It’s not long since I stopped categorising my newsletters. One of the reasons I stopped was that some shoots just didn’t fit into my most common subject matter, and therefor got left behind. For example, I sat on a folder with politicians and topical/political journalists without ever sharing these. Fiona Bruce was one of those shoots - shot a few months before the Covid pandemic came and changed the world forever.
Fiona came in at the agreed time, full of energy, and settled down in the basement studio under a trendy Haggerston cafe in East London. I asked if we could get her anything and she had already clocked the pastry in the cafe on the ground floor, wanting it accompanied by a weak tea. I left her to enjoy a little grooming before the shoot. When she stepped in I started talking to her about her early life, getting a little money from modelling for picture stories in the teenage magazine ‘Jackie’. I was actually genuinely intrigued as I used to see those picture stories around when I was a kid, and it’s such a thing of the past. Fiona confided in me that she used to love doing them as she could always get people she fancied in to play the male role.
Shot for Observer New Review
