate Inside: Photographing an Icon
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in an iconic Underwater Triptyc composition from 1989/PHOTO CREDIT: Guido Harari
Kate Bush and Guido Harari
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I will refer to a new interview…
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in a moment of downtime during filming of 1993’s The Line, the Cross and the Curve/PHOTO CREDIT: Guido Harari
very soon and also talk about my experiences and feelings regarding Guido Harari’s work with Kate Bush. He photographed her for ten years. Her official photographer between 1982 and 1993, you can see some of his examples here. Harari recently spoke with Classic Pop about working with Bush. That is a nice, updated look back at a very productive and happy time. Before that, I want to flip to a 2016 interview he conducted with The Guardian .
“Any other star,” says Guido Harari, “would have gone crazy. They’d have probably thrown me out.” It was 1am one night in 1989 and the Italian had been photographing Kate Bush non-stop for 15 hours. “We hadn’t eaten. We weren’t really talking. Just shoot, costume change, more makeup, shoot, costume change, more makeup, shoot.” You worked in silence? “Yes. It was like we had telepathic communication.”
Bush had asked Harari to do the official photo shoot for her new album The Sensual World. And then, in the early hours, Harari had a bright idea. “I thought she looked like the figurehead of a ship. So I would make her look as though she was swimming towards the camera underwater.”
IN THIS PHOTO: Guido Harari
Harari decided to create this image by shooting Bush in a Romeo Gigli dress in front of a rented painted backdrop that looked like a Pollock painting. Then he would ask her to step out of the shot, rewind the film on his Hasselblad camera and shoot the backdrop again, making it look like she was a swimming through a submarine world of drips and blobs.
And then he had another idea. Why not have two images of Kate Bush on the same frame? “And then I thought: why only two Kates? Why not three Kates – all swimming in the water? She had to stand really still so she wouldn’t go out of focus because I was using a wide aperture, so there was no depth of field. She had to walk out of the shot, then back in, stand very still, and do the same again. I knew it was going to be great but it was going to take time and patience – and you don’t get either often from famous people when you’re photographing them.”
Isn’t that when her PR minder should have intervened and said: Guido, enough already? “Well yes! But there was no minder. She was never part of what she called the machine.” As we chat, Harari shows me shots from his new book The Kate Inside, which documents his 10 years photographing the British pop star. It shows her wearing a T-shirt that says: I am a prima donna. “My God,” he says. “I’ve worked with some real prima donnas, not to mention any names. She wasn’t one of them.”
Indeed, there is a copy of her handwritten thank you note which says: “You’ve made me look great.”
Harari has made his name over the years with disarmingly odd images of musicians. Leonard Cohen asleep on a little table before a huge painting; Tom Waits strutting in an improbably voluminous cape; Laurie Anderson and Lou Reed in a moment of tenderness, her nuzzling nose disappearing into his open shirt. Harari was a Kate Bush fan from the first time he heard her first single, Wuthering Heights, on the radio in 1978. “She was a pioneer, especially in Britain where no solo female artist had had a number one-selling album until she came along. And you had the sense that, despite her wistful manner, she had balls of steel.”
The photographer first met her in 1982 in Milan, when she was promoting her album The Dreaming. In the book he describes his first impressions:“Beautiful golden eyes, pouty lips, a big mane of hennaed hair.” Bush and her dancers had just come from a TV studio. “She was wearing what looked like decaying astronaut gear,” he recalls. “I had my equipment with me, so I asked them to improvise. What amazed me was how she switched. She seemed to be this shy girl then suddenly this wild beast came out. ”
In Milan, Harari showed her proofs for a new book he was making aboutLindsay Kemp. The choreographer had trained the teenage Kate Bush in the mid-1970s, becoming a mentor to her, as he had been for David Bowie. “So my book was like a calling card – showing her that I understood where she was coming from artistically.”
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1985 (the year Hounds of Love was released)/PHOTO CREDIT: Guido Harari
Three years later, Bush called, asking if he would do the official shoot for her album Hounds of Love. “I went to meet her at her parents’ farmhouse in Kent. She had built a 48-track studio. One thing that really struck me was that there was no glass between the control room and where the musicians recorded. It was a place of silence and retreat from the rock’n’roll world. She had no desire to go to parties or be famous. Instead, she had her family around her. Her father was her manager and her brother had taken photos for her previous albums.”
For the Hounds of Love shoot, Bush told Harari that she would bring clothes that would be brown, blue and gold. “Nothing else! No other clues! So I got some backdrops I thought would go with those colours, and at 8am she turned up at the studio with her makeup woman and a few outfits and we went to work.”
Most of the photographs in Harari’s book have never been seen before. “There are lots of outtakes. What would happen is, at the end of the day, I’d have hundreds of rolls of film which I’d edit and then send to Kate. She’d send, say, four images to the record company. What nobody has seen until now is the progress through the day’s shoot. They really give a sense of her. The way she’s goofy one minute and then posing the next.”
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush during filming of The Line, the Cross and the Curve/PHOTO CREDIT: Guido Harari
After doing the photography for Hounds of Love and The Sensual World, in 1993 Harari was asked to be the stills photographer for her 50-minute film The Line, The Cross and the Curve starring Miranda Richardson, Lindsay Kemp and Bush, and showcasing songs from Bush’s album The Red Shoes. “It was a great invitation because I could be a fly on the wall. No fancy set ups, just me recording what was happening.” He’s particularly proud of his shot of Bush asleep on set in her curlers with Kemp posing behind her head. “I know she was disappointed in the film, she maybe thought it was a flop - not commercially but for her. So the photos were never published.”
That shoot marked the end of their collaboration, but there could have been another chapter. In 1998, Bush phoned Harari and asked if he would photograph her with guitarist Danny McIntosh and their newborn son, Bertie. “I said, ‘No. This is a private moment, keep it as it is.’”
Harari goes back to that Hounds of Love shoot, recalling Bush’s rapid transformations. First she appeared in an orange jacket with padded shoulders. “She looked like Joan Collins. And then she went off to the dressing room and came out wearing this fabulous purple scarf, like a woman from 1900. And then she disappeared again and I wondered where she was, so I went to the dressing room. And there she was sitting in a chair in this thick white Kabuki make up. She looked great, even with the powder still on her shoulders, but there was one detail missing – so I took her lipstick and smeared it across her lips”.
You can get Harari’s The Kate Inside. Three hundred photographs from the master photographer in a gorgeous and huge book. It is a must-own if you want something rare and timeless. I have been tempted to buy it, but the Deluxe version is quite expensive and I may need to have a think about it! I am going to wrap things up with my thoughts on Harari’s work. Classic Pop’s interview with him was very interesting. He explained how he met Kate Bush back in 1982. Bush was performing The Dreaming for a T.V. performance in Italy. Dressed in an astronaut costume with her two dancers, she agreed to be photographed in her hotel room. That was the start of a fruitful and extraordinary collaboration between two exceptional visionaries. Harari became more involved photographing her during the Hounds of Love period in 1985. Bush’s brother John Carder Bush has photographed her throughout her career, and he shot her a lot in 1985 (including the cover for Hounds of Love). Gered Mankowitz shot Bush for her first two albums so, wanting to do something different, Harari had a challenge on his hands. Her videos were evolving, so it was a case of how to fit in with that. “Here as the challenge” he explained: “to capture the “real” Kate Bush with no mask and no persona. Tricky!”. Harari recalls how he was a huge fan of Bush’s prior to working with her (though never starstruck). Remembering her as the warmest and kindest person, and her life and social activities tended to revolve around her work. She was incredibly focused on her career and being disciplined to ensure that she gave it her everything!
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1982 after a performance of The Dreaming in Italy/PHOTO CREDIT: Guido Harari
Harari notes how the sessions were hassle-free and playful. “I had never felt so much trust, so much openness and telepathy with an artist before…”. That is great to hear! With no huge team around her, it was just Harari and Bush, her make-up artist, and his assistant. That would have made both of them feel comfortable and uninhibited. The sessions for Hounds of Love and The Sensual World, he said, lasted between twelve and fifteen hours. Sessions would run to 1: 30 a.m. One of the nicest moments of the interview is Harari remembering how, when the two were looking at endless Polaroids, Bush would whisper: “Guido, aren’t you feeling a bit tired?”. That was her sweet way of saying maybe it is time to clock off for the day! Modestly unsure as to why he was so successful in capturing so many great images, I feel the trust and friendship they shared meant Bush was truly at ease and invested in the sessions. Harari states how Bush has this timeless look and face. Almost a Hollywood screen icon’s beauty and aura that shows in every photo! He compared her to Marilyn Monroe, in the sense Bush is glamorous and striking, yet she has this girl-next-door charm and relatability. The accessibility mixing with something rarefied and almost heavenly! Harari told how Bush always sent a sweet thank-you note after every sessions – typical of her, she would often send presents to her musicians during recording albums, such is her kindness -, and she would call him on the landline. Harari enjoyed the vibe and reportage on set of 1993’s The Line, the Cross and the Curve (the short film Bush made around the time of The Red Shoes). The photo at the very top is one that Bush was very excited about. A series of underwater-style shots, it was the result of multiple exposures. It looks fantastic!
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush during filming of The Line, the Cross and the Curve/PHOTO CREDIT: Guido Harari
Although Bush stepped back and concentrated on her private life soon after 1993, Harari has very fond memories. Although the two had very little contacts afterwards (Bush’s next albums was not until 2005), he called working with Bush “a dream come true”. To have access to Kate Bush during the 1980s at a time when she was creating such wonderful music. Harari said to Classic Pop how he would have liked to have experimented more and played with different ideas, but the shots that he took of Bush are fantastic! The final questions asked of Harari was how he would sum up Kate Bush as a cultural icon. He explained how she explored so many uncharted territories and paved the way for countless women in terms of lyrical content and musical adventurousness. “She was, and still is, one of the bravest”. That is something people do not discuss when they think of Kate Bush: how brave she was as an artist, songwriter, and producer! Her private life mattered very much. She did not fall off the radar for twelve years, but it was definitely a sense of this artist who had been working tirelessly since 1978 needing to take time for herself. Harari’s very fond memories of working with Kate Bush cast his photos in a new light. I love his compositions and colours. You get different expressions and takes with different photographers. Seeing images of Bush from her mid-twenties through to her early-thirties is breathtaking! This blossoming and evolution. So many captivating shots between this exceptional photographer and a subject who was so hard-working and warm. You can sense that connection between them. I do love seeing photos of Bush, as she has a way of drawing you in and capturing the heart! Rather than projecting fantasies, hiding Bush’s light away, he managed to capture (quite beautifully and prolifically)…
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1985/PHOTO CREDIT: Guido Harari
THE true woman and artist inside.