Watson’s work began to turn heads
“If you’re always looking for shots, shots will come to you.” It is a mantra that Albert Watson has tried to keep in mind throughout his 50-year career as a fashion and portrait photographer. His star-studded portfolio – highlights of which furnish a new book, Creating Photographs – is a testament to how thoroughly he has succeeded. Watson is behind some of the most memorable high-fashion and celebrity shots of the past half-century, featuring everyone from Kate Moss to Mick Jagger, yet his was, he says, “a very long journey into photography”.
Born on the outskirts of Edinburgh, where his mother was a hairdresser and his father a professional boxer, he worked first on Blue Streak missiles for the Air Ministry, and then as a taster in a chocolate factory. Studying art at night school provided his stepping stone into photography, via Dundee College of Art, and then the Royal College of Art in London. “When I got my hands on a camera, things changed for me,” he says.