The big interview
The prolific photojournalist tells David Clark what inspires his work, how he chooses his subjects, and why the A1 is a great place to discuss Brexit
Photojournalist Peter shares with us the subjects that most interest him
How did your early life influence your work? As a teenager I was confused. I grew up in Weymouth, Dorset, which had a navy base and was a holiday destination. Every summer when the ships were in, the navy boys would be drinking and looking for love. Then you’d have the Bristoleans and the Brummies on holiday during factory shut-downs, drinking and looking for love. And the locals were always drinking heavily and looking for love. It was a monumentally messy, violent, gloriously saturated, primary-colour kind of place to spend my youth.
I loved it, but it wasn’t England as I saw it in the brochures or adverts. So I just wanted to put forward my understanding of what I saw, and tried to push my understanding of things I wasn’t familiar with.
How did you first get into photography?
My first passion in life was cricket, and I was a promising opening batsman for my school. But I could never quite get over the nerves of striding out to the crease with the real possibility of immediate failure. I found this anxiety so debilitating that I decided that
“I was fired from pretty much every responsible job I had, until only photography remained. The only other career option was a job at Top Man. I had a particular knack for selling burgundy trousers”
I couldn’t push forward. So when I was 14, I sold all my cricket gear then asked my dad for a camera for Christmas.
On Christmas morning I unwrapped a second-hand Pentax ME Super camera. After that I spent summers photographing coots and herons at a local nature reserve.
What made you choose photography as your career?
As I progressed through my teenage years, I was fired from pretty much every responsible job I had, until only photography remained. The only other career option was a job at Top Man. I had a particular knack for selling high-waisted burgundy trousers. They said I could have made assistant manager within 10 years, so I’ve always got a fall-back plan.
When did you decide you wanted to be a photojournalist?
After A-levels, I went to Bournemouth and Poole College of Art and Design to
study for a national diploma in photography. The ‘eureka moment’ came when I was looking through the photography books in the library and saw things like Paul Reas’s I Can Help and Greg Leach’s Twice Told Tales.
Those books alerted me to the idea that you could travel the world, make people laugh, make people think, and have a few drinks along the way. You didn’t have to get on an aeroplane to a foreign front line: you could pop down to the pub or the local shops and make pictures. So at the age of 19, that was it for me – it was photography or nothing.
You studied also photography at the University of Derby in the early 1990s – what was it like?
It was a very conceptual course in which photographers like Jo Spence and Cindy Sherman were held up for one to aspire to. I think I was one of the few students who didn’t photograph myself or my friends naked.
I guess these photographers taught me what I didn’t want to do, and drove me away from the university to explore and find things I wanted to photograph.
How did you make a living after graduating in 1995?
Immediately after graduating, I moved to London and took my student portfolio to Reuters. They lost it in the system. I quickly realised it wasn’t up to scratch, so I signed on the dole for two years and rebuilt my portfolio by applying for press passes or just going to events like Royal Ascot, the Epsom Derby and other jollies, and carried on knocking on doors.
“A lot of photojournalists say you have to know what you want to say, then go and take the pictures that say it. I have a looser approach. I look at a map and think, ‘Where haven’t I been? Where do I want to go?’ and try to find a story there”
What was your big break?
In 1998, The Sunday Times Magazine gave me a brilliant job – spending a weekend in England’s most sociable layby, the Old Willoughby Hedge layby on the A303 in Wiltshire. It was very English, very quirky, and it was a very successful reportage. Once
The Sunday Times had published a story I’d done, I immediately got calls from other magazines like GQ, Tatler and Marie Claire.
Was editorial work the main source of your income?
For 10 years, 1998-2008, 90% of my work was editorial. The phone would ring, I’d go off on some exotic foreign assignment, I’d come back, sling a bag of film over the counter at Metro, go and have a bottle of wine, pick up the contact sheets, have another bottle, and mark up my edits. Then the phone would ring again.
What kind of assignments did you do?
The Sunday Telegraph Magazine would send me to things like a dwarf convention in San Francisco or a Superman convention in Illinois. I was lucky to have that period when I managed to build up an archive of quirky stories. Then in 2008-9, the economic collapse hit and digital photography took off.
These days, newspapers wouldn’t send a British photographer halfway around the world to shoot something: there isn’t the budget. So now I do very little editorial work, and try to find other ways of funding the work I want to do.
In your personal work, how do you choose what to shoot?
A lot of photojournalists say you have to know what you want to say, then go and take the pictures that say it. I have a looser approach. I look at a map and think, “Where haven’t I been? Where do I want to go?” and try to find a story there. I’ve always got three or four projects of varying affordability on the go.
Despite having been able to travel to 64 countries, England is my home; it’s my passion, and the people here are the ones I want to understand the most.
You’ve recently been shooting along the A1 from London to Edinburgh. Why this subject?
My project A1: Britain on the Verge is the first chapter in my series on the great Brexit adventure. Britain is a divided country, and that’s been exacerbated by the decision to leave the EU. I wanted to know how people were feeling about the future and
chose to do it on the A1, which runs 410 miles from London to Edinburgh and is a route of certainty in a time of tumult. Also, Paul Graham’s book A1: The Great North Road was one of the books I first saw in the library at Bournemouth. I found it hugely inspiring, and I always knew that was a journey I’d like to do. 35 years on, I think enough has changed for a revisit to be justified.
How did you photograph the A1?
I spent six weeks intermittently working on it. I was driven up the road, so could keep an eye on what was out of the window. We’d stop off at pretty much every service station and adult store on the road; if a place had potential, I’d just sit tight. I’d cherry-pick people who looked interesting and chat to them.
95% of the time, people had something they wanted to say and appreciated someone who wanted to listen. If no-one interesting came along, we jumped back in the car and moved on.
Which of your projects has been the most satisfying in your career?
Alcohol and England was a 10-year look at a piece of British history that I don’t think will be repeated, where the English were drinking longer, harder and more cheaply than ever before. I have seen a shift away from that situation, which is why I closed off the reportage in 2008. I think it’s my most successful piece of photojournalism.
What do you aim to achieve in your work?
My ambition for any piece of work is to take the viewer on a journey. If I can
make them think, make them laugh, make them cry, and at the very best effect change, for me that’s the goal.
Humour is a powerful tool, but I realised early on that you can’t just make funny pictures. If I disarm the viewer with laughter and then I drop in a picture of a fatal drink-driving accident, I think the impact is tenfold. But humour is difficult to get right. It can’t be sneering, and it has to add something to the message.
“If I disarm the viewer with laughter and then I drop in a picture of a fatal drinkdriving accident, I think the impact is tenfold”