When Harry Met
Harry Borden looks back on his shoot with the former maverick politician and television presenter
When I was a student, Kilroy, presented by Robert KilroySilk, was a popular daily chat show that I used to watch. So in summer 2019, when I was commissioned by the New Statesman to photograph him at his house, I was intrigued to meet this interesting cultural figure who had loomed large in my earlier life.
Kilroy-Silk became a Labour MP in 1974, but gave it up in 1986 to become a BBC TV presenter. His show continued through to 2004, when it was cancelled due to alleged racist comments he made in a national newspaper. Afterwards, he became a Member of the European Parliament, was briefly a leading figure in the UK Independence Party and founded his own short-lived political party, Veritas, before retiring from public life in 2009.
He lives in an extraordinary location, on a headland in south Devon, and I drove down a winding track before arriving at a very grand, gleaming white house in beautiful gardens. It was a preternaturally sunny day and entering the house was a surreal experience. Inside, the high-ceilinged rooms were also painted white and decorated with brightly coloured paintings (which I later found had been done by his wife, Jan).
His first words on my arrival – ‘How long’s this going to take?’ – were not promising. He said it in a jokey but abrupt way – not what you ideally want to hear after a long car journey. I had a feeling it could be a tricky shoot. However, I started telling him about how I used to watch Kilroy and he could see I knew quite a lot about him.
Most of the well-known people I photograph are not accustomed to giving photographers much time. I usually handle this situation either by letting them see that playing ball is going to be in their interest, because it will result in some really nice images, or, as with Kilroy-Silk, by showing I respect them and their achievements, and that I take what I do seriously.
As we chatted over a cup of tea with Jan, who was acting as an unofficial PR, he told me about how he had reconfigured his relationship with the television industry by launching his own production company in the 1980s, making investigative documentaries as well as his own show. Although I don’t share his political views, I found him very interesting and smart, someone with a level of confidence and brio that most people don’t have.
At that point, I started taking some pictures. Although he was still slightly guarded at first, he became quite relaxed and was willing to pose in various locations in and around his house and gardens.
Even at the age of 77, he was striking-looking and clearly aware that he’s a conventionally handsome man. His face had various cracks and crevices that were very photogenic. This shoot was one of the few times when using hard, directional, mid-afternoon sunlight didn’t really matter at all. He still
had a really strong look.
I was shooting with my Fuji GFX 50R, the 51MP mediumformat mirrorless camera I had recently started using as my main body. I enjoy shooting with it for that extra level of quality you get from the larger file. In this situation, it was great to be able to shoot in contrasty light and not lose detail in shadows and highlights, which I probably would have done if using a full-frame DSLR.
The shoot lasted quite a long time and although Kilroy and his wife were really kind, after about 90 minutes I could tell he was starting to get bored with me. I was also starting to flag and at that point I instinctively knew it was time to call it a day.
Looking back at the images now, I quite like the side profile of him in the garden, standing in front of a white door. I like breaking the ‘rules’ of portraiture in shots like this – there are shadows under his eyes and there are no highlights in them, it’s just an exercise in shooting him as an object.
However, if I had to pick one shot as a favourite, it would be the image of him sitting on a chair with one of his wife’s paintings on the wall above. It was taken early in the shoot, when there was still an element of confrontation in his expression and pose – a remnant of his initial brusqueness. I had hassled him into taking it and I think that gives the shot an energy that’s maybe more representative of his character than others where he’s more relaxed.