Big Shots

Cambridge Jones has got it all. He’s just returned from photographing P Diddy in Miami, REM in Hollywood, Take That on tour and Joan Collins drinking tea in her kitchen.

He’s also just been named as one of the UK’s top 10 photographers alongside the likes of Bailey, Snowdon and Rankin, and he’s got commissions coming out of his ears. Tony Blair’s Christmas card, tick, Roger Moore’s book cover, tick, Norman Foster at home, tick.

In short, he specialises in portraits of politicians, musicians and actors and next up is an exhibition on famous Welsh names called Talking Heads for the Lincoln Centre in New York, so Cambridge is off to track down Anthony Hopkins, Catherine Zeta Jones and Charlotte Church.

“I met Anthony Hopkins when I was taking pictures for an exhibition on RADA’s top 100 at home, and we spent the day reminiscing about Wales. He was a lovely man.”

Cambridge Jones, 43, is a lovely man as well. Fun, young, cheeky and entirely unaffected, this Jericho dad-of-two has only been a professional portraitist for five years and is already top of his game.

But you can see his work for yourself at, of all places, a dentist’s surgery at 69-71 Banbury Road, as part of Artweeks, which kicks off tomorrow, alongside hundreds of other Oxfordshire artists.

Which, considering his previous exhibitions have been at The National, County Music Hall Of Fame and the Getty Museum, gives you an inkling into what a fabulous chance this is to see Cambridge’s work on his home turf.

Cambridge kick started his career by coming up with an irresistible idea – 100 famous people with their favourite piece of music. He took their photos and at the London exhibition you could then plug into their musical choice.

“I was an unknown but they still took me on because people were curious about what Desmond Tutu would listen to, and off the back of that I’ve had some really interesting commissions,” he says.

So come on then, spill the beans, what are they all like? Irritatingly, the only time Cambridge gets uncomfortable is when you ask him specifics about his subjects and mumbles that it wouldn’t be professional to go into too many details, but in terms of personal favourites Take That, the most nerve-wracking Norman Foster, most closed Little Richard, the most starry Jack White from the White Stripes, the most friendly REM, the most private Kevin Spacey, the most daunting Kenneth Brannagh and the most focused Tony Blair and P Diddy “They were both 100 per cent sure of what they were doing,” he elaborates. But just getting P Diddy took Cambridge backwards and forwards across the Atlantic. “ I went from New York to Los Angeles, London and then back to Miami, but when he got him and his entourage of 10, the US rapper was a dream to photograph,” Cambridge discloses.

So what’s the best moment for him? Meeting them, looking them in the eye, the first picture...? “My favourite moment is to go into a gallery and see the work up on the walls because you can see it objectively, or when my new book arrives in the post. But in terms of taking pictures, it’s the moment you meet the person and the moment you know you’ve got them on film because after that you can relax and just have fun.

“Because I’m not interested in the persona. I don’t know the gossip, or who they are with, or what they have just done. I used to do the research about my subject’s latest film or album but it creates pre-conceptions, so now I just walk in cold and it’s easier to see the real person.”

OK, but did he get butterflies before he met Al Pacino or John Travolta? “No because I liken it to going to the hairdresser, you’re only going to be nice to the hairdresser when you have your haircut aren’t you? And I have a weapon in my hand that can make them look good or bad, so it’s a kind of power, and they just have to trust me because no one likes being photographed.

Cambridge Jones’ Artweeks exhibition is a wonderful mixture of all his exhibitions, books and work, plus 25 new portraits.

“It’s a good cross-section and Artweeks is really nice because there is an odd irony in the fact that no one in Oxford knows my work or what I do, so doing this at home is really nice.”

And although Cambridge works all around the world, he loves living in Oxford. “I was at Christchurch,” he says, “and my family are from here. But I love it. It’s like a closely guarded secret and Oxford is heaven for bringing up kids. What an extraordinary place to live.”

Cambridge Jones’s Artweeks exhibition The Great And The Good opens at 69-71 Banbury Road next Saturday.

For details on Artweeks go to www.artweeks.org.