\u2018Finn! Finn! FINN!\u201d Johnnie Shand Kydd is having trouble keeping his inquisitive lurcher in sight. Finn may be an incredibly sweet-natured dog but he\u2019s hard of hearing \u2013 and has previous for disappearing on this particular walk.<\/p>\n
At least the photographer has experience in dealing with unruly characters. In the 1990s, he found himself embedded with the Young British Artists, granted free rein to shoot the hedonistic, chaotic and wildly creative art scene that birthed Tracey Emin, Damien Hirst<\/a>, Sarah Lucas and more. Shot in black and white, these images upended the convention for artists posing in their studios, easels in hand. \u201cI just wasn\u2019t interested in that at all,\u201d says Shand Kydd. Instead, his photographs capture Hirst balancing a tower of hats on his head, Emin in a rubber dinghy with Georgina Starr, a newly pregnant Sam Taylor-Johnson (then Taylor-Wood) and a whole load of partying, boozing and canoodling.<\/p>\n double quotation markIf they went off on a 48-hour bender, I would probably duck out after 24 hours<\/p>\n Shand Kydd wasn\u2019t a photographer when he began documenting the scene \u2013 he claims he\u2019d barely taken a picture before in his life \u2013 but he was a former art dealer who understood artists and their delicate balance of ego and insecurity. The YBAs quickly relaxed in his presence. \u201cIt really wasn\u2019t very hard,\u201d he says with a laugh, happy to play his talents down. \u201cTaking a photograph is the easiest thing in the world. You just point and click. It\u2019s finding something to say that is the hard bit.\u201d<\/p>\n Well, that and gaining your subjects\u2019 trust. Many of his YBA images were taken during gargantuan benders, which led to Shand Kydd amassing a fair few compromising images, not that he ever considered publishing them. \u201cWhy ruin a friendship with these incredible artists for the sake of a yet another photo?\u201d he says. A more pressing issue for the photographer was keeping up. \u201cI was a wee bit older so I didn\u2019t quite have the same stamina. If they were off on a 48-hour bender, I would probably duck out after 24 hours. Although often you\u2019d just be about to leave and then the double doors of the Groucho would open and the next 20 people would come in.\u201d<\/p>\n Tyred out \u2026 a shot from Shand Kydd\u2019s new book. Photograph: Johnnie Shand Kydd<\/p>\n His images, published in the 1997 book Spit Fire, no doubt fuelled some of the stuffier criticism that these brash, gobby upstarts were unserious people who favoured hedonism over hard work. Shand Kydd, though, was perceptive enough to realise that nights out like this were actually being used by modern artists as an extension of the studio. \u201cYou would always see people in a huddle, having these really intense conversations in the early hours of the morning. This was about ideas being exchanged. Besides, I\u2019m sure David Bowie can barely remember making some of his best albums. There\u2019s a certain moment where youth, talent and inebriation all come together.\u201d<\/p>\n And there was a lot of hard work involved. \u201cThey didn\u2019t need expensive materials, expensive galleries or anything like that,\u201d he says of the fertile creative environment. Whenever he visited Hirst\u2019s studio in Stroud, Gloucestershire, he would return feeling particularly inspired. \u201cThe energy there was exhilarating. Damien was a firm believer that the word \u2018No\u2019 didn\u2019t exist. Everything and anything was possible. It was the optimism of the period that I remember most.\u201d<\/p>\n Now 66, Shand Kydd is still in touch with his former subjects. He was recently out for lunch with Lucas \u2013 \u201cyou can bring up any subject and she will approach it from the most unusual angle\u201d \u2013 and Taylor-Johnson is apparently making a film based around one of his images. Emin, meanwhile, curated his new exhibition Ramsholt, currently showing at her gallery in Margate and soon to be published as a photobook. Named after the tiny Suffolk village his mother moved to in the 1960s (she still lives there \u2013 on the day we meet, she is celebrating her 93rd birthday), Ramsholt features photographs taken on Shand Kydd\u2019s dog-walking route with Finn and Finn\u2019s daughter Zelda, who is sadly not well enough to join us today.<\/p>\n Making waves \u2026 Georgina Starr and Tracey Emin. Photograph: Johnnie Shand Kydd<\/p>\n Ramsholt looks beautiful in the April sunshine: fluffy clouds bounce off the surface of the River Deben while the trails are abuzz with St Mark\u2019s flies. Beaming sunlight is not, however, Shand Kydd\u2019s preferred condition for capturing the unvarnished and often bleak scenes you\u2019ll find in his book: barren fields, mist-covered trees, uprooted trunks. The director John Maybury told him the images looked like \u201ccrime scenes\u201d. When Emin first saw them she said: \u201cYour photographs are all about death.\u201d<\/p>\n Did he agree? \u201cI did. Because with nature you can\u2019t have spring without winter. And fungi growing on rotten wood \u2013 it\u2019s all part of the reincarnation element. One of the pictures she liked the most is of daisies. She just said, \u2018That\u2019s what happens after we\u2019ve left.\u2019 I thought that was very optimistic.\u201d<\/p>\n Having become accustomed to taking photographs of other people, Shand Kydd believes these images are by far the most personal things he\u2019s ever put out there. In an essay to go with the book, he touches on past family tragedies: the uncle who died in his teens performing aeroplane stunts, and the damage this may have done to his father\u2019s relationship with Shand Kydd\u2019s elder brother, a novelist who died in Cambodia in 2004.<\/p>\n \u2018Exhilarating energy\u2019 \u2026 Damien Hirst. Photograph: Johnnie Shand Kydd<\/p>\n He also provides a fascinating history of Ramsholt itself, flitting across eras and stories in a way that, he hopes, mirrors daydreams you might have on a walk like this. We hear about the American B-17 Flying Fortress that crashed in 1945, killing eight passengers (two survived), as well as the location\u2019s more recent attraction to Ketamine smugglers.<\/p>\n The point he\u2019s making isn\u2019t that Ramsholt is an especially interesting place. \u201cIt\u2019s really rather ordinary,\u201d he says. Rather, it\u2019s a reminder that beauty and adventure exist everywhere, if we make the effort to look. He points at a delicate leaf hanging from a tree to illustrate his point. No camera with him to record it today though.<\/p>\n In fact, on most of the walks that inspired his new book he neglected to bring a camera \u2013 the unwieldy large format ones he likes were \u201ctoo heavy\u201d when he had two dogs in tow. If he saw something special, he would go back and photograph it later. \u201cBasic spontaneity was thrown out of the window,\u201d he says, laughing. \u201cThe total opposite of how most photographers work.\u201d<\/p>\n double quotation markI thought P Diddy was incredibly charming so I\u2019m no judge of character<\/p>\n But Shand Kydd has always gone against the grain. Realising photography could be his metier after the success of Spit Fire, he decamped to Naples to properly teach himself, the resulting images appearing in his 2009 book Siren City. But his self-deprecating manner means he\u2019s more likely to dwell on his gaffes than his successes \u2013 like the time he was flown out to shoot Madonna at a UN gathering in New York and missed his moment because his camera was still in his back pocket when she whizzed past.<\/p>\n It was at this event, surrounded by celebrities and feeling somewhat awkward, that Shand Kydd found himself chatting to \u201cthe only other person there who was as equally out of their depth\u201d. After chewing the fat for a while, he thought it would be rude if he didn\u2019t offer to take a picture of this guy and his wife. \u201cI thought nothing of it, until years later when he becomes president.\u201d He laughs. \u201cI went back to the contact sheets and sure enough it\u2019s Donald and Melania.\u201d What was he like? \u201cA few pence short of the pound, but fairly affable. But then I thought P Diddy was incredibly charming so I\u2019m no judge of character.\u201d<\/p>\n We\u2019ve been walking for well over an hour and have more than earned our scampi and cider lunch at the Ramsholt Arms. Outside on the wall is a plaque commemorating the victims and survivors of the B-17 crash. Life and death. Things do seem to collide in Shand Kydd\u2019s work. When his father remarried, he became stepbrother to Charles and Diana Spencer \u2013 they would holiday and play together (he is still in touch with Charles).<\/p>\n He remembers how he was working on the installation of Sensation \u2013 the iconic exhibition at the Saatchi that helped propel the YBAs into the stratosphere \u2013 when he heard Diana had died. \u201cI could walk over from the gallery to where people were mourning,\u201d he says. \u201cSo the two things are very intertwined for me.\u201d On reflection, he sees the parallels between Diana and his former subjects. \u201cThey both liked lobbing a grenade into proceedings,\u201d he says with a smile, \u201cto see what might happen.\u201d<\/p>\n Mug shot \u2026 Don Brown and Sarah Lucas, Horham, Suffolk, 2003 Photograph: Johnnie Shand Kydd<\/p>\n A decade after Diana\u2019s death, Angus Fairhurst<\/a>, a YBA who appears in Spit Fire, killed himself while out walking in Scotland. \u201cI didn\u2019t realise he was in such a dark place,\u201d says Shand Kydd. \u201cOne thing I\u2019ve learned is that you can never really know what\u2019s going on in other people\u2019s minds.\u201d<\/p>\n He believes Fairhurst\u2019s death caused a lot of his peers to slow down \u2013 to grow up, take stock and focus on what really mattered: the work. On a more personal level, though, Shand Kydd credits Finn and Zelda with keeping him on the straight and narrow. \u201cIf you\u2019re wasted in front of an animal,\u201d he says, \u201cit can really freak them out.\u201d Such is his devotion to his dogs that he won\u2019t even leave the house for the evening unless he can find a sitter.<\/p>\n \u201cHe really is a lovely boy,\u201d he says, looking over at Finn, who is close to falling asleep on top of his coat. Yet another subject who feels totally trusting of their master.<\/p>\n Ramsholt by Johnnie Shand Kydd (CHEERIO Publishing, \u00a330) is published on 7 May. To support the Guardian, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com<\/a>. Delivery charges may apply.<\/p>\n In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans<\/a> can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org<\/a> or jo@samaritans.ie<\/a>. In the US, you can call or text the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline<\/a> at 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org<\/a>. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline<\/a> is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u2018Finn! Finn! FINN!\u201d Johnnie Shand Kydd is having trouble keeping his inquisitive lurcher in sight. 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