Simon Annand

Simon Annand has been photographing leading stage actors for over 30 years. He shares his experiences of making portraits within the confines of the dressing room. Keith Wilson meets the man for whom all the world’s a stage…

For many photographers, the darkroom is a sacred place, a fiercely guarded sanctum of creative magic where the alchemy of developer and paper under a dim red light conjures faces from the past. When I call, Simon Annand is in his darkroom looking actors squarely in the eye as they emerge on the prints he’s preparing for the latest showing of his celebrated exhibition The Half at the Lawrence Batley theatre in Huddersfield. I feel as if I am intruding on this important stage of his work, but then I imagine that he has a similar sensation when opening the door of a leading actor’s dressing room as they get into role for that evening’s performance. These are familiar faces, the leading lights of the West End stage, but his photos offer a glimpse into a private moment, unseen by anyone else. Some gaze intently into the mirror dabbing make-up, others are slouched and calm, or dragging on a last cigarette. Then Simon knocks and enters the room…

Are you printing these images for the exhibition all from scratch?

One of the themes here is time because it’s the 25th anniversary of the theatre. The tag line I’ve got is that I’ve done 35 years photographing 35 minutes. So, I’m putting in some of the earlier stuff and there are examples of the same actor photographed twice, sometimes 10, 20 or even 30 years apart and putting the two images in the same frame, which is a bit unusual. I’m trying to balance the old black and white one with the new colour in the same 18x12 image area.

Aesthetically, that’s quite a challenge One of the things is that the size of the head or the figure needs to balance on the left-hand side and the right-hand side. I’ve tended to reduce the black and whites to make it resemble a memory – make it smaller within the frame.

Does The Half continue to be an on-going project?