Celebrity Portrait Photographer- Andy Gotts MBE

Nick is back with Steve for this show, which features a guest interview with Andy Gotts, MBE. 

Andy is a renowned celebrity photographer based in London, England, and New York, USA. He is most noted for his black and white portraits of Hollywood actors and singers. His work has been published internationally and has appeared in many magazines, including: VOGUE, GQ, Vanity Fair, Empire, Total Film, Entertainment Weekly, FHM, Hello!, and Glamour, and many more. 

Andy tells Nick and Steve many fascinating stories of being behind the lens, photographing many of the most famous faces in the world. He also recounts how plucking up the courage as a student to ask Stephen Fry if he could take his photograph has let to over 30 years of celebrity photography. 

Steve and Nick also look back on The Photography Show, held for the first time in London, and Nick tells Steve why he bought a Fujifilm XT5 and two lenses at the show. Steve lusts after the new Fujifilm GFX100RF! The book of the week is from Nashville based photographer and friend of the show Jay Farrell, a self published look at Route 66 Roadscapes. 

Andy Gotts Website https://www.andygotts.com/

Andy Gotts Instagram https://www.instagram.com/drgotts/

Jay Farrell Photographer and Author https://www.jayfarrellauthor.com/

Nick Church and Steve Vaughan are professional wedding photographers based in the UK. They both use Sony Alpha cameras and lenses.

Nick's website : https://www.nickchurchphotography.co.uk/
Nick's Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/nickchurchphotography/

Steve's website : https://www.samandstevephotography.com/
Steve's Wedding Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/samandstevephotography/
Steve's personal Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stevevaughanphotography

Any technical information given by the presenters is based on their understanding and opinion at the time of recording

Transcript

Steve Vaughan (00:00.942)
Hello again. Welcome to the photography pod. And as my lovely wife, Samantha just said on that jingle, this is a photography podcast for both working for professionals and the enthusiasts photographers alike. My name is Steve Vaughan. I'm a wedding photographer and business coach in Bicester in North Oxfordshire. And last week before last show, if you're with me, I was flying solo, but I'm pleased to say today, my good mate, great wedding photographer from Bristol, photography educator, all around great guy is here. Nick Church. How the devil are you, sir?

Nick Church (00:30.082)
Very well, yeah, thanks for the intro. And you've made it sound like this is going to be an absolutely flawless episode now that I'm here. I was really disappointed that last week's went so well because it just ran really smoothly. think, am I adding anything here?

Steve Vaughan (00:36.942)
Well no pressure mate, no pressure.

Now you do. And by the way, thank you to Martin. He did a fantastic job, Martin Hajdukiewicz So if you haven't called that one, that's a great chat about landscape and woodland photography. So the reason you weren't there, of course, Nick, is that you were at the photography show in London, which I didn't get to go to, unfortunately, at the end. So what was it like? How'd it go?

Nick Church (00:49.26)
Yes, absolutely.

Andy Gotts (00:56.624)
you

Andy Gotts (01:00.954)
you

Nick Church (01:05.366)
It was good. I thought it was really good. really, really liked being, you know, I had my, made sure had my sandwiches and passport went into the big city and everything. It was fine. And it, I really liked the variety of it being in London, actually. think it worked really well. It was a, it had this sort of slightly different feel to it. possibly not quite as busy maybe, but, you know, I think talking to lots of people that were there, it was, it was really positive feedback from all people having stands and things like that. what,

Steve Vaughan (01:07.501)
Yeah.

Andy Gotts (01:07.566)
you

Steve Vaughan (01:17.198)
OK.

Andy Gotts (01:28.412)
you

Steve Vaughan (01:30.284)
All right.

Nick Church (01:32.404)
I picked up on it. No, you didn't. Yeah, you didn't go, go this year, but it seems like chatting to other people. seemed like there was like last year, you remember last year, everything was AI, right? It was, there was a bit of a panic. It almost a panic, panic fest of every talk was worried about the, the issues around AI and the problems that might cause to the photography industry. And that there was nothing like that at all. It was almost just not mentioned.

Steve Vaughan (01:35.822)
couldn't go in the end now.

Steve Vaughan (01:43.244)
Yeah.

Nick Church (01:59.576)
And that may be in a, in an uncharacteristically positive mindset. I was thinking, it seems like we've now embraced the positive sides of AI in, because in all the platforms that we're using every day, you know, Photoshop and Lightroom and everything else. And I was doing a, a talk about, um, it's about the myths of being a professional photographer. And it was sort of saying about things like, oh, probably gonna have loads more time to do photography, which we know is an absolute myth that you never get more time.

Steve Vaughan (01:59.63)
That's interesting.

Steve Vaughan (02:26.603)
yeah, right.

Nick Church (02:29.176)
Um, and it led on the, the talk kind of led on to the, the area of we don't have more time. So it just means you need to carve out more of that time. that's where I came onto sort of editing and AI and, and I'd started to use, um, Evoto AI for portrait retouching. And I've just found that I'm I'm sure loads of people that have studios, people listening to have studios or if they're photographer, they're well aware of this platform, but I'm not really.

Steve Vaughan (02:40.206)
Absolutely.

Steve Vaughan (02:47.054)
That's interesting.

Nick Church (02:58.716)
see many wedding photographers using it. And it's just phenomenal. I actually included it in the, in the, the talk that I did at the photography show, the, quality of the resulting edits and the fact that it's so easy to use with all the, you know, all the, the slides and things was, was just, you know, it looks like it was the sort of thing that would have taken me two or three or four hours in Photoshop. And it took like 30 seconds to do this sample portrait. I was really impressed with it. Have you used it?

Andy Gotts (03:19.994)
you

Steve Vaughan (03:24.366)
So yeah, so I have used it and I'm going to come back to that in a second, but perhaps we should just say a little bit more about what it is for people who are not familiar with it. So it's a standalone application, but it also can be used in conjunction with Lightroom as well from what I've used as well. And it's an AI based retouching platform where you can just let it do its own thing or you can be sort of interventional and change some of the settings as well.

Andy Gotts (03:31.003)
you

Andy Gotts (03:50.907)
you

Steve Vaughan (03:51.598)
I photographed just a half day wedding just the other Friday and I'm sure they wouldn't mind me saying it was probably the oldest couple I've ever photographed. So their grandchildren were sort of growing up at the wedding and you know, think they both lost previous partners and it was just a lovely, lovely three hour wedding really. When it came to editing the photos, obviously the bride, you know, did have some face wrinkles and things and the temptation would have been to

Andy Gotts (04:05.243)
you

Nick Church (04:11.094)
Nice.

Steve Vaughan (04:21.09)
completely go over the top and make it look unrealistic. And I put it through Evo 2 really and just changed some of the slides and it was really good. It just took a slight edge off it, because obviously with digital images they can look a little bit super sharp and digital. It just took a little bit off, but without it making it unrealistic. I was really impressed with the output really, have to say. Really impressed.

Nick Church (04:43.32)
Yeah, I think being able to, um, just go and just tweak, tweak everything. Like, I mean, it's, you can change makeup, you can change the amount of eyeshadow. know, there's, there's, it's endless what you do, but so I was really impressed with that. And I think that's a really positive thing that we're starting to see just AI technology being used in platforms like photo and others that, that, kind of actually stopping that kind of negativity about, about AI, you know,

Andy Gotts (04:48.282)
you

Steve Vaughan (04:52.867)
Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (05:02.412)
Yeah, I agree.

Steve Vaughan (05:07.424)
It's the same with all the automation in these expensive cameras that we pay thousands of pounds for. If it helps do the job quicker and more accurately, more reliable, I'm all for it. It's not cheating. It's just making the job slightly more manageable and palatable. So yeah, interesting. I'll be interested to see if anybody out there has got a view on that as well. But no, I'm very impressed with the program, I have to say.

Andy Gotts (05:10.873)
So.

Nick Church (05:16.288)
Absolutely.

Andy Gotts (05:16.986)
you

Nick Church (05:21.528)
Hmm.

Nick Church (05:26.712)
But what I quite like about it is I know a lot of our listeners are against subscription models and things like that. And what I liked about it is basically it's free to use. So just use it and you only pay a credit to, um, to sort of download the resulting image, which is, quite like that, that sort of model. But the other place I went to it, if it's a free show was I was hovering around the Fuji film stand. I couldn't, well, not that day, about three days later. And I'll tell you why. Cause I've said to you before that I've actually avoided going to.

Steve Vaughan (05:32.259)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (05:41.294)
you

Steve Vaughan (05:45.898)
What did you buy?

Nick Church (05:55.938)
photography show one year. So I didn't buy a Fuji film camera. But eventually it bit me and I ended up getting a setup. It was because if you remember, went to Vietnam a few weeks ago now. And I didn't, it was, we're in Hanoi for a few days and it was just really busy. the scenes, the people, the smell, it was just a beautiful place. It's just fascinating. But the weather was a bit crappy. It was smoggy, it's pretty polluted, foggy, slightly drizzly.

Steve Vaughan (06:06.093)
Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (06:17.036)
Yeah, I bet. Yeah, I'd to go.

Nick Church (06:24.96)
And so I just didn't see motivated at all to get my, I don't, I don't, my Sony a seven four and a 24 mil, one point one point four on that. Just didn't bother getting out at all. And I thought, well, there's no, there's no light here. There's nothing really that's gonna, you know, this, this making me feel passionate enough to get the camera out. And then that just the day that we left there, but to go to somewhere else in Vietnam, Facebook stitched me up because it sent me a post from somebody that just had, I've been to Hanover. I've got these photos. It's like,

Andy Gotts (06:30.97)
you

Steve Vaughan (06:51.214)
Hahaha!

Nick Church (06:52.174)
damn it. They were beautiful. They were, I thought it was exactly the same time I was there. And I just thought I need to really reevaluate how I'm looking at the scenes and they just, it's some beautiful photos. might, I might see if I can find that post again and share it on the group because it's really good. but it's occurred to me that I think I've almost got this work like connection with my son and I love Sony as a brand. It's such a great system for me for work. And I think because it's, use it for work.

Steve Vaughan (07:17.248)
Same here, completely.

Nick Church (07:19.368)
It just doesn't encourage me to get out when there's sort personal projects.

Steve Vaughan (07:22.926)
guess it'd be like a woodworker going home and doing some lathing for fun really, you know. Or a metalworker drilling some holes in a piece of metal. Believe me if you are a woodworker out there, but you know what mean.

Nick Church (07:26.06)
Yeah, I suppose it's like why.

Yeah. So, so I got myself an XT five, and a couple of lenses and I just love it. I really, really like it. And so it's a bit smaller than a full frame obviously, obviously it's a crop crop sensor. but the, the performance and the autofocus, which I was kind of expecting to be noticeably worse than I'm used to with Sony. Wasn't quite there, but it's plenty good enough. You know, I'm pretty sure I could use it as a, professional setup, but just being that bit smaller.

Steve Vaughan (07:42.254)
You too, CN.

Steve Vaughan (07:54.53)
Hmm. Hmm.

Nick Church (07:59.638)
means I just sling it in a sort of man bag sort of, you know, messenger type bag and just take it where I've been going. So that's my new mission is just to, I've been out today for walks. I just took it with me. Didn't see anything, but then that's not the point is, is when you do see things that are really interesting. Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (08:08.15)
Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (08:11.79)
and it gets you out, gets you out and gets some fresh air. And I think also with the Fujifilm film simulations, you can often get away with just very nice JPEGs straight out of the camera. So you're not going to come back and start editing raw files and think, I've got five weddings I've still got to edit. Why am I editing pictures of buskers on the street in London? What I should be doing that read? But if you can get some nice images straight out of the camera, then I think there's a lot to be said.

Nick Church (08:32.28)
quite. No indeed, yeah.

Steve Vaughan (08:35.693)
I do want to come back to Fujifilm after we've introduced our guest who's waiting patiently here for us because they've launched a very interesting new camera, which is certainly, I think it's, well, it certainly made some noise, both positively and less so, shall we say, but I really wouldn't like to explore that a bit later on. I think it's time we, no, I think we'll do that after our guest interview. think it's time we should let our guest get talking and meet us also. Please, I'll hand it over to you to do that, Over to you.

Andy Gotts (08:46.744)
you

Nick Church (08:51.32)
Should we talk about that now? you want to do that? Should we do that sort of the back end of the show? All right.

Andy Gotts (08:57.533)
Thank

Nick Church (08:59.788)
Well, we've, we've, we've been talking about what we talk about AI and you know, from a voter and using that in portraits. And we've got no better guest to maybe give his input. that's what we're absolutely delighted to be joined with Andy Gotts. Andy is a phenomenal and extremely well known photographer all over the world. So Andy's based in both in England and also in New York. So

give his full title, which he won't give because he'd be too embarrassed to do is Andy Gotts, MBE, MA and former president of the British Institute of Professional Photographers. So, and winner of the Fox Talbot award. So, that's even better than you Steve, isn't it?

Steve Vaughan (09:34.861)
Wow.

Steve Vaughan (09:38.99)
It's way better than me. I'm not even appearing on the bottom threshold of the rung. it that way.

Andy Gotts (09:42.507)
in

Andy Gotts (09:47.473)
Yeah

Nick Church (09:47.87)
So we're going to go through some of Andy's work shortly once we've heard from him. You'll have seen his work with, well, most well known for his work with celebrity portraits, most incredible portraits, really engaging and must have a way with working with these people that just creates a real sort of insight into them as people. think it's just, know, check out Andy Gotts website. It's just jaw dropping.

Steve Vaughan (10:03.308)
Absolutely.

Nick Church (10:17.272)
So we'll see to that in a minute. His work's been in Vogue, Vanity Fair, GQ, as well as National Portrait Gallery as well. So Andy, thank you for joining us. I won't embarrass you anymore. Although you didn't seem to embarrass by that, you seemed to quite like it.

Andy Gotts (10:30.423)
Thank you.

Steve Vaughan (10:33.154)
No, he seems quite lucky there.

Andy Gotts (10:35.061)
Yeah! I was thinking, you missed Doctor. That's what you missed.

Nick Church (10:40.856)
yes. Yeah, I do apologize. Embarrassing to miss one of them. yeah, yeah, What was your doctorate for Andy? What did you work on? Right, Dr. Wow. Okay. So do you mind going back, you know, we roll back the old time machine a bit to how did you, we're going to cover your current work.

Andy Gotts (10:43.542)
.

Yeah.

Andy Gotts (10:53.546)
Doctor of Arts. Yeah, Doctor of Arts, yeah.

Nick Church (11:07.168)
obviously, in plenty of depth. did you start? What's the start of your journey look like? How did you get into photography?

Andy Gotts (11:08.18)
Yeah.

Andy Gotts (11:12.951)
When I very first started, there was a brand new course called a BTEC in photography and no one knew what a BTEC was back then in 1989. No one had a clue. All we knew, it was two A levels. That's all we knew. so 15 people were chosen to be part of this course. And it was a two year course. Year one, you do all photography.

fashion, fine art, food, landscapes, and year two specialise in one discipline for a year. And it got to the end of the first year. It was all nice. But there's nothing I could really sink my teeth into for an entire year. And I was tempted to say to myself, I gave it a shot. And maybe it isn't what I hoped it would be.

And, you know, my entire 35-year career has been Twister fate. And my first Twister fate was local boy Stephen Fry came to my college to hand out some diplomas. And I knew the room had been, but there's a purpose-built auditorium in Kingslyn in the college. And I know in the arts block, it's empty.

Steve Vaughan (12:26.562)
Wow.

Andy Gotts (12:40.502)
And so Stephen at the time was a megastar. It was back there in 1990. There's only four TV channels. We didn't have Sky TV or cable. And at the time, Stephen was doing three prime time shows every week. was doing Blackadder and Jeeves and Worcester and Fry and Laurie. He's got like 28 million viewers per show. He's a megastar. And so I went to his Q &A after I'd set up.

Steve Vaughan (12:50.359)
Remember it well.

Andy Gotts (13:09.11)
and it was a mini studio in the Arts Block. I went to this Q &A and I put my hand up and it just bought at the back. It was Mr. Fry, could I please do a portrait of you next door? He rolled his eyes and said, well, will you be quick? And I said, promise. And I took 10 shots in 90 seconds and that changed my life. It was that eureka moment. It was that moment where...

Steve Vaughan (13:34.478)
Amazing.

Nick Church (13:35.576)
Amazing.

Andy Gotts (13:38.357)
All the bits fell into place. I had someone who was like this god of television doing what I told him to do. He was being silly for an audience of one. There's only me there. And getting him to do all this crazy stuff only for 90 seconds. And now looking back, I can't recall it at all. It's just all a blur. I remember asking him. I remember him leaving the room.

But the bit in between, I can't remember. But the quirk of fate is he stayed on to speak to other students and do other bits. So I went straight down to the dark room, developed the film, found a shot I liked, then a 10 by 8, went back upstairs and before he left, I gave him a 10 by 8 before he left. And so he went home, he framed this with a clip frame.

Steve Vaughan (14:29.002)
Wow. Wow.

Nick Church (14:31.51)
That's commitment. I like it.

Andy Gotts (14:37.631)
popped it his mantelpiece. His best mate for Sunday lunch, Kenneth Branagh, saw the picture and said, that's a lovely shot, darling, who done that? He said, well, a local student. do you have his number? So Stephen gave him my digs phone number. And then the phone rang and it was, hi, it's Kenneth Branagh.

Steve Vaughan (14:44.152)
Gosh.

Nick Church (14:44.76)
Thanks.

Andy Gotts (15:05.533)
I'm in Highgate, do want to with me and my wife Emma Thompson? And literally, I'd passed my driving test the month before. So I drove from Norfolk to Highgate at 30 miles an hour. It took four hours to get there. And I knew his address, but there's nowhere to park. So I parked in the first drive.

Steve Vaughan (15:09.784)
Good grief.

Steve Vaughan (15:25.634)
You

Andy Gotts (15:35.7)
that had no cars in it, I was a nervous wreck. Parked my car, this very irate man came back, said, what are you doing? Who are you? What do want? And I said, I'm a student from Norfolk, I've come to photograph Kenneth Branagh, please can I park here? He started laughing. And as you can park here all day, on the condition you photograph me afterwards, it ended up to be Derek Jacobi. And...

Steve Vaughan (16:01.208)
Go grief!

Nick Church (16:01.549)
go check it

Andy Gotts (16:02.9)
And so he knew Cain, obviously, but they did movies together. So he came down to the house and literally that's how my career started.

Nick Church (16:07.256)
Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (16:12.398)
So it really was as serendipitous as that really, because one of our obvious questions that we were going to ask you was, how do you get started photographing celebrities? And it literally, I'm not going to want to play it, but it almost fell in your lap, almost.

Andy Gotts (16:25.475)
And literally all my career, all, I mean, even my first book, it all happened exactly like that because I did, I left college. mean, I'm pretty sure some of your viewers have been a student like me and have left college like me a bit unhappy. You know, spent two years or three years or.

Steve Vaughan (16:27.406)
incredible.

Steve Vaughan (16:47.043)
Mm.

Andy Gotts (16:54.384)
or one year doing a course, you end up with a portfolio you didn't really like, you didn't really have any. And that was me. I left Kingsden with my Stephen Fly shot and my Kenneth Branagh shot and a couple others. My portfolio that I did for my £4,000 qualification, nothing I could use at all. So I tried to think, what can I do? I mean,

Steve Vaughan (17:20.355)
Wow.

Andy Gotts (17:23.86)
How can I get somewhere? And so I wrote to so many photographers. just got quite a directory. I went through every photographer I knew. I phoned them up, the students up, and they said, can I come down and have a chat? And lovely old Andy Earl, who I think still is in Butlers Wharf, I don't think he's moved for 90 years, was at the time, he did

every famous album cover he'd shot from Bow Wow Wow to Queen to Prince to Madonna he'd done all of them so I went down and I said give me some advice and so he spent like 30 hours telling me what to do what not to do don't get an agent don't get a manager because they want 20 % of making a phone call you can make yourself I said well that's good advice

And I stuck to it. I've never had a manager. I thought, I could email, I can make phone calls. Why have a manager? And so he went through the do's and don'ts and he said, know, be bullish, knock on doors, ring whoever you can. So literally, I took that advice and I went around every magazine. So we're talking early 90s, the Face magazine.

Steve Vaughan (18:29.229)
Yeah, good point.

Andy Gotts (18:50.418)
IQ magazine, ID magazine, GQ, all the staple of the 90s, all his magazines, I went around all of them, loaded all his magazines to show my portfolio and try and get a commission and try and get something. And that was a baptism of fire because no one was interested. No one at all was interested. And this is something.

Steve Vaughan (19:12.183)
I'm sure it was.

Andy Gotts (19:20.527)
I've mentioned a lot to students, but the students say to me a lot, how can I be you? How can I do what you do? How can I be Andy Gotts? And I tell them this tiny anecdote. I went to Empire magazine and I had my portfolio and I laid on the table and the director of art looked at it, looked at me, looked at my work again.

I said, your work, just like David Bailey's. And I was so happy. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But, but she said, if I want David Bailey, I'd hire David Bailey. You know, I want to see Andy Klotz's work. And so again, that was a big wake up to me. I thought, I need to find my style. And what makes me different from Bailey or Claridge or Duffield?

Steve Vaughan (19:55.584)
Wow, that's a compliment, yeah.

Nick Church (19:56.12)
You

Steve Vaughan (20:03.362)
I booked David Bailick.

Steve Vaughan (20:08.942)
That's a great point.

Steve Vaughan (20:13.41)
Yeah.

Andy Gotts (20:19.378)
or cash or pen or Avedon. What makes Andy Gotts different from all his other... And that was the start of trying to find my style. And I think that was like 93, 94, that time.

Steve Vaughan (20:38.51)
And think what comes across, I mean, that was fascinating Andy, but what comes across whenever we have, you know, successful professional photographers like yourself on the podcast is how much hustle you have to do. You know, you have to go out there, you got to bang on doors. You've got to be a salesman. You know, I'm a sales trainer in my other life and you got to go out there, kick some doors down, put yourself out there. If you're just sitting away for the phone to ring, you're going to be unemployed very quickly. You're to be, you know, you're going to be working flipping burgers. So, know, so you've got to go out and

Andy Gotts (20:50.863)
yeah.

Nick Church (20:54.936)
Hmm.

Nick Church (21:03.66)
Yep.

Andy Gotts (21:04.177)
Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (21:07.898)
Put yourself out there, aren't you?

Andy Gotts (21:09.649)
take that business, I describe it as no matter what field you're in, it can be any field, and you're self-employed, you have to treat it like tele-sales. If you make 10 phone calls a day, you'll get 10 nos. If you make 100 a day, you might get a maybe or a possible. So you've got to have a really thick skin. If you're your own boss,

and you're in any artistic field, your hide had to be so thick. And I think the greatest philosopher ever nailed it. And that was Rocky Balboa. And in Rocky 3, he made the best ever statement. And he said, it's not how hard you can hit, it's how hard you can take a hit and get up.

Nick Church (22:04.824)
Hmm.

Steve Vaughan (22:04.91)
Absolutely.

Andy Gotts (22:05.134)
And that's absolutely, and that's true, but you can get battered and bruised. I mean, it took me five, six years to get anything about any substance in my portfolio, any relevance to my work, because I had thousands of no's. And I actually, about five years ago or so, I had an exhibition called Thank You But No. I saved every no letter from every actor.

Steve Vaughan (22:17.698)
Well.

Steve Vaughan (22:35.15)
Fantastic.

Andy Gotts (22:35.215)
who I wrote to, I had about 700, hundreds of letters, faxes, emails, postcards, and I saved them all. And I had a pin board with them all on as motivation to keep me going. But was, thought, if all these people are going to say no to me, one actor at one point will say yes, and I need these people to keep telling me I'm not great.

Steve Vaughan (22:50.638)
amazing.

Steve Vaughan (22:59.758)
And that's the thing, you just need one yes, don't you? That's the thing, you just need the one yes.

Andy Gotts (23:03.653)
Yeah, that's all we have.

Nick Church (23:04.428)
And I think when you get a no anyway, when you do get a no, that's better than nothing. And that's created some, it's logged somewhere, even if they say, well, we don't want it. When they do want it, at least they're much more likely to think that that's the person we're going to reach out to.

Steve Vaughan (23:10.51)
At least you know.

Steve Vaughan (23:19.17)
I'm getting into sales training mode now, but there are two types of no, there's no, not ever, don't ever, ever, but ring me up again. And there's another type of no, which is no, not now. And of course our response is, okay, so when, you know, and you can, and you can deal with both, can't you really, you know, at least you know that. So anyway, let me put my sales trainer hat back off again. Okay.

Andy Gotts (23:29.995)
Exactly.

Nick Church (23:35.32)
Let's take the sales trend hat off. I think the interesting bits, that was a really interesting background. And I think there's loads of actual takeaways that people can get from that story. Like we said, you could argue that it's just fortuitous timing to be there, but also loads of people would have sat with Stephen Fry doing his talk and think, if you want to ask him, no, I can't, I'm just too embarrassed. And then afterwards, wish they had.

Steve Vaughan (23:43.595)
Absolutely.

Nick Church (24:04.854)
And they'll wish forever that they had had done it and a small little, you know, a few seconds of slight awkwardness or feeling a anxious about it can really give results. And it's better to have that I've worked out as I've got older, that it's better to have that kind of slight fear of doing it, just do it. And then afterwards you would, even if it doesn't work out, you'll never wish you had done it and didn't. But the other thing is, just, it's just like you say, knocking down doors and knocking on doors and, asking that there's, so many people that I worked with in coaching.

Steve Vaughan (24:21.528)
Absolutely.

Nick Church (24:34.124)
that might be interested in, let's say, pet photography, just as a random example. That when we talk through what have they done to try and achieve their goals, we've just talked through, have you reached out to other pet photographers? Have you done that? No, no, I haven't done that. It's like, well, that's, that's something obvious that you can do that something that you can do. And you do it enough times where sure, it's only going to be 0.1%, it will come off. But if you do enough, then that starts to round up to one, not zero. And then that suddenly you're off. And that's a really good starting point.

Steve Vaughan (24:49.454)
Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (24:59.266)
Yeah, yeah, great point.

Andy Gotts (25:02.287)
Yeah, but I do say a lot to people when people talk about how much I've done and how vast my career has been. I do say quite flippantly, it is down to luck, but I'm also the first person to say I made my own luck. Because you have to make your own luck. You can't sit there waiting for it to fall on your lap. You can't sit and waiting one day someone's going to phone me. You have to be

Steve Vaughan (25:21.128)
Dead right.

Andy Gotts (25:31.49)
in the moment and make things happen. And again, I think of what Gary Player said. Because Gary Player, then a hole in one once. And someone from the sideline shouted out, Gary, you're so lucky. And he said, yeah, the harder I practice, the luckier I get. And it's absolutely true. mean, if you put in the hours, you will make your own luck. Yes, it is luck, but you will make it.

Steve Vaughan (25:51.81)
Yeah, absolutely.

Nick Church (25:52.65)
It's funny that.

Andy Gotts (26:01.057)
And that's a key to any profession.

Nick Church (26:04.332)
I'm just going to share some of your portraits. Yeah, go on.

Steve Vaughan (26:04.37)
Let's, yeah, just while you're doing that, let me just ask a question, because I think it sets up you doing that really. So let's go back to the show you had when the director of art said, I want to see the Andy Gotts style. So while Nick gets the photos ready, what is the Andy Gotts style? Describe, particularly for the audio listeners, what is your style? What is your way of working?

Andy Gotts (26:27.803)
I mean, I do wave a flag quite vigorously to say I am the only celebrity photographer who work at the the the alices that I work with. So I'm the only one who don't edit my pictures. There's no retouching, there's no Photoshop. So if someone if someone comes to the shoot with a pimple, with hair to place,

It's all in there. I don't edit anything out. And an example is I shot Scarlett Johansson and she came to the shoot with pimples on her forehead. And did say, Scarlett, just to say, if you want to wait a couple of weeks and we reconvene, but I won't take them out, you don't know. I want young people to see I have flaws. I'm not a vision. And what's lovely.

is so many people at that level are kind of on my side. But I'll give another brief example because I shot Brad Pitt a long while ago for the first time. He was doing the movie Troy. So we're talking a while ago. And he only had two, three days to do stuff that wasn't movie related. So he booked in two photo shoots. On the Tuesday,

Steve Vaughan (27:30.765)
Mm.

Andy Gotts (27:51.723)
It was Annie Leibovitz doing a Vantifaer cover. And the Wednesday, it was Andy doing his book degrees. So that was it. And because it was in Pinewood Studios, we had to use the same location. So it's called the Orangery, the same room, the same lighting, because we only use Pinewood lighting. So we had the same setup. with Annie, she had a cast of a thousand with her.

about 20 assistants and day two it was me and the camera. But I have no assistants. I have no one at all with me. It's just an empty room with me. So Brad came, knocked at the door, looked over my shoulder and said, I thought there's a photo shoot here today. Yeah, I said, there is. He said, well, I'm with Andy Gotts. Yeah, I'm Andy Gotts. He said, you answered the door yourself? I said, yes, I'm capable of answering a door.

Steve Vaughan (28:25.335)
Wow.

Steve Vaughan (28:30.338)
Wow.

Andy Gotts (28:50.733)
And he said, I can't get over yesterday. was saying, this is exactly wrong. But literally, I couldn't move with people. today, this is how it should be. I'll move on so well. And we had an amazing time. And then about a month later, we met up for a beer in Covent Garden. He bought Annie's picture, and I bought my picture. And we put them side by side on the table.

Steve Vaughan (28:50.765)
Ha ha ha.

Andy Gotts (29:21.517)
And Brad looked at them. And Andy, what's the difference? And I looked and I looked. I said, I don't know. said, well, Andy's got her go-to style and I've got my style. He said, cut through that. Look at me. What do you notice? I said, I don't know, Brad. He said, Andy's is amazing. But that's how I looked 10 years ago. But she smoothed all the wrinkle-wrap, her team. It's smooth.

everything away. he said, the key point, I'm happy with how I look now. that's why lots of these people love what I do, because I don't take away anything. I don't add anything. I capture the moment. do what good old Henri Cartier-Bresson said, you know, the decisive moment. I capture that moment in time.

Steve Vaughan (29:56.92)
Great point.

Andy Gotts (30:18.719)
I don't try to make something there that wasn't there.

Steve Vaughan (30:23.266)
That isn't real. No, absolutely.

Nick Church (30:25.592)
I think you can see that. I think that that definitely is something that these portraits that we're looking at now for YouTube people that is, so we've got Benedict's coming back on there, that you can see character in there and you can see almost a window into them and it must be quite disarming for them, but they seem very comfortable being themselves when they're in front of your camera. Do you think that having Les Kit for your assistance and that kind of thing is part of that process that you use to get these natural reactions from?

Andy Gotts (30:55.981)
Absolutely, because I was told years ago by Anthony Hopkins that actors hate being photographed. They hate it. And when they do a photo shoot, they have a character rather than being themselves. And I try to get away from that because if you think, let's say an actor like George Clooney, for example, who's been photographed, say, a thousand times.

and every single time he's photographed there is the photographer, there's assistants, there's hair and makeup, there's stylists, there's always a room of people glaring at him and he has to act up in a way to do it for the photoshoot. Now, I can honestly say none of these people have had a photoshoot with one person in the room and so that being the case, it takes them off guard. They're not used to it and because sometimes

I use a waste of a finder. I'm not even looking at them. They all seem to the top of my head. That's all I see. And that's how I get some of really quirky stuff because they think no one's looking at them at all. And also, else, as Anthony Hopkins said, he said, actors hate being photographed because we spent our entire career being told

Steve Vaughan (32:01.549)
Mm.

Nick Church (32:01.624)
You

Nick Church (32:10.412)
That's interesting.

Andy Gotts (32:25.023)
do not look at the camera. And you're saying to me now, look at the camera. So it's alien. And so if you just see the top of my head, and also my shoot is a conversation. So I'm constantly talking about anything and now again, doing a picture. So I'm not directing them, I'm not being hitch-hockey, I'm not telling them to do this or look there or be this. I'm having a conversation.

Steve Vaughan (32:27.564)
course.

Andy Gotts (32:54.803)
And during the conversation I'm doing the photopotography and what's lovely

Steve Vaughan (32:57.964)
I was going to ask that, Andy. Is that so? You know, you've got some very interesting expressions, you fantastic expressions of these. You're just talking to them, clicking away and they're just doing whatever they feel like doing. You're not telling them pull a funny face or whatever. They're just doing whatever they feel.

Andy Gotts (33:09.503)
no, I've never once said full of funny face ever to anyone, or smile or squeeze them together or look this way or do this. I've never done anything like that. I mean, again, mean, it was Mark Twain said about golf, it a nice walk into a ball. And I see photography from my perspective,

Steve Vaughan (33:13.806)
I'm sure you wouldn't.

Andy Gotts (33:37.842)
It's a lovely conversation interrupted by going click there again. And it is a conversation. so the way I construct my photo shoot is I spend at least 20 minutes talking beforehand with whoever I'm photographing to see what kind of mood they're in. And if they're in a happy mood or a playful mood or in a more thoughtful mood or... And this time to figure out...

If I get in with an idea, I a quirky, silly shot and the person isn't in a quirky, silly mood, it's silly me pursuing trying to get something silly out of them. so, if someone's more serious, I talk about something more serious. I I always do research in every single person I do that isn't related to anything they do. So for example, an actor, I never talk about movies they've done.

Nick Church (34:15.799)
Yeah.

Andy Gotts (34:34.955)
or movies they're to do. I talk about movies generally or directors I know they like or acting. I talk around the subject or I look at what hobbies they have or look at where they live in the world. I have a general conversation about stuff. sometimes, know, I mean, I'll give an example. I've got this lovely shot of Liza Minnelli laughing, hysterically laughing. And that's because she just had a stroke and she said to me,

Steve Vaughan (34:59.448)
Wow.

Andy Gotts (35:05.314)
part of my face has fallen now and I only look good if I'm laughing. Do you know any rude jokes? And so, and so I'd tell them these rude jokes to get at to laugh. so it's a little things like that are constructed, are constructed. But, but I I I, I mean, I just saw a shot you've scrolled past of the lovely actor, Andrew Scott. and, he's an amazing actor and he's a

Steve Vaughan (35:20.299)
Wonderful story.

Steve Vaughan (35:31.212)
Yes.

Andy Gotts (35:34.794)
funny, funny, funny guy. And we had a lovely shoot of him being laughing and jokey. And at the very end of the shot, we'd finished the shoot just talking generally, but I still had the camera in my hand. And I said to him, so Andrew, how good an actor are you? He says, well, what do you mean? And I said, well, are you the kind of actor who ends up crying on demand? Or do you need a tear stick or do you need something to

He said, no, no, no, no, I can cry. I don't, can you? Then he looked quite ashen. He said, you don't want me to, do you? I said, yeah. And so he said, get ready. I said, okay. And he looked at his feet and he said, three, two, one, and looked up. That moment, one's here. Well done. And I took one shot and that was the one shot, that was the only shot I did.

Steve Vaughan (36:26.702)
That's incredible.

Andy Gotts (36:32.35)
of this, because I'll tell you exactly why. When I saw him do this, I thought, he's gone somewhere so dark in his head that's made him do this. And I don't want him to be there. And so I done that one shot, then I stepped out of it, and I've had some silly comment or some silly joke, but this shot, I'm so proud of it. But he looks heartbroken. He looks really heartbroken.

Steve Vaughan (36:35.95)
Incredible.

Steve Vaughan (36:56.974)
It's unbelievable. Yeah.

Nick Church (37:00.118)
Hmm. Incredible photo, incredible portrait. But I think, I think you're, what, what you must have as well as all the photography skills is a very skilled way of taking someone on a journey through, you know, working out what their character is, working out what the character is on that particular day and using all of those to be able to elicit these sort of reactions and, and just go with the flow. mean, so, so you don't have so much of a plan.

Steve Vaughan (37:03.042)
It is.

Nick Church (37:27.288)
beforehand of exactly what you're going to end up with. it just a bit more on the cuff? Let's see what happens on the day what mood they're in.

Andy Gotts (37:34.249)
Well, so I always go to a shoot with an idea. I need a starting point, I need an idea. But honestly, I've shot over 7,300 actors in my 35-year career. And every single occasion, I've shot something better than my idea. But something better always happens than my idea. And I'd say maybe my shot of Clint Eastwood...

That was kind of a shot I'd dreamt about for nine years. And whenever I closed my eyes, I could see the shot. So literally, the first shot I took was the shot I used because it was embedded in my head so severely. And then we spent the next half an hour, hour, just doing variations of that really, but better being a...

I do have an idea because it'd be a bit silly to turn up with no idea at all. And I don't want to go there with like a mood board with like 20 different ideas and just tick them off because there's spontaneity. So I have a starting point and then just see how much champagne I can plow down them.

Steve Vaughan (38:37.76)
No.

Andy Gotts (39:01.014)
and and and and see how much fun we can have and i think that's it

Steve Vaughan (39:01.483)
Ha

Nick Church (39:05.176)
How much comes from them Andy? If they want a particular sort of style, do they have input into this process as well? is it, are they kind of just interacting with you and you're then working out when the best time to get this photo is? Do they come prepared with a similar, you've got a plan beforehand today as well?

Andy Gotts (39:24.36)
Oh, yeah. Every actor have their go-to face. And that's what I need to get that out of their head because everyone, you don't have to be famous, but everyone, even if you do a selfie, you all have your favorite face. You all have your, you all have, but this is my best side. mean, we all have, we all think we know what our best angles are. So every actor, every musician, every model, always come

Steve Vaughan (39:40.418)
Yep.

Nick Church (39:40.428)
Bit of blue steel.

Andy Gotts (39:54.332)
wanting to pull their face. And so that's what I need to get rid of. So to answer your question, it has to be 50%. It has to be, if a photo shoot is all my idea and all my input, every photograph in my portfolio will look identical. If they come to my photo shoot and they just pull their usual faces,

Bailey could have done the shot, Rankin could have done the shot, wouldn't have been Andy Gottschott. So the way it works is I have to do 50%, they bring 50%, then we do sort of dance in the middle, and that little bit of magic that might only last two or three minutes, where that spark happens, where they don't care, I don't care, I'm just capturing what they're giving to me before either I get bored,

Nick Church (40:40.536)
Mm-hmm.

Andy Gotts (40:52.648)
or they go back to their normal faces. There's two, three minutes where I'm getting the magic. I'm getting something that no one's got before and no one will get again.

Nick Church (40:55.136)
Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (41:03.479)
Amazing.

Nick Church (41:05.188)
that sort of self-awareness comes back in and then they're back into their safe blue steel look or whatever they've got. predominantly, certainly the ones on your portfolio, predominantly black and white. Is that a decision that you've made beforehand or is that when you get the images back, you decide the treatment?

Andy Gotts (41:10.907)
Absolutely.

Andy Gotts (41:21.895)
Oh no, when I was a student, I was 19 and it is a brand new college with very limited equipment because it's a brand new course, so I'd have bought my own camera and I bought a Mamiya RB67 and it's a, for your viewers that don't know, an RB67 is a film camera, it's a medium format but the negative

is six by seven centimeters. So on a real film, you 10 shots, that's it. And I've never shot 35mm in my life. So the first time I went click to now, the medium format. I've never even held a 35mm camera. And because I had a film camera, the first 19 years of my career,

Steve Vaughan (42:09.08)
Wow.

Andy Gotts (42:19.502)
I used black and white film and I used Trix and Ilford Hundred. I used those two films for my entire first 19 years. And again, it was looking around the subject that informed me. And I heard someone once, actually I think it was a painter.

Steve Vaughan (42:31.298)
Great films.

Andy Gotts (42:48.196)
He said why he painted in monochromatic colours. He said, if something is in colour, like a colour landscape, a colour portrait, you spend less time looking at it than if it's black or white. If something's black or white, your brain has to do a bit more work to make it, to add colour, to subtract colour, because if you see a black or white portrait,

Steve Vaughan (43:05.262)
agree with that.

That's exactly right.

Nick Church (43:12.952)
Mm.

Andy Gotts (43:18.694)
your brain instantly doesn't know it's a portrait. Your brain colorizes it, that makes it black and white again. So you're looking at it longer. So if you reflect to, say, Vogue, lovely color pictures, you'll stop long on a black and white one before you move to the next page. And so I was thinking, if my work's ever in a portfolio of other photographers and they're shot color, they'll be longer looking at my work.

Steve Vaughan (43:34.986)
Absolutely.

Andy Gotts (43:47.174)
ever

Nick Church (43:55.414)
Hmm. Yeah, it's quite desaturated, really delicately done. Yeah. Just looking at the note.

Steve Vaughan (43:56.182)
Hmm, I look to sad. Yeah.

Yeah.

Andy Gotts (44:03.825)
But that's the exact same reason. If it was like a Hello Magazine saturated colour picture, I mean, it's like seeing someone walking down the road, watching a television. It's like that's what you are wanting to see. If all of a sudden you see a face that's a bit more bluey or a bit more, you know, desaturated, you'll stop a bit longer. so that's exactly why I did Black and White.

Steve Vaughan (44:26.051)
Yeah.

Nick Church (44:28.918)
I suppose it's the, the equivalent of the idea of people that if you want people to listen to you talk a bit quieter and it makes people listen a bit harder, doesn't it? so, so you, yeah, you should try out, full frame ideas. So it's all the rage. you could say what's what's your current set up? What would be your, your, your preferred go to say.

Steve Vaughan (44:37.526)
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah.

Andy Gotts (44:37.965)
Yeah, exactly.

Steve Vaughan (44:44.807)
Hahaha.

Andy Gotts (44:45.476)
Yeah.

Andy Gotts (44:49.617)
Yeah, so.

Yeah, so I still shoot on Mamir Abiy. I've also got a Phase One, which I had to get one. I didn't want to. I went to America in 2008 to shoot Al Pacino at his home in LA and his publicist in New York.

wanted to see what I was shooting. I said, that's fine, I'll do the shoot. Take me like three days to contact you and then I'll post it to you, next day delivery. They said, no, no, no, no. We want to see real time what you're shooting. I said, that's impossible. They said, you need to do digital then, so we can, otherwise we won't approve the shoot. So literally over a weekend, I learned how to tether.

Steve Vaughan (45:38.766)
Wow.

Steve Vaughan (45:46.872)
Wow.

Andy Gotts (45:50.341)
I didn't even know what a tether was, it was a fishing thing. I had no idea what a tether was. So I tried to learn. I bought a laptop. I hired a Phase One. And Phase One gave me the capture software. So I taught myself over a weekend. then literally, from then, people didn't want to be patient.

Even now, I get grumpy now. When I do a shoot, there's no one in a room with me. There's a publicist, there's no one. Now and again, you get, let's say, an actor who's a bit more testy than they should be, and they want someone with them to have a bit confidence for photo shoot. And those people like to stand behind me

Nick Church (46:47.245)
Mm.

Andy Gotts (46:50.316)
seeing what I'm shooting. And if I do have my phase one, I turn off the screen at best so they can't see what I'm doing. Because I remember, when digital first started in the early 90s-ish, I went to watch photographers shoot. And these are fashion photographers who shoot 3,000 pictures in two minutes. And they were constantly doing this.

Nick Church (46:58.466)
you

Andy Gotts (47:19.499)
And you'd see the people from the magazine standing behind them, killing the shots in real time. And I think, well, what perfect shots are you actually killing at the moment? mean, unless you see them, you know? And so I don't let anyone see anything until I show them the end results. I don't let anyone. So even I treat...

If I shoot digital now, I treat it like I'm shooting film. They have to wait until I get a contact sheet, maybe two days later before we start a process. I don't rush things now because the world's impatient. Ever since Big Brother started and everyone wants to be famous tomorrow, there's Instagram and all these platforms, yeah, no one can be patient anymore. And no one can stop.

Steve Vaughan (47:57.24)
Brilliant.

Steve Vaughan (48:09.24)
TikTok. Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (48:13.73)
That's very true.

Andy Gotts (48:17.475)
edit anymore. They overshoot all the time and I shoot digital like I shoot film. But on phase one, can alter it. So the time you press the button, there is a delay. You can't do this. It's click, rest. Click, rest. Just like you're shooting film. It's like you're shooting, winding on. It's literally, there's a rest between.

And I love that. The people I work with don't. They want it to want it. And I think maybe, again, that's why I get the shots because sometimes in between them waiting, they then have a breather because they're thinking they're waiting between shots. And sometimes I do take a shot and wait. And wait.

Nick Church (48:47.992)
Hmm.

Steve Vaughan (48:48.119)
Yeah, sounds great.

Steve Vaughan (48:57.282)
Yeah, I'm sure it is.

Andy Gotts (49:13.603)
I make them wait so uncomfortable, they do something, then I photograph it. It's like the whole decisive moment thing again. And if you keep doing this, I know photographers in LA who shoot stills with a red movie camera. So literally, they press start and they shoot 36 frames a second and then after about 20 seconds, stop.

Steve Vaughan (49:22.712)
Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (49:39.447)
Wow.

Andy Gotts (49:43.233)
And they've got like thousands of stills, like that's what they do.

Nick Church (49:46.968)
you

Steve Vaughan (49:47.726)
It's like the wedding photographers we know that do 20,000 frames at a wedding. And it's been fascinating, absolutely fascinating hearing some of the stories. And one of questions I was going to ask was tell us some stories. you've done that incredibly well. is the one particular shoot that you've done that stands out more than any other in terms of either the image that you got or the person you photographed or just what happened on the shoot, any one that really would be?

Nick Church (49:50.679)
Yeah.

Andy Gotts (50:00.726)
and

Andy Gotts (50:12.579)
Yeah. So, yeah, having shot over 7,000 is really, really, really hard because I photograph the most famous people in their field, acting, music and models, the most famous people. And I do have a favourite.

Steve Vaughan (50:22.222)
Wow.

I'm sure.

Andy Gotts (50:41.95)
And there's three favorites, but I'd say in a hundred years time when I'm long gone in this, I'm cloned, that there'd be one shot I'm known for and that would be my shot of Tony Curtis. And I'm fully aware, lots of people have no idea who Tony Curtis is, but I am a movie buff.

Steve Vaughan (51:00.206)
Wow.

Andy Gotts (51:10.826)
And Tony Curtis was the most underrated actor of his generation. And yes, he did do Some Like It Hot. Yes, he did do The Boston Strangler. Yes, he did do Spartacus and all these amazing movies. But he never did hit the big time. And yes, he dated Man in Monroe. Yes, he had done all these things. And I really, really want to meet him because he fascinated me.

Steve Vaughan (51:16.48)
Absolutely.

Andy Gotts (51:39.926)
And I spent years, I spent literally seven, eight years trying to photograph him. And I'd always phone up his agent and it was always Tony was ill or Tony was busy. Like for seven years, and always busy or ill. So I went to LA to photograph Kirk Douglas and Kirk, he'd done...

Steve Vaughan (51:56.621)
Wow.

Andy Gotts (52:07.968)
a little interview, but he had a stroke and he wanted a photograph done where he looked quite healthy. So he asked me to get over to LA to his home to do this portrait. And he flew me over and I was there for three days and I'd done his shoot the first day. So I literally had a day and a half of spare time. And I thought,

I'll give Tony one more shot while I'm in town. Why not? So I phoned up his agent and when the agent heard my voice, he sighed. Hello, Mr. Gotts. Nice to hear from you again. I'm afraid it's a polite decline again, but Tony isn't very well. I said thank you and hung up the phone. And sometimes, you know, sometimes...

Steve Vaughan (52:49.976)
Ha

Andy Gotts (53:04.893)
Sometimes you get really ticked off. Someone said something that really grinds your gears. I thought, I'm not going to take no this time. So I googled famous facts about Tony Curtis. Facts number one, he has a very young wife who owns a horse ranch. I great. So I googled horse ranchers in Vegas. And I found the horse ranch and had a phone number. So I phoned up the horse ranch. And Julie Curtis, his young, glamorous wife,

answer the phone. And she says, hello, Judith, Curtis, can I help you? Yes, Mrs. Curtis, you can help me. I'm Andy Yacht. I'm a photographer from London. I'm in town. No disrespect. I don't care about horses. I care about your husband. I've been after him for so many years. Is there any chance, please, can you give me literally 10 minutes for a little photo shoot? So, doll, hang on a second.

Steve Vaughan (53:35.308)
Wow.

Andy Gotts (54:02.113)
Tony, Tony, he's got here from London, want to shoot you? Shoot, shoot, shoot in the background. And she said, can I get to your house in Vegas tomorrow afternoon? Of course. What time? Two o'clock. You can have an hour. An hour? Yeah, you can have an hour. And I was so happy. She said, here's our address. Here's our phone number. Wherever you're staying. I said, I'll stay at this hotel. Here's my mobile phone number.

And I was elated. I thought at last, I was so happy. And then I was thinking about, what can I do? And I trying to think about an idea. And then the evening came and my mobile rang and I'd input his phone number. So said Tony Curtis home. And I thought the only reason he's going to phone me is to cancel. Why else would he phone me?

Steve Vaughan (54:54.774)
to cancel.

Andy Gotts (54:58.844)
And so with a heavy heart I answered, and it was Tony himself. He went, Andy, it's Tony. Mr. it's a pleasure to speak to you. He said, I know I said I would be photographed by you tomorrow. I don't feel very well. I was really odd pain in my neck and my chest, but I will honor our commitment tomorrow if you make me one promise.

I said, Mr. Curtis, anything, what would you want me to do? He said, can you make me look iconic one more time? And I said, Mr. Curtis, I will do my very best. He said, Mr. Gotts, I'm in a wheelchair. I'm very, very immobile. So your work's cut out for you. Make me look iconic if you can. And he hung up the phone there and then.

Steve Vaughan (55:43.435)
Amazing.

Andy Gotts (55:56.927)
My plan was to fly to Vegas the next morning, hire a car or get a cab, go to his house. Instead, I hired a car that night and I drove to Vegas, but I wanted four hours of driving. I think I'm driving. I want these people that when you drive, you think better. And so I hired a car and I drove through the night to Vegas. It's one road. I don't know if any of your viewers have done it.

Steve Vaughan (56:14.382)
Yeah, me too.

Nick Church (56:17.303)
Mmm.

Steve Vaughan (56:24.654)
I've done it. Yeah. Yeah, I've done it.

Andy Gotts (56:26.303)
But it's the Route 15 straight out of north-east of LA, one road, and it drives for four hours, and that's what I did. I was how could I make him look iconic one more time? And I was thinking, movies has been in, I was thinking, things is known for. And then I thought, his autobiography is called The American Prince.

And I thought, okay, he's in a wheelchair, he's immobile. If I paint the flag of America, the stars and the stripes on his face, he hasn't got to move, he doesn't have to do anything. Just sit and look at the camera and I can do it in about 10 shots. He has to do nothing. And I got to Vegas and I went to a store that the showgirls get their makeup from. I bought a red, white and blue wax crayon.

I went to his house and the door opened. This very glamorous lady who looked identical to Marilyn Monroe after the door, his wife, Julie. Now bear in mind, Tony was 85, Julie was 37, and she looked identical to Marilyn Monroe. She had the white blonde proxied hair. She had the white flowing dress. had the...

wrote with lipstick, identical to Marilyn Monroe. And she said, Mr. Gotts, Tony is in the lounge. He's in his wheelchair. He's watching golf out the window. Because the bungalow was on a golf course, but he loved watching golf. So he's at his window watching golf. And so I went over and bless him. He tried to get up to give me a hug. And I knew he was literally paralysed.

But he tried to, and he puts arms around my neck, gave me a big kiss on my cheek, and he hugged me and he hugged me, he was whispering in my ear, thank you, thank you, thank you. And I said, I said, Mr. Curtis, I said, thank you, thank you for the time. He said, people don't come to see me anymore. He I don't get visitors anymore. People don't come to the house anymore. Thank you for bothering.

Steve Vaughan (58:30.572)
Wow.

Andy Gotts (58:53.406)
with an old guy like me. And I said, I've been trying to shoot you, sir, for literally years, and I can't get through. I literally, oh yeah, the agents have done everything these days because he thinks I'm disabled and I don't be seen this way. But literally, we sat there and he said, let's have a coffee, tell me your idea. And I said, Mr. Curtis, I'm gonna paint on your face the stars and the stripes.

Steve Vaughan (58:55.502)
incredible.

Andy Gotts (59:22.462)
He laughed and he laughed. He said, that's an amazing idea. He said, how long do you need? And I said, well, I told your wife, you know, we've got an hour. He went, well, I'm going nowhere. Are you in a hurry? I said, well, no, I've got a flight tonight. He went, take as long as you want. He said, don't rush it. Make it look good. Paint it so it looks good. Don't rush it. So for nearly two hours, I was about six inches from his face.

hearing the stories about him and Marilyn Monroe and the affair that he but bearing in mind, I thought I knew everything about him, everything. And he was telling me things I've never read before. He told me a story that I knew he had an affair with Marilyn. I knew that, that was common knowledge. I didn't know she got pregnant with his child.

Steve Vaughan (59:56.03)
Unbelievable. Unbelievable.

Nick Church (01:00:21.944)
Wow, that's a new one.

Andy Gotts (01:00:21.982)
And he was going to leave his wife, Janet Lee, to start up a new life with Marilyn. Marilyn miscarried during filming, someone got hot. So they kept all the secrets, they told no one. And so it's all kept a secret. he was telling me about his relationship he had with Sammy Davis Jr. He had like a...

Steve Vaughan (01:00:37.55)
to grave.

Andy Gotts (01:00:48.765)
romance of Sammy Davis Jr. and talk about how he had to sneak in, even though Sammy Davis was a headliner, he couldn't go to see a black man. this was in like 52, 59, 62. exactly, and he told all these stories. And I can't believe it. so I literally done these, I literally done 20 shots because I knew exactly

Steve Vaughan (01:01:00.446)
Yeah. Just before the Bradpacks sort of thing really, wasn't it? Yeah. Mm. Incredible.

Andy Gotts (01:01:18.109)
He had to be quite of motionless. And he'd done his 20 shots. And then he got a baby wipe and I cleaned him up as best I could. And he got his wife to come over and put up a pose as a great big Jack Daniels. And he said, Mr. Gotts, just tell me about you. He said, you're such a sweet guy, tell me about you. So another hour went past just talking about me and stuff.

Nick Church (01:01:43.362)
God.

Andy Gotts (01:01:45.149)
And then my cab arrived and he got his arms around my neck and he kissed me full on the lips. And then he said, Andy, I'm never going to forget this day. Thank you. And I got in the car, I got to the airport and then he got the red-eye flight from McCarran back to Heathrow and then Heathrow back to my house.

Steve Vaughan (01:02:00.65)
Wow.

Andy Gotts (01:02:14.108)
And I literally was so excited about seeing this. I looked on my laptop at home and I flipped through these shots. And there's this one specific shot, a little glint in both his eyes, a little tiny glint. And I thought, oh, I like this. I said, I have got the 20. I won't bother looking at the rest. Obviously, look at this one. I mean, this one has captured me.

Steve Vaughan (01:02:31.33)
Yes, it's beautiful.

Andy Gotts (01:02:43.804)
And so literally, I made the blacks a bit blacker. That's all I did. There's only bit of manipulation in this picture. I made the blacks black because they were bit muddy black. I made them the backs black. I emailed it over to Jimmy, literally straight away. Now bear in mind, it's about 11 o'clock the morning their time. And I know he likes to lay in.

Steve Vaughan (01:02:58.254)
Hmm.

Andy Gotts (01:03:12.634)
Jilly emailed me back straight away saying, Andy, thank you for sending me over that picture. Tony collapsed this morning. He's in hospital. Is there any way you send me over a high res version? I'll print it out and tomorrow I'll take it into hospital and show him your picture. He might cheer him up to show this picture of him with the makeup. So I did. Okay. The following weekend.

Steve Vaughan (01:03:21.059)
gosh.

Nick Church (01:03:21.176)
no.

Andy Gotts (01:03:42.556)
I had nothing back then. The following weekend, she phoned me. And she said, Andy, I just don't want to phone you up and just give you some news that I took your picture and then did to show Tony. And Tony looked at this picture, nonstop for two minutes. His eyes were fixed on it. He turned to me and said, Julie, this is the best picture ever taken of me.

Steve Vaughan (01:04:11.457)
Wow.

Andy Gotts (01:04:11.491)
and he died that afternoon.

Steve Vaughan (01:04:14.156)
man, what a story.

Nick Church (01:04:14.712)
Goodness.

Andy Gotts (01:04:15.419)
And so not only was it his favourite image, it was the last photograph ever taken of him. And so for me, there won't be another shot I'll ever take that to me will mean that much.

Nick Church (01:04:31.394)
Well, what an experience and what a photo.

Steve Vaughan (01:04:31.502)
That's an incredible, incredible story. Yeah. And, you know, it just shows that photography is important. It does really make a difference to people's lives, you know, and Andy, you you've been very generous with your time today. We just want to thank you for all the stories and all the experiences you've shared with us, really. You know, I think we could, we could talk for hours. I'm sure there's an autobiography there at some stage if you haven't got one on the way.

Andy Gotts (01:04:40.357)
Yeah.

Nick Church (01:04:41.164)
Hmm.

Nick Church (01:04:51.69)
Absolutely.

Andy Gotts (01:04:56.613)
So bye.

Steve Vaughan (01:04:59.822)
Nick and I, we're just going to have sort of 10 minutes of wrap up. You're welcome to stay with us if you want to, or if you've anything else you need to do as well, that's fine as well. But again, thank you so much for your time. We'll obviously link to all of your books and to your websites in the show notes. And you know, you've been very generous with your time today. So thank you very much for being with us today. It's been fantastic.

Nick Church (01:05:16.386)
Thank you, Andy.

Andy Gotts (01:05:17.947)
Thank you for having me. Thank you very much.

Nick Church (01:05:19.382)
Absolute pleasure.

Steve Vaughan (01:05:22.309)
So, do want to stop sharing Nick for second? It's a beautiful image, I could stare at it all day, but I guess we...

Nick Church (01:05:24.712)
yes, let me take off. Yeah, it is. Let me take off. There we go.

Steve Vaughan (01:05:32.142)
There we go. So Andy was talking about medium format cameras really, and how he's always shot in medium format. And that does very neatly segue back to what we were saying earlier on really about you buying a Fujifilm camera. And I just wanted to have just a couple of minutes before we wrap up, your thoughts and perhaps Andy's as well on this new camera that they've launched today, or not today, this last few days, the GFX 100 RF.

Nick Church (01:05:36.247)
Hmm

Nick Church (01:06:00.376)
Hmm.

Steve Vaughan (01:06:00.716)
And I sent you a link to it really. So if you're not seeing this camera being announced, I'm sure you have dear listener, dear viewer, but just to explain what it is. So it's based on the GFX larger format, not true medium format, larger format cameras, which you've got 102 megapixel sensor in them, which traditionally they've always been sort of studio type cameras. This camera is based very much on like the X 100 kind of platform, obviously any bigger. So it's a fixed lens.

medium format 102 megapixel camera with a 30 millimeter f4 lens that you can carry around on your shoulder almost like you'd carry a small pack, 700 grams. I think it's genius. Lots of other people don't seem to have the same opinion. What's your thoughts on it?

Nick Church (01:06:48.824)
Well, so you say 30 millimeses, Yeah, but 28, yeah. And F what? F 3.2 or something like

Steve Vaughan (01:06:51.694)
30 minutes, that would equate to a 28 millimeter in full frame.

Steve Vaughan (01:06:58.062)
F3.2 obviously F4 in terms of exposure but F3.2 in terms of depth of field.

Nick Church (01:07:00.62)
Hmm. Well, I think they're, they've already got the, what's the X, X, 106 or, know, so they, they've got their, their crops that's version of that. So, so they're exploring a new, a new area of the market, really, whether you need that much resolution, but it has got that digital zoom capability, hasn't it? So

Steve Vaughan (01:07:23.63)
Well, think what I think is genius is that it's obviously a small portable camera, but if you want the full two megapixel, then you can, but obviously you can. And there is settings in it. You can crop to effectively have the same impact as having, you know, back of lenses in your bag. But also what I love about it as well, going back to the importance of the JPEGs with the Fujifilm cameras is you can dial in a whole variety of aspect ratios as well. So if you want to shoot 2.35 to one in camera.

Nick Church (01:07:38.326)
Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (01:07:52.672)
you can do that just at turning wheel. I can see me just taking that camera out for a day just to go and do some street photography and think, you know what, today I'm just going to shoot 17 by nine because I can. And just see, just push myself. So it's clearly not a camera for everybody, particularly since it's four and a half grand. But I think they're going to do very well with it. I really do.

Andy Gotts (01:08:07.545)
I'm feeling not as comfortable as

Nick Church (01:08:12.44)
I thought I think it will. think it's getting, know, it's, it's having a, a camera body or a camera system that makes you want to go out and shoot it. If, that's the thing that's doing something different, isn't it? It's, know, it's not a full frame. It's, it's, it's something different than that. Um, and it's a, it's a fascinating design. If you look at the, um, the, the sort of schematics, the lens that, that 35, that 30mm lens, it kind of extends into the body, doesn't it? The body's got some of the elements.

Steve Vaughan (01:08:24.361)
Absolutely.

Andy Gotts (01:08:33.392)
I think this is a good

Nick Church (01:08:39.284)
lens elements inside it, which is how it's so compact for that.

Steve Vaughan (01:08:39.746)
It does, yeah. The X100 is the same in the X100 platform as well. I've never seen a cut through one of them really, and it literally is. You couldn't put a fag paper inside it. It's so rammed in there really. So it'd be interesting to see what happens. be interesting to what our viewers and listeners thoughts are. I did comment in another Facebook group for another podcast, and let's just say there was a wide diversity of opinion, but it's great to see something different on the market, I think is my final view on it really.

Nick Church (01:09:07.874)
But we've seen, we've seen through the guests that we've had, including Andy today, the using medium format for that, those mission critical, you know, where detail and performance is everything, the performance in the image rather than performance of the camera during an event, for example, is important. And this is presumably extending that ethos into street photography where people are for photographers that are, that their biggest concern is end of day image quality that they've got from their camera.

Steve Vaughan (01:09:23.977)
Absolutely.

Steve Vaughan (01:09:36.654)
Yeah, I guess the obvious competitor would be a Leica Q3, the full frame camera in terms of what it's trying to compete with. But obviously if you want to like it, you're going to buy a Leica probably. But yeah, interesting to see what happens on that. yeah, good stuff. So we've got over an hour and 10 minutes, which is probably our longest ever podcast. So we should probably not that it's absolutely flown by listening to Andy's stories and but.

Nick Church (01:09:39.884)
Yeah.

Nick Church (01:09:44.13)
Yeah.

Andy Gotts (01:09:49.7)
We've got about 10 minutes before we have long.

Nick Church (01:09:54.263)
you

goodness. Yeah. Incredible stories.

Steve Vaughan (01:10:00.854)
Just want to very quickly mention a book, if I can, before we do wrap up. And it's by a good mate of mine who's in our Facebook group. And we do need to try and get him on the show as well. And his name is Jay Farrell. And I've known Jay for a number of years off and on through Fujifilm, actually, originally. Jay lives in Nashville and has been a photographer of abandoned buildings for a number of years. he basically, and he's very brave to do this in the States, he'll...

Nick Church (01:10:03.373)
Mm-hmm.

Steve Vaughan (01:10:30.912)
find a way of getting into an interesting building that's been abandoned and take all kinds of fascinating photographs in it. But he's magnum opus, if I can put it that way, because he's got about 12 books published now, is this book. So it's a Route 66 book. Now there's nothing new about Route 66. Lots of people have written books about Route 66. But what I love about this really is it's a photography book. It's not a, you know, I went to this diner and ate a cheese pie or whatever. You know, it's a photography book based on his own experiences. there's some

Nick Church (01:10:46.37)
Mm-hmm.

Andy Gotts (01:10:48.82)
What I love about this really is it's a problem for us. not a, I want to accelerate it and make it deep pile whenever I feel it. It's a problem for us, based on his own experiences and some beautiful things.

Steve Vaughan (01:11:00.174)
beautiful images in here. I know Jay wouldn't mind me saying that writing, as in writing in a book, came naturally to him and he's learned and taught himself how to be an author and he's a very successful author. And this book is self-published. So full of beautiful images. Very quickly, just pick a page at random.

Nick Church (01:11:15.447)
brilliant.

Nick Church (01:11:22.012)
Amazing. Well, that's that's I'll add that to my list. So we'll add a link to to that. That's one book. So Jay's book. Yeah. Okay, so that's that's on my list. Another book on my list is Andy's book, Andy Gotts book Degrees, which is a project where he's shot celebrities. But the difference being with this project is each celebrity then recommended the next person.

Steve Vaughan (01:11:22.574)
Yeah, yeah, I'm sure.

Andy Gotts (01:11:23.597)
We'll

Steve Vaughan (01:11:28.814)
one book here it's called Root 66 Road Scape Stories Through the Lens and it's self-published.

Nick Church (01:11:50.166)
So it would go through and it would go through like that. it's a journey through sort of each portrait being connected to the last one. So that's something I'm gonna try and get my hands on a copy of that.

Steve Vaughan (01:11:50.685)
wow.

Andy Gotts (01:11:58.552)
Yeah, mean, that book came out 20 years ago, so literally it's the anniversary year, 20 years, so it came out April the 17th 2005. And it's available, think it's gone through four, four, of reference now because it was a best-selling book when it first came out in 2005.

Steve Vaughan (01:11:59.374)
And where do you get that from Andy? Is it on your website or is it available elsewhere?

Andy Gotts (01:12:27.287)
And bear in mind, I was a no one. No one really knew me back then. And I was on a TV program, I was on this morning talking about it. And literally, I think that kind of, again, just kickstarted something. But it was lovely where you photograph one actor and say, Brad Pitt, who's a bit...

Steve Vaughan (01:12:40.536)
All right. Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (01:12:55.47)
Who else do you know?

Andy Gotts (01:12:56.951)
Who's your best mate? George Clooney. Then the secret is they arranged a shoot. So it's not a manager, it's not a publicist. And then you get to George's house. Who's your best mate? Julie Roberts. He arranged the shoot. So I literally spent eight years going around Hollywood.

Steve Vaughan (01:13:04.11)
Brilliant. Genius.

Steve Vaughan (01:13:11.16)
Fantastic.

Steve Vaughan (01:13:16.174)
I'm going to have to get you one of my sales training courses and teach people how to get referrals because you're a genius at it. Andy, once again, thank you for being with us today. Nick, good to see you mate as well. Dear listener, dear viewer, thank you for being with us. We will be back again in a couple of weeks time with another fascinating photographer. We have to join our Facebook group, which is called Imaginatively the Photography part to find out who that photographer will be. Definitely, if you have enjoyed the show, the audio version, then please give us a like.

Andy Gotts (01:13:18.806)
Yeah.

Nick Church (01:13:19.48)
Absolutely.

Nick Church (01:13:26.688)
You too, you too Steve.

Steve Vaughan (01:13:45.376)
and subscribe if you did give us a like on Apple or Spotify does help the show and not too weird and wonderful ways really. And Nick is working flat out now putting all our episodes onto YouTube. And of course the magical YouTube means you can leave comments and obviously you can see the photographers work in glorious technical or black and white depending what they've shot. please make sure you do check out the group as well.

Nick Church (01:13:52.002)
Indeed.

Nick Church (01:14:05.368)
the the the the the page the website for the podcast has got a new home as well. So it's www the photography pod.co.uk. So if you go straight there, you'll be you see all the episodes on the show notes and so on. And also if you if you want to get in touch with us through email, you can email studio at the photography pod.co.uk and we will receive your message.

Steve Vaughan (01:14:11.768)
OK.

Steve Vaughan (01:14:31.342)
fantastic stuff. Thanks again, dear listener, dear viewer. We'll be back again in a couple of weeks time. Until then, happy photographing out there and we'll talk to you soon.

Steve Vaughan (01:14:47.052)
Andy, was absolutely.