Photo Histories
The Photographers' History of Photography
 

Brian Harris' best image of 1988 US presidential candidate Michael Dukakis, shot for the Independent, was first spotted by The Guardian's Don McPhee.

Working with Don

Whilst covering the 1988 US presidential elections for The Independent Brian Harris found his visual style changed after teaming up with rival press photographer Don McPhee of The Guardian.

Photographers, on the whole, are solitary self absorbed individuals hunting alone, keeping our own counsel and at the end of a busy and often fraught day we retire to our hotel room, order room service and collapse, or at least that was my experience when travelling the world on behalf of The Independent and The Times newspapers.

I set myself some real hard guidelines that would make my life even more difficult as a working news photographer : never to beg, borrow or steal an image. If I failed to get the picture it was me that failed. I would rather not have the picture than trade with another photographer for a ‘loan’ of a negative to cover my failure. In the trade the practice even has it’s own acronym, ‘GANS’, which stands for ‘Gis’A Neg Society’ – I presume there is a digital equivalent. Thankfully I didn’t fail too often, but when I did I learnt really fast.

Way back in 1988 I worked with the great Don McPhee of The Guardian newspaper. Don, who sadly died far too young earlier this year, was a quiet sensitive man who never made a fuss and always came back with a fine image, often from an oblique point of view. He was very influential in formulating my style. I owe Don a great deal.

Imagine, there I was, standing on a photographers riser waiting for Michael Dukakis the US presidential candidate to board ‘The Dukakis/Bentsen Victory Express’ from somewhere to nowhere out in the Californian desert. Dripping with kit, a 300mm on a monopod and more toys than your average high street camera store has around my neck and on my shoulders. I had been standing, holding my position for about 3 hours, I was hot and sweaty but had a nice central position for a good clean shot when at the last moment the Dukakis pool of photographers arrived. The largest of them at over 6ft plus a cowboy hat stood right in front of me. I remonstrated with him in my most polite middle class English, more upstairs than downstairs, presuming that TV program had reached these parts of the rural US of A. He ignored me and started to expand, stretching in every way until my view was totally obscured … and then in the strongest ‘Mancunian’ accent possible I heard a voice say, “Oi, move out of the way, that’s my friend your standing in front of and if you upset him you upset me, go on move or …” by this time the guy had packed up sticks and had gone home to mummy… I turned around to find who my saviour was and it turned out to be Don, big smile beaming ear to ear. “I don’t think we will have any more bother from him now Brian,” he said, and indeed we didn’t.

I didn’t know that Don was out in the States covering the election and certainly was not aware of him behind me on the riser, but I was certainly pleased to see him.

We spent the day travelling on the ‘Presidential Campaign Train’ through California, stopping on route for a bit of glad handing. Dukakis was good, waving and making contact with the electorate. At Fresno I followed the candidate hovering on the rim of his security detail with a wide angle lens, probably an 18mm, shooting blind from the hip. I believe Don stayed on board the train shooting out through the windows, same subject matter but very different interpretations.

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