Icons. Portraits by Andy Gotts

In 1990 Andy Gotts, then a young photography student at Norfolk College of Arts and Technology, approached Stephen Fry at an event to ask him for a portrait. That brief meeting led to an even briefer photographic session (90 seconds), during which Andy realised he had discovered his photographic approach: “I cannot remember what I said to provoke the expressions and reactions I had in these 10 frames, but that was it… BOOM! … my eureka moment. It was like a huge weight was lifted from my shoulders and I knew celebrity portraits were the way for me.”

Andy's unique portrait style — rapidly taken and often face-on — is admired for capturing the charisma of famed sitters such as Kylie Minogue, Meryl Streep, Harrison Ford and Kirk Douglas. Andy's chatty, quick-fire approach led Paul Newman to nickname him ‘One Shot Gotts'. The photographs that Andy creates are naturalistic, eschewing the seductive technological traps of airbrushing and heavy styling.