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Matinee: 'Ranald Mackechnie' Share This on LinkedIn   Tweet This   Forward This

21 January 2023

Saturday matinees long ago let us escape from the ordinary world to the island of the Swiss Family Robinson or the mutinous decks of the Bounty. Why not, we thought, escape the usual fare here with Saturday matinees of our favorite photography films?

So we're pleased to present the 484th in our series of Saturday matinees today: Ranald Mackechnie.

In this 3:25 video, London-based photographer Ranald Mackechnie, who took the last official portrait of Queen Elizabeth as well as two others, talks about how he creates his striking portraits.

Portraiture, after all, is his game. Although the opening shot of him sitting in front of some cardboard boxes and a 10 speed bike might not qualify as an environmental portrait of him, it does lend an air to intimacy to this short chat.

In the opening scene, he's looking at a portrait of a man who might appear to be a farmer but happens to be Buzz Aldrin, who walked on the moon. He loves that. "There's something in those eyes," he says.

It isn't easy to get that, though.

People come into the studio bringing with them the weather. The cold, the rain, the sweltering heat, whatever it is that surrounds the soul in that moment. The task for the photographer making a portrait is to make contact with the subject rather than simply step through the job.

"Even thirty minutes is quite a long time with somebody," he says. "You invite people to think about how they see themselves."

"There are great moments when you feel that you have gone below the surface with someone," he says. "And they have to give you trust to do that."

There is certainly evidence of some great moments in this clip.


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