Rankin is a portrait and fashion photographer behind the inception of magazines Dazed and Confused, Another and Hunger. Throughout his career, he’s pointed his lens at a dream list of celebrities, including Madonna, Kate Moss and David Bowie. He even got the Queen to crack a smile. As part of the Museums at Night project, he came to St Ann’s Allotments to shoot the people who call it a home away from home. We popped down to the event and caught a few words of wisdom from the mononymous man...
In the lead-up to the 2014 Museums at Night project, ten artists were asked to take part in a series of events across the country. Each artist was allocated four cities with four unique projects and it was down to the public to vote which of these they took part in. Through the STAA #Rankin4Notts campaign, Rankin won the Nottingham vote by a landslide and on a sunny Friday in May, he made his way to the East Midlands to immortalise the allotment holders in his own unique style.
Nottingham may have gone all out to ensure that Rankin came here, but he remembers a time when we weren’t so keen to have him here, “I got voted here with over a 40% vote. 2,000 people. I didn’t know 2,000 people liked me. I was very excited about the opportunity to come, I’ve always had a little bit of love for Nottingham - I tried to get into Trent Poly but was rejected.” Amazingly, portrait photography wasn’t how he first saw his career going, “I wanted to go to Trent because I wanted to be a documentary photographer, I thought I was gonna be Don McCullin, or someone like that. I realised within the first year at Luton [University] that I was a portrait photographer. My dad just told me, ‘do what you’re good at, don’t go down the road of doing something you’re not good at.’ So that was it, it was almost like a punch in the face because I really wanted to be a documentary photographer and I was crap at it.”
Although his career has been built on high end fashion and celebrity culture, his love of portrait photography has seen him release over thirty books and create projects such as Rankin Live, where he shot over 2,000 ‘real people’. The Museums at Night shoot seems like a natural extension of that, even if calling non-celebrities ‘real’ doesn’t sit very well with him, “‘Real people,’ it’s such a rubbish expression, isn’t it? My passion is to photograph other human beings and whether they’re famous or not famous doesn’t matter to me. It never has. It’s always been about getting the chance to meet people, learn about them and hopefully give them a depiction that they’re happy with and I’m happy with, but that also questions things or explores ideas. That’s what I’ve done today - it’s been brilliant.”
When asked how he gets the most out of his subjects, especially when they’re not used to being photographed, he replied “From doing Rankin Live, I’ve really kind of learned to trust my instincts and what I feel about people. The other thing is to make people feel comfortable, even if I have to make a fool of myself, I’ll do anything to make them feel like they’re not under the prime eye of a camera. So, that’s my process. Everyone is different, no one person is the same as the other, they’re similar but not the same.”
The day’s events were a mammoth task, but Rankin isn’t one to hang around when he’s taking photos. “When you do a project like today you’ve just got to think and act quickly - luckily I’ve practiced a lot in my time, so I can just about do it.” He continued, “I always believe you can take a photograph of someone in about ten minutes and get a good shot. Maybe an hour. David Bailey always says you need an hour: half an hour to chat to them and half an hour to take their photo. He’s the master, so that’s probably a good amount of time.”
People’s reluctance to be photographed often comes with the fear that they’re not going to look good, when asked if this posed a problem for getting what he wanted from the shoot, “I think everyone always wants to look good, I try not to get sucked into the aesthetic of what people want, you have to charm them a little bit into thinking what they’re getting is what they want.” This doesn’t mean that he doesn’t get won over every now and again, though, “You do find a few people who you do want to please because they so obviously need to feel beautiful. You know when someone is feeling unattractive, and then you take a picture and they’re like ‘Oh, wow, I didn’t see myself like that.’ I’m feeding into the myths and beauty myths to make money, so it’s nice to flip it and do stuff that’s just about people.”
Obviously a people person, his attitude and ethics - whether it’s commercial or personal - comes across as simple yet quite beautiful, “I’m a very loving photographer in the sense that I’m very optimistic. I see the best in people immediately. That might seem naive to some people, but if you go into the situation thinking ‘I hate this, I hate the job, I hate the brand, I hate the product, I hate the person’ you’re gonna take a bad picture, in my opinion. If you go in loving the person and doing it for a positive reason, you’ll take a better picture. I’m not selling arms with my photographs, but maybe I’m selling fantasies. I’m honest about that. We go to the cinema and enjoy fantasy, and there’s nothing wrong with it in certain circumstances. I try to balance it out by doing other stuff as well, but I’m earning a living.”
Becoming good at something to a professional level is often about learning from your mistakes, and being able to take criticism. “You’ve always got to be your harshest critic because otherwise you’ll get knocked, I’ve made so many mistakes and a lot of those have been in public. I have a genuine need to feel like I’ve done a good job for myself, not even for the client. I’m pretty sure everyone in this room has that moment of depression where you go ‘Oh no what have I done?’ You’ve gotta slap yourself and get up.” His further advice, be you an Instagrammer or professional photographer, is that “It’s better to take an average photo of something you love than a really technically created photograph of something you’re not that interested in. That would be my sole point, don’t do it to impress. Impressing people is a lie.”
Being trained in analogue photography, does he ever hanker after the good old days of film? “I’ve just bought a new Pentax - well, an old Pentax, but new to me - because I want to shoot film again. I want to get the excitement I used to get when I shot film. I love digital, I think it’s amazing, but just realising the love of what you do is the most important aspect of it. It’s definitely on my agenda to get back into a dark room and get back to basics.” As for his other pursuits, “I’d love to make a good feature film. I’ve made one that’s not so good, so to do one that people actually enjoy would be nice...”
Rankin was at St Ann’s Allotments on Friday 14 May as part of Museums At Night.
Rankin website
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