Robin Williams photographed at The Dorchester Hotel, London, 1999 Harry Borden recalls the shoot: "While I was on a trip to New York in 1999, showing my work to magazines there, I had a call from The Observer Magazine. I’d been shooting portraits for the magazine for a few years. This time I was offered the opportunity to photograph Robin Williams, who was promoting his latest film. The only catch was that I had to photograph him the next day at the Dorchester Hotel in London.  Following a string of roles in films such as Dead Poets Society, Good Will Hunting and Good Morning, Vietnam, Williams was a major star and this was an exciting offer. So I cut short my trip, booked the earliest available flight from the US and arrived in London the next morning. There, I met up with my colleague, journalist William Leith. The Observer told us we would have an hour for the interview and half an hour for pictures. However, when we arrived at the Dorchester, Williams’ tough female publicist said, ‘You have half an hour for the interview and five minutes for pictures – if we have time.’ While taking in this news, we were led into Williams’ hotel room that was full of people. Williams had a big entourage, including a scary minder who was completely lacking in any warmth or sense of humour.  The entire atmosphere felt rather intimidating. After the interview, I started shooting portraits. I was using a Hasselblad CM, a medium-format film camera. The lighting in the room was poor so I used a big Bowens ring flash. Although time was really limited, as I was trying to shoot the portraits, Williams talked constantly. While I was being hurried along, he was doing his shtick and trying to entertain everyone in the room. I found it really irritating. He could have said, ‘Give this guy a break and let him do his job,’  but he just shrugged his shoulders as if it was nothing to do with him and let other people be nasty on his behalf. So I had to persevere.  As a passive-aggressive way of telling him to shut up, I asked him to put his hand over his mouth. It was also a way of getting his very hairy hands in the picture, which I’d first noticed years before when he acted in Mork & Mindy. I got one frame of him in that position, then he put his hand down. This was the most interesting image from the few rolls of film I managed to shoot. You can see the use of the ring flash by those distinctive ‘doughnut’ shapes reflected in his eyes. In that kind of situation, where I have very little time, I usually keep taking pictures for as long as I can. However, in this case it was starting to annoy the people in the entourage and further sour the atmosphere. When I took out my Leica and took a couple of reportage-style shots, tempers started to fray. The minder threatened to throw me out of the window if I didn’t stop and the shoot came to an abrupt end. I had rapidly shot four 12-shot rolls – two black & white and two colour. Even though my portrait of him was taken in a brief, frenzied and ultimately unhappy shoot, it’s still one of my favourites." Available in a choice of physical size options. Please ask for framing options. Please allow 2-3 weeks between order and delivery for an unframed photograph.  Framing adds 2-3 weeks.

Martin Scorsese photographed at The Dorchester Hotel, London,March 1998 Harry Borden recalls the shoot with the acclaimed director: "In March 1998, Martin Scorsese was in London to appear at an event held by The Guardian. Scorsese was 55 at the time of the shoot and was firmly established as one of the major directors of his era for films such as Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Casino and The King of Comedy. He’s a genius and undoubtedly one of my cinematic heroes.  The Guardian’s sister paper, The Observer, had a one-hour slot with him, during which he was to be interviewed by the journalist William Leith. Afterwards I would have about ten minutes to shoot a portrait. The shoot was going to take place in a suite at the Dorchester Hotel in London. Publicists repeatedly booked The Dorchester for interviews, so I could easily have ended up with lots of people against the same kind of background. Therefore I always took along either a roll of material or my black, white or grey backdrops. They provided a simple and plain alternative to a rather chintzy hotel environment.  Prior to this shoot, I went to Brick Lane in East London, where,at that time, there were a lot of fabric shops. I used to buy three metres of fabric and use it as a backdrop, which was much cheaper than buying a roll of Colorama paper. On this particular day, I found some sparkly blue material which had colours and textures that I thought might work well with a ringflash. While the interview was going on, I set up my equipment at the other end of the suite. I had loaded my Hasselblad CM (fitted with a 120mm lens) with a roll of Tri-X black & white film, and as Scorsese was saying goodbye to William Leith I took some informal shots of the director. I showed him a small portfolio of my work so he could see the kind of images I produced. He was quite macho; very smart, straight-talking and quick-witted; but friendly and jovial.  In that situation, it was an advantage that I had grown up with a Jewish-American father; he reminded me of my dad and so I didn’t feel intimidated. I just asked him what I wanted him to do. Scorsese was apologetic that we had so little time, and I think he would have given me a lot more time if he had been able to spare some. When he saw the roll of dark blue, sparkly material, he thought it was funny and knowingly said, ‘I see you’re going for the Vegas look.’ His movie Casino, released only a few years earlier, had been based in Vegas so it seemed appropriate. Sometimes, when I have very little time for a shoot I’m panicked into being more upfront about what I want from a sitter. I was desperately trying to find an impactful picture, and I thought the most striking thing about his appearance was his amazing set of eyebrows. So, on the spur of the moment, I decided to ask him to wink as it made his eyebrows even more prominent. It’s not something I do often, but I have occasionally asked people to wink because it does make a good picture. I shot some with his left eye winking and some with his right, but the picture shown here worked best. I only had time to shoot three rolls of film before Scorsese had to go: one roll of black & white at the end of the interview, then two rolls of colour; one of him at three-quarter length then a roll of head shots. The ‘wink’ picture has subsequently been syndicated all over the world, while the others were hardly published at all. It was recently used on a t-shirt for an event in Amsterdam. I think it’s one of the best ‘wink’ pictures out there, because he’s so cool." Available in a choice of physical size options. Please ask for framing options. Please allow 2-3 weeks between order and delivery for an unframed photograph.  Framing adds 2-3 weeks.

Kevin Garnett photographed at Red Earth Studios, London, 2001 Harry Borden recalls the shoot: "Shooting portraits of sports stars is often difficult. Unlike photographing members of a pop band, for instance, where they recognise a shoot is part of the publicity process, sports stars aren’t usually relying on photographers to promote them. For them, a shoot isn’t exciting or a novelty, it’s a pain in the neck. Therefore, in my experience, you’re often relying on their innate personality to get the pictures you want. Photographing basketball player Kevin Garnett, back in 2001, was a notable exception. That was partly because he’s a good-natured person, and partly because he was doing the shoot for an article linked to the launch of his own clothing brand. Kevin Garnett is a huge name in American sport. He played for NBA teams for 21 seasons, between 1995 and 2016, and is considered one of the sport’s true superstars.  I was commissioned to photograph him for American GQ magazine, so there was a good budget and I had the benefit of working with a stylist. I asked the stylist to provide some props that reflected the theme of making clothes, such as some tailor’s dummies and a pair of tailor’s scissors. The idea itself wasn’t particularly original, but it led to what I think is a very interesting portrait. The shoot took place in Red Earth Studios in London, which had a tall ceiling and a skylight which gave wonderful north light. I always got really nice results there, so I was pleased it was available when I got the commission. If you’ve got good available light and a subject like Kevin Garnett, you’re already halfway there. Photographing Garnett was an extraordinary experience, partly because of his physical presence. He’s very much the alpha male, and at the time I photographed him he was just 25 and at his physical peak. He’s just under 7ft tall and very athletic, but perfectly proportioned – just much bigger than most people. His hands were huge and his arms were similar in girth to my thighs. I’m just under 6ft tall, but that extra foot makes a big difference and I remember having to stand on a chair to shoot at his eye level. However, he was very easy-going and playful, like a big puppy – at one point he got me in a headlock while fooling around – and was happy to do whatever shots I requested.  For me, the best shot came completely spontaneously, and mainly arose from Garnett’s playfulness. Most of the dummies we had were quite conventional, but one of them, which I think was possibly from the 1930s, had a weird look. At one point, Garnett picked that dummy up and turned it to face him. I took several shots, some with him looking towards the camera, others with his mouth open. But one shot, showing him staring intently at the dummy’s face, had something special about it. My reading of that picture is that there’s an element of homoeroticism about it: one man is staring out another man in a very overt way. But it also has an interesting racial dynamic: the white dummy has an angry and hostile expression, yet it’s completely powerless. I wasn’t consciously aware of these elements when I took the shot and they’re the kinds of things you can only notice after taking a picture. This is the sort of moment that gets you really excited as a photographer. I really love that picture, it’s definitely in my top ten favourite images from my commissioned portraits. However, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t used in the American GQ article because it didn’t fit the idea of it being a fashion-led shoot. More contrived images can go down well with a magazine in the short term, but they don't stand the test of time, because on some level they lack authenticity. Sometimes, a great picture just happens in front of you and you just have to be alive to it." Available in a choice of physical size options. Please ask for framing options. Please allow 2-3 weeks between order and delivery for an unframed photograph.  Framing adds 2-3 weeks.