Focus on the sparkle in the eyes

Focus on the sparkle in the eyes

That was advice given to me either late in 1979, or some time in 1980, by a chap called Pete, who was one of the team running group sessions at Strobe Studio in Clapham. It cost £6 each to attend, and while it was a little bit thin if attendance was poor, I do remember one evening when there were 36 sweaty photographers crowded in: it was Linzi Drew’s first group shoot, I think, just as she was starting to make it big as a model.

Pete and Pat were regular assistants to Arthur Howell, who owned the studio, which was on the first floor above a camera shop on St Johns Hill, opposite the entrance to Clapham Junction Station. If I’m not mistaken, it’s the place where there’s now (according to G**gl* Earth) a branch of Snappy Snaps. It was their job to set up the tungsten lights, and a jolly good job they usually made of it. Although it meant that exposure was challenging with medium-speed or slow film, it was a great way to learn by doing, and to find out which models you wanted to work with on your own.



There’s a whole tale to tell about Arthur, who combined careers as a stuntman and as a photographer, married, at one time, to the legendary June Palmer. I photographed June at Strobe on one of my last visits there in 1982: she must then have been in her late forties or early fifties, but her posing was still fluid and flexible – and the sparkle in the eyes was definitely still there! Arthur appeared in most of the earlier Bond movies, and also in An American Werewolf in London, making that the only film to have two people I have met in it (Ms Drew, appropriately, played Brenda Bristols in See You Next Wednesday, the film within the film. Appropriately, you understand, because she hails from Bristol, and had a distinctive West Country burr to her voice).

The advice used to be relatively hard to follow, as it involved focussing with the central microprism spot in the viewfinder over the eye, then reframing for a good composition: model and photographer movement in that half-second could spoil focus. It got worse when the early AF cameras arrived with a single central focus area, because it’s more difficult to hold focus with a half-depressed button than with a manual focus lens. Multiple focus areas with the option of choosing an off-centre one improved matters, and the latest generation of eye-detection AF systems has made it easy.

But it’s still important to focus on that sparkle!