‘All I wore was my camera strap’: David Hurn’s best photograph
Early in my career, I realised that having a well-numbered archive with clear captions was something that would bring in an income for ever. I realised, too, that it was a good idea to go out and photograph unique subjects: the biggest, the smallest, things that were about to disappear. When you’re the only person who has photographed something that has been and gone, that gives you an enormous advantage when people want images of it in the future.
So whenever I heard of something that fitted that category, I’d trot off and photograph it. If someone wanted to publish the photographs at the time, great. But at the back of my mind was always the thought: “This is really for the future.” And that was the case when I attended the Isle of Wight festivals, all three, in 1968, 69 and 70. I knew I’d get some pictures – but of course it was also great fun.
There were some big acts on stage over those three years – Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Jimi Hendrix – but I knew the other 200 photographers would have them covered, all ending up with basically the same pictures. I was always much more interested in the spectators, the fans. There was certainly no shortage of people to photograph. The second festival was much better attended than the first, and there were rumours before the 1970 one that it was going to be the biggest concert the world had ever seen. I’ve since read that there were as many as 700,000 people there.
At big events, the first thing I always look for is the shot that shows how many people are there. I tend to shoot that picture first, because it usually means hiking up some bloody hill and if I don’t do it straightaway I’ll forget. Then I’ll do the journalistic thing and analyse what’s important – how do people live, where do they sleep, do they have their children with them – and photograph those. At the Isle of Wight, I ended up concentrating on a main group of a few hundred people.
Opportunities to wash were few and after a while we all started to smell. The heavy body odour hanging over everyone became increasingly difficult to ignore. Realising we weren’t that far
from the beach, a group of about 300 of us went down to the sea to get clean. To do that properly, of course, you have to take your clothes off, so that’s what everyone did. When I took this, the only thing I had on was my camera strap. It seemed perfectly natural, I’d have felt more embarrassed if I was the only person fully clothed. There are a few people wearing swimming costumes, and I sometimes wonder if they’ve seen this since and wished they’d been bolder.
Salt water is actually not much use for getting clean, but in the picture everyone had congregated at a point where a freshwater stream ran into the sea. I don’t think the peace signs are aimed at anything in particular – that’s just what people did then. It’s a fun picture, totally joyous. The whole thing lasted no more than 15 minutes, then we got dressed and went back to the festival. I don’t remember anyone else being on the beach when we arrived, but as we left we passed old ladies and police who seemed none the wiser.
Actually, the police were very relaxed throughout. I’ve heard reports of trouble at the 1970 event but I didn’t see any – and I usually have a pretty good nose for that sort of thing. I have a picture of a group of Hell’s Angels at one of the festivals: they looked a bit threatening but I’ve always found that if you go up and started talking to people, they are charming.
In a sense, I’ve been shooting the same picture since 1955. My aim is always to make as truthful a record as possible. I don’t pose people or alter anything and never retouch. Every morning I wake up and say: “Well, I’m still here. That’s a good start.” Then I look out of the window and think: “It’s a new world, it’s not the same world as yesterday.” That means I’ve got lots to photograph. And whoopee, off I go.
•This is one of over 100 images available in the Square Print Sale, at magnumphotos.com, 16-22 October, in which Magnum Photos partners with the World Press Photo Foundation
David Hurn’s CV
Born: Redhill, Surrey, 1934Trained: Self-taughtInfluences: Rodin, Bruegel, Seurat, later Sergio Larraín, Bruce DavidsonHigh point: “The Lucie award for achievement in documentary photography”Low point: “Missing pictures because of not having a camera with me”Top tip: “Wear good shoes”
We passed old ladies and police who seemed none the wiser
donna’s “conversations” with female artists have been so important to her. Especially in love. With no mother to talk to, she re-created Lina Wertmüller for husband/director Guy Ritchie. She quoted Anne Sexton in a love-letter to her bodyguard. And in the Sex book, posing with boyfriend Tony Ward, she said she was referencing her admiration for Cindy Sherman.
Madonna was always a talent spotter, an eye like Isabella Blow – with whom she shared a lover on the way up in Basquiat. Even her backing dancer had cultural cachet: Debi Mazar, who would make a mark in Goodfellas. When Madonna wanted to meet Antonio Banderas it was because she loved Almodóvar movies. Though her films as director have been ill received, she gave Andrea Riseborough and Oscar Isaac lead roles a decade before anyone else.
She championed the pre-fame David Fincher over four extraordinary videos. Look on YouTube for Bad Girl, starring her and Christopher Walken, which grafts Looking For Mr Goodbar to Wings of Desire and is one of the greatest films Fincher ever made. Study 1:58 to 2.31 of Express Yourself for a dance masterclass in Martha Graham, with whom Madonna trained and excelled.
Her masterpiece is the Like a Prayer
Album, which feels like all the female artists on her walls are watching her.
‘She told me she couldn’t get used to the Page 3 girl’
Miranda Sawyer, journalist, in her 50s
I interviewed Madonna in 2000 for The Face. She was heavily pregnant with Rocco and living in the UK. A lot of what we talked about was how odd she found living here. She couldn’t believe how expensive our houses were, how we all stopped working at 6pm and didn’t work weekends and went on holiday for a month in the summer. And our newspapers: “I can’t get used to the naked Page 3 girl,” she said. “You’re all a bunch of dirty wankers.” She sat on the floor, between the sofa and the coffee table, and ate crisps and olives.
We talked about her album Music. She was sharp, asking me: “Well, what do you think it’s about?” She noticed that my charm bracelet had a Star of David on it (I’m not Jewish), and we discussed religion; it was around her Kabbalah years. She talked about love: I remember her saying that she met a lot of high-up people, artists and writers and politicians, and she would think, “Interesting, interesting, interesting,” but no one stopped her in her tracks. She fell for Guy Ritchie because, “you know how people say, ‘He turned my head?’ My head spun around on my body.”
The oddest thing about the whole interview was how familiar she felt. Back then, pre-tweakments, I knew her face as well as my own: the hooded green eyes, the sharp chin, the gap in her teeth. I’d been looking at it for years, since she’d first appeared on Top of the Pops in 1984 singing Holiday. I’d cut out the poster of her with her tangly hair, her crop top, her bangles and rags from Smash Hits, and put it on my wall. And I’d watched as she’d moved from Like a Virgin to Like a Prayer and beyond, as she’d taken over the world. So to see her in real life was odd: a bit like seeing an old friend, a bit not. I’d been warned that she was “really, really difficult” and a “cold fish”, but she wasn’t like that at all. She was wry and a little impatient and careful about what she said because it would end up in the tabloids. She was much more beautiful than her pictures.
I’m of the generation of women for whom Madonna can do no wrong. I don’t care if she’s vulgar or embarrassing or pumps her face full of fillers or shows her bum in odd positions. Many of the people who criticise her are straight men, and despite her BOY TOY sexiness, she was never for them. Far too camp and knowing. She’s for clubbers, for women and gay people, who don’t care that she “can’t sing” or her music isn’t proper, or that she likes to dance and show off and surround herself with unserious people who are serious fun. I loved her before I met her.
And I love her still.
‘She emerges from another chrysalis as a different gadfly’
Vivien Goldman, music writer, in her 70s
I did bristle and frown when I first heard Madonna, in her Material Girl moment. No doubt this was her intention. Her sensuous exultation in the switch from our gritty yet bold 1970s survivalism to the glossy, goldplated “Me-terialism” of the awakening Reagan/Thatcher years seemed like an alert. A different sort of struggle was on, one in which our seething rebels of the punky underclass might no longer be the heroes, or even the anti-heroes. In the song’s video, Madonna exuberantly channelled tropes of 1950s sexuality – notably our sacrificial blonde, Marilyn Monroe, both brazen and demure as she huskily sang Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend. With Material Girl, Madonna was signalling, with a wink: “Who cares that Congress just rejected the Equal Rights Amendment! My oldschool feminine wiles will always win!”
It was instructive for me to contrast the palette of Madonna – parrot-bright satin reds and sexy hot pinks – with that of her contemporary, beloved punk artiste Patti Smith. Around that time, Smith often wore a dark, oversize man’s jacket that looked like it was lifted from a scarecrow. (This was before Smith bonded with Belgian designer Ann Demeulemeester, whose severe, angular designs could have come from an extremely stylish scarecrow.)
To her legions of fans, myself included (though I’m more the parrot satin type), the starkness of Smith’s look indicated a rugged asceticism. At last, it seemed to suggest, we could have an alternative anti-glamour free of the seemingly endless round of passive primping that is the fate of the sex symbol or trophy wife. They love it, but it is not for everywoman.
Madonna and Smith’s musical progressions chime in an interesting counterpoint, too. While Madonna restlessly seeks new sounds, new scenes, repeatedly wrapping herself in a fresh chrysalis and re-emerging as a different gadfly, Smith has consistently surrounded herself with the same stalwart sidemen since the start – guitarist Lenny Kaye and drummer Jay Dee Daugherty. The furthest she has strayed has been to perform with her late husband, Fred “Sonic” Smith, fellow New Jersey-ite Bruce Springsteen and, latterly, her children.
But the great thing about both Smith and Madonna is that they’re both still at it. The Poet and the Pin-Up have given us two distinct poles on which to dance.
• Madonna’s Celebration tour begins at the O2, London, on 14 October.