When Harry Met...
Harry Borden looks back on a 2017 shoot with the controversial comedian, author, actor and influencer
In the summer of 2017, the Guardian Magazine’s picture editor commissioned me to shoot portraits of Russell Brand. He was then in the process of publicising a new book, Recovery, and my pictures would be used alongside an interview with him by journalist Miranda Sawyer.
At the time, I was a big fan of Brand and was excited to get the chance to meet and photograph him. I hadn’t been particularly drawn to his earlier incarnation, as the host of Big Brother-related TV programmes. However, he had completely reconfigured the way he was perceived and I really liked his podcast, Under The Skin, in which he interviewed well-known guests. He came across as someone who was intelligent, engaging and loquacious, with an alternative viewpoint.
Brand carefully guards his private life and didn’t want the shoot to take place at his Oxfordshire house, so it was arranged that I would photograph him at a country spa hotel nearby. I wanted to show him that I wasn’t just a celebrity photographer, so I took a copy of my book, Survivor: A Portrait of the Survivors of the Holocaust. It had recently been published and I thought he would like it. I also took along one of Brand’s earlier books, that I’d been given as a present by my son, for him to sign.
I arrived early and looked around the hotel interior and grounds for good locations. Then Brand arrived, wearing a dark top and trousers and white trainers. He looked really healthy, had amazing skin and a vitality that was compelling. He was also taller than I expected, around 6ft 2in. His eyes were clear and intense and he looked me right in the eyes, so I knew he’d be really easy to photograph.
But before we started, I gave him my book, and immediately realised it was a mistake because he didn’t even try to feign an interest in it. I’m sure he just left it at the hotel or gave it to a charity shop. I had assumed he was a deep thinker, but at that moment I realised he wasn’t really interested in anyone other than himself and what he personally was doing.
I was shooting with my Canon EOS 5D Mark III, and, as always, mainly used natural light. Some of the pictures were taken inside the hotel, where we were given a big room to work in. For some shots I set up a plain white Colorama backdrop. I
