FEATURE:
Kate Bush: The Iconic Shots
PHOTO CREDIT: Gered Mankowitz
‘The Pink Leotard Shot’, 1978 (Gered Mankowitz)
___________
THIS Kate Bush series…
is less about me writing and more about the potency of various images. For the first of this series, I am looking at Gered Mankowitz’s work. His first session with Kate Bush was in January 1978. One of the most iconic shots of Kate Bush might very well be my favourite. I have called the shot at the very top ‘The Pink Leotard Shot’. There were a few shots of her in that leotard, but it the pose and composition above that is the most arresting. I love Mankowitz’s recollections of the sessions where Bush wore that pink leotard:
“In those days I was working out of a studio in Great Windmill Street in the heart of London’s Soho. For this first session with Kate I had decided to use a wonderful piece of distressed canvas as a background; it had once been used as the floor of a boxing ring in the gym below us, and its coarse texture seemed a perfect contrast to Kate’s youthful beauty.
I purchased some leotards, tights, leg-warmers and scarves, and placed them in our rather inadequate dressing room, which was actually a curtained-off corner in the studio. When Kate arrived, she disappeared behind the curtain with the make-up artists and stylist.
Kate emerged in the pink leotard.
She looked beautiful, and I knew that we were going to have a fantastic session. She settled in front of my Hasselblad camera without a care in the world. Kate did not have much experience of working with a professional photographer, and I felt that it was important to try and guide her through the process. She had a natural instinct and seemed to understand immediately how much the camera loved her.
After shooting several test Polaroids, I was happy with the lighting, and Kate was delighted with the look. We shot throughout the afternoon, with Kate in both the pink outfit and a green version. After about twenty rolls of film, the first shoot was over and I felt certain that we had achieved the objective and produced the portrait that would launch her”.
If one gets a copy of The Kick Inside (Bush’s debut album of 1978) from Japan, the cover features a photo from that session (it is similar to the photo I have highlighted but not the exact shot). It was going to be used as the cover for her debut single, Wuthering Heights, but was nixed. That is because the same image was circulated…though it showed Bush’s nipples. It could have been cropped and used, though the photo was out there and being displayed by the press and shown in public. It is a shame that there was that controversy and obsession (from some) on the wrong aspect of the image. I feel the pink leotard shot should have been used as the cover for the U.K. version of The Kick Inside. What could have been if this iconic photo was seen more widely. Mankowitz spoke with The Big Issue in 2014 and discussed that shoot and eye-catching image:
“The one picture that in a way is inescapable is the pink leotard Wuthering Heights picture. It’s one of those pictures that become iconic and represents so much, and that doesn’t happen very often. It has a life of its own and it has energy. I think it’s a beautiful portrait of a very beautiful young woman.
The Big Issue: There has been discussion over the years whether her sexuality was being exploited – depending how it’s cropped, it’s quite graphic…
Gered: It didn’t occur to me at that time that [the nipples visible in the full-length shot] would be a problem. I know that it was pretty edgy for the late ’70s but it wasn’t sort of discussed or thought about a great deal. That was how she looked and I wasn’t going to say to her “I think you should cover up”.
She looked absolutely gorgeous. I’m looking at a cropped version of it now and it still has all the power that it did then. Her breasts might have been titillating to a few young boys but her beauty and her serenity, her stillness are what really make this a special photograph.
She used her sexuality throughout her performance
She certainly knew what she was doing, that’s how she came out of the dressing room, looking like that, and there was no attempt by anybody to make her look like that. That’s what she looked like and I don’t think it’s exploitative at all. I think it’s very, very beautiful.
I’m the photographer and I took that picture, and I don’t see how I could have exploited Kate Bush. She was in control of it.
But she used her sexuality throughout her performance – look at the Babooshka video or any of the records and promotional videos and stills, certainly in those first three or four years of her career she was a very sexual person and I think that came across in the way she moved, looked and the way she sang.
For me that makes any discussion or debate about whether the picture was ‘exploitative’ redundant. She wasn’t like Miley Cyrus trying to draw attention to herself through her sexuality. She’s a very strong woman and as a strong woman you know that she’s aware of everything that’s around her and I completely reject any possibility that the pictures were exploitative, it reflects her beauty and her power and serenity, and her comfortableness with it.
IN THIS PHOTO: Gered Mankowitz
The Big Issue: It’s such a direct portrait, you feel like you know her, her face looks so open but she’s not giving anything away, it gives you chills still to look at it now.
Gered: It often is the case that in the beginning when an artist makes a really profound impact it’s often their first moments that are sort of welded into the public consciousness and that’s one of the most gratifying things. Going back to my favourite image, I’m incredibly proud and thrilled to have been associated with Kate Bush at this early stage. It’s fantastic to hear you say that [above] about it”.
To start off a run of features that highlights the very best photos of Kate Bush, I wanted to start with one from the very start of her career. Such an expressive, mysterious, nuanced and beautiful image,! Even though Gered Mankowitz is the one who got the shot, I feel Bush’s natural ability to project these great looks and expressions should be credited. As we can see in the 1978 shot that should have been used for Wuthering Heights, she looks…
SO natural and gorgeous.