Jane Ussher was chief photographer for the New Zealand Listener for 29 years, a role that kicked off her career in 1977. She has since been a key player in documenting New Zealand culture through images and is widely considered one of the country’s best portrait photographers.
Bic Runga is a New Zealand musician whose first three studio albums debuted at No 1 in the country’s Top 40. Now, the beloved songwriter is celebrating20 years of her iconic album Beautiful Collision. Alana Rae interviews Jane Ussher about the meticulous planning it took to pull off the powerful shot, taken the same year the 11-time platinum record shot up the charts.
Q. Where was this photo taken?
A. I’d become completely obsessed with shooting Bic as a singer, but having a country background made it very dreamy. I went out to West Auckland, and I must have driven God knows how many country roads looking for what I could see as the perfect lamps, perfect posts, perfect road, and when the light would hit her well.
Q. Bic looks so stylish. Was that just what she showed up in, unplanned?
A. She’s always very clothed conscious and she chose those stunning clothes. I’ve photographed her many times, and each time she would show up to shoots knowing how she wanted to look. Without it being contrived, she had a very clear idea of how she wanted to present herself. She arrived with that amazing jacket and her musical instrument, and the light was perfect.
Everything about that photo fell into place brilliantly. She has such an extraordinary quality about her in front of the camera. There’s this fullness, but she’s very quiet. I don’t know that she likes having her photo taken, but she gets into a space, which means she takes an excellent photo, and all the elements fall into place.
Q. You talk about the perfect lighting. What time of day was it?
A. I hate bright sunshine. My preferences are either early morning or late afternoon. I look at this and I’m thinking that it’s late afternoon. I never use flash. I always use available light unless I’m in a studio, which I’ll avoid if I can, I’ll always find a location. I also like the short depths of fields, so the background goes into the distance. You get a sense of it, but it doesn’t become dominant.
Q. She looks really powerful here. Was that your intention?
A. This is such a reversal from my David Lange photo where I had to be nimble and work with what was being presented to me. With Bic, I had everything set up. When you’re shooting any sort of negative, you take Polaroids. With a digital camera, you’re looking at the back and you know what’s working or not, but before I took Bic out there, I would’ve taken Polaroids to know how I wanted to shoot and what the best angle was. When you’re shooting with something that’s inside your head, you’re relying on the Polaroids to ensure that once the film is processed, you’re going to get what you want.
There’s a lot of trust involved in this, especially with the difference between shooting then and shooting now. If you were shooting that now, the person you were photographing would want to see what was in the back of your screen. They’d want to see how they look just to see whether they could do something better, it’s human nature. In 2002, she might’ve been able to see a Polaroid, but she would’ve had to trust me completely that everything I took from then on would have worked.
Especially with someone who is so in control of her image, this was a huge thing for her to let me portray my image of her.
