celebrity portrait: Sarah Ferguson Duchess of York
The News of the World have filmed the Duchess of York offering to sell access to ex-husband Prince Andrew for £500,000 ($723,000).
This story is of no interest to me apart from the fact that I photographed Sarah Ferguson in 2003. The duchess was visiting the Lowry Hotel, Manchester promoting the launch of her book: Moments; a photographic diary of portraits, landscapes and general images taken during her various travels around the world...
During the shoot the duchess explained that her interest in photography came as a result of having her own portrait taken by greats such as Terry O'Neill, Terence Donavan and one of my photo-icons Herb Ritts.
I looked through the book and remembered thinking that the standard of photography was pretty ordinary. So it didn't come as much surprise that the photo-career and book took a bit of a nose dive a few months later.
My session with the Duchess lasted around 10 minutes and she was very down to earth and easy going taking a genuine interest in the technical aspect of the shoot and my Hasselblad 500c/m with an 80mm lens using Fuji Provia 100f (my favourite transparency film at the time).
To view more of my work: www.matthewstansfield.com