Last year, a photograph by Kate Peters (pictured below) of Julian Assange made the cover of TIME. She may only have been photographing portraits for the last three years but she has already shot a huge range of young creatives, including Laura Marling, Beth Ditto (pictured) and Nick Payne. Here she tells IdeasMag about quick turnarounds, how to build a portfolio and who she’d like to shoot next…
I had a really great time at university and I probably needed to go, to work out what I wanted to do.
But it didn’t really prepare me for the real world. It was an art course, so a lot of the focus was on creating work for exhibitions, rather than shooting to earn any money. After university I came straight to London and started assisting for Nadav Kander. I knew I wanted to be in the industry, but I had to do something to pay for that. Assisting is the main area where I learned the technical stuff.
I started taking my book around and realised that if I was to earn a living through photography – as well as produce my own work – then I needed to get some people in my portfolio. I sort of accidentally started shooting the dominatrix project Yes, Misstress. I hadn’t shot a single person until about three or four years ago. Now almost all the editorial I do is portraits.
It did take 10 months from when I left Nadav before I got any work at all. You have to be pretty resilient in that situation. I did a bit of freelancing, part-time work and just kept hammering at it. I didn’t ever really have any plan. I just love shooting editorially: it’s completely different every time, you’re generally left to your own devices, you meet loads of interesting people and every shoot is completely different. I like the fast turnaround as well; if I’m shooting someone for a Sunday supplement I usually get an hour to set up and maybe half an hour with them, if I’m lucky. I then take the film to the lab, get it developed and send the contact sheets to the magazine the next day.
A lot of people I photograph are just starting out so we’re kind of in the same situation. I think I’ve been lucky with the bigger celebrities: even though someone like Annie Lennox has been photographed so many times, she was still happy to be photographed again. I would love to shoot Miranda July and Tom Waites.
Last year I shot Julian Assange for TIME. It was literally a three-minute shoot; he wasn’t that well known yet, so it was run as quite a small photo. Then, when everything came out in November, they got in touch and asked for the full edit of the shoot and it got onto the cover. It was just insane. I couldn’t believe I was on the cover of TIME.
My main piece of advice would be to just keep trying. If this is really, really what you want to do then you’ll get there in the end.
IN FOCUS: Shooting people
I still shoot on film. I mostly use a Hasseblad 503, but I’ve also got a Mamiya 7 and a large format 54 camera. If I’m doing a portrait I usually look at pictures of them beforehand and think what sort of lighting might suit them. I rent lights and always try to do two different set ups, if I’ve got the time. You are shooting for a commercial magazine so you have to give them something that they’ll be happy with.
I generally try to have a cup of tea and a chat with someone before I start shooting them. When I’m shooting I’ll give them a little bit of direction, but not loads. I usually get what I want when they’ve relaxed a bit more. I don’t talk too much when I’m shooting because you don’t watch to catch someone mid-sentence.
I’ll show them a Polaroid as we’re going along. I’ll generally set up on an assistant and shoot a couple on them to check that the light doesn’t need changing.