“...in a sense I’m directing ‘A list’ actors as I would for a movie. It just happens to be for a single image, but I’m attempting to capture a whole story in a frame.”
From Cowgate, Edinburgh to Soho, London, photographer Rich Hardcastle has spent a storied career embedded with a who’s-who of the UK entertainment scene; working with prolific actors and figures such as Ricky Gervais and Tom Hardy. Cementing his place within the arts world with an identifiable style that utilises minimalist equipment to create striking and dramatic portraits, Rich talks to us about life as a freelance photographer, expanding his work into galleries and working behind the scene as the BAFTAs. Hi Rich, thanks for taking the time to speak with us. To kick things off, it takes a matter of seconds to notice that your portfolio boasts a who’s-who of prolific UK actors and entertainers, from Ant and Dec to Idris Elba. How was it you got into that specific area of portrait photography? I always wanted to shoot ‘celebrities’. But in the old sense of the word, meaning people who where ‘celebrated’ for what talent they had. Not the modern appropriation of the term where anyone who’s ever been on the TV seems to be termed a ‘celebrity’. I wanted to be one of those photographers like Terry O’Neill, producing iconic shots of hugely famous actors and musicians in a more reportage style. Studio work and really posed set ups just never interested me. To be honest I always felt that other people could do that better. My game plan was to end up directing films eventually. I intended to apply the career model of a few photographers from back in the day whose work I followed. That was to shoot bands, direct their videos and work up to films.
I was doing my degree in photography at Edinburgh College of Art at the start of the 90’s, and every summer the city held the Edinburgh Festival. I love comedy and used to drink in a bar called Bannermans which was down in the Cowgate area where a lot of the comedy venues where. At the time the images of comedians around were pretty naff. They were always being asked to pull wacky faces or jump out from behind a pot plant. I took it upon myself to start producing ‘cool’ shots of comics. Shoot them in the same way I’d shoot a rock star. After all, the press at the time kept banging on about ‘comedy being the new rock and roll’. I approached a comic called Stephen Frost and asked if I could shoot him. He was so pleased with the result that he introduced me to the rest the folk he was out with the next night and told them who I was and that they should let me shoot them. They just happened to be Jo Brand, Eddie Izzard, Sean Hughes, Mark Lamaar, Bill Bailey and Sean Lock. This was 24 years ago. And so began summers spent shooting in the backstage corridors of ‘Late and Live’, which developed into shooting
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