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If you’re a studio, or celebrity photographer, you should accept that your very best attempts may bore your subjects to death! Top Gear Man, Jeremy Clarkson shares a recent experience on Facebook.  Click  HERE to go straight to his Facebook notes, otherwise just read the article here below…

“Three minutes and these guys will have Camilla pole-dancing” - by Jeremy Clarkson

I have just spent all day in a photographic studio, pulling faces while a photographer took my picture over and over again. And then just once more. It was for a glossy magazine and it was the most miserable day of my working life.

As a general rule, I would not choose to swap jobs with someone who works on the mortgage applications desk at the Nationwide building society. But by 11 o’clock this morning, I would have happily swapped with someone who collects semen from racing pigeons for a living. At two in the afternoon, I sat down for a tea break and gave serious thought to killing myself. At four, I gave it a bash.

Like most normal people, I hate having my picture taken. It’s such a monumental waste of time. Everyone is only ever remembered for one shot. Brunel. Chamberlain. Your grandad. So why do people have 600 pictures of themselves on their Facebook page? And another 6,000 locked away in the vaults of the computer’s hard drive? It’s madness.

I cannot smile to order, and if I try, I always look frightened. And what’s more, I can let you into a little secret. The camera does bloody well lie. I know what I look like; I see myself in the mirror every morning. And yet in a picture, I look like me but with special needs.

You have the same problem. Yes, you do. That’s why the picture in your passport is of Harold Shipman. And it’s why, in your wedding photographs, you look gormless.

And it’s why, on all of your Facebook pictures, you look cross. That’s because you were waiting for some idiot to work out which button to press on your mobile phone. And then they finally figured it out at the precise moment you stopped gurning, and drew breath to say: “Oh, for Christ’s sake.”

There’s more stupidity in the world of photographs. Because when you’re on the edge in a group picture, you will always lean in. Don’t. Leaning in makes you look desperate to be part of a gang that obviously hates you. And because you’re on the edge, and most cameras have mildly wide-angle lenses, your head always ends up being so distorted that you look like the Mekon. Here’s a tip, then. When situated on the edge of a group, always lean out. And go slightly cross-eyed. It screws the shot for everyone else. And serves the photographer right for being a photographer.

Sadly, today, it was all too professional to cock about. If I’d undone my flies, one of the assistants would have noticed. So I had to stand there, on a specific mark, and look, in turn, happy, sad, ambitious, doleful, loved-up, angry, disappointed, cold, rugged, interesting and upset. At one point, I was told to look regretful. How in the name of all that’s holy was I supposed to look regretful? I’m just a fat man from the north, not Laurence bloody Olivier.

To make matters worse, I had to repeat the process on another mark. And then another. And then I had to go back to the first and run through the facial sequencing again while looking the other way. They took thousands of pictures. Thousands. By the end, the only facial expression I could muster was thin-eyed, murderous rage.

People scoff when they hear that Kate Moss is paid £10,000 a day for a modelling shoot. But trust me. I wouldn’t do another day in the studio for a billion. Even if I’d just been quoted that precise amount by a surgeon to reattach my penis.

And what makes the whole experience so sickening is that none of it was necessary. Because studio photography is no longer about art and capturing a person’s soul and walking about with a Polaroid under your armpit. It’s about maths.

I’ll let you into another little secret. I was once photographed by a magazine in bright sunshine, standing by myself on the upper deck of a multi-storey car park in Los Angeles. But the photograph that appeared showed me, at night, in Berlin, standing next to a Lamborghini. I think my stomach was a little smaller as well. And I had no bald patch.

To achieve this, modern photographers turn up with an army of people who have massive laptops. They operate a Danish computer program that means the subject can be manipulated to do pretty much anything and be pretty much anywhere. You give these guys a snap of Camilla Parker Bowles opening a church hall and they can have her pole-dancing in three minutes flat.

Remember the posters that launched David Cameron’s election campaign? Many said he looked strange in the photograph. Probably that’s because it was the 4,000th shot of the day and he was wondering what the photographer would look like without a head. But almost certainly also because his jaw had been firmed up a bit by the backroom pixel men.

It was the same story a number of years ago with Kate Winslet when she appeared on the front of GQ magazine. I’ve always wanted to meet Kate; she looks like a jolly sort who’ll drink you out of house and home. But when I saw that cover, I wanted to do a bit more than meet her … Thanks to digital enhancement, she looked stunning.

At the moment, of course, the Danish software costs eleventy million pounds and that doesn’t include the cost of the PhD you’ll need from Berkeley to understand how it works. Or the expensive thin-rimmed glasses you’ll have to wear to look the part. But as is the way with all these things, soon a home version of it will be available.

The possibilities are endless. You could be skiing in St Moritz with Hugh Grant without leaving the cupboard under the stairs. And best of all, you’ll never need to stand about in front of a mobile-phone camera again, gurning stupidly while some damn fool passer-by turns off the flash and calls your mum by mistake.

The downside is you’ll never again be able to believe anything you see. A picture used to be proof. Not any more. Soon, it’ll be no more real than one of Turner’s sunsets.

I think Jeremy got to the belly of the beast and I couldn’t agree more. I would like to get your take on it!

ED