20 Questions with Gavin Watson
Gavin Watson is a British documentary photographer, renowned for capturing UK youth subcultures since the late 1970s.
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We asked Gavin 20 questions...
1. What is your earliest memory?
The morning my brother was born, kids throwing bricks at a dead rat, its insides vivid red, all in bright technicolor; I don’t remember anything before that day, I was three and a half.
2. Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
“FUCK THAT.”
3. What is your greatest extravagance?
Expensive MARKS and SPARKS cheesecake.
4. What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Having a book not only published, but with cultural impact, and then three more published - crazy to me.
5. If you could go back and speak to your teenage self, what would you say?
It wouldn't matter what I said; I wouldn't have listened to a word I fucking said.
6. What keeps you awake at night?
Right now, a trapped nerve in my foot; it’s driving me nuts.
7. Which talent would you most like to have?
Hands down, being practical - being able to fix and build things; I have two left hands and great admiration for craftspeople.
8. What has been your biggest waste of time?
Trying to please the wrong people and trying to be liked; though nothing is truly wasted, we learn from dead ends.
9. Which celebrity do you most dislike?
Most of them.
10. What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Being with my daughter and grandkids, being of use, and having shows in Italy.
11. If you lost everything tomorrow, what would you miss most?
I don’t really have much; it would be gutting to lose 4 decades of photography and my PS5, the rest can go.
12. What smell takes you back to childhood?
Fried steak, Old Spice, and Brute - takes me back to my Irish uncle’s bedsits in Willesden Green.
13. What's the one artwork/photograph you wish you had created?
Anything by FRANK FRAZETTA.
14. Which piece of your own work is either overrated or underrated?
Everybody that’s not me; there’s tons of underrated artists in the world, but mediocrity rules the day.
15. What subject matter are you afraid to explore in your work?
Nothing anymore, and I thank the stars I was never into sexualised imagery.
16. What do you see when you look at your earliest work?
My family and friends, and a spark of what was to come; I’ve had some of those first images I took on a cheap 110 camera published.
17. What's the cruelest criticism your work has ever received?
No criticism has ever affected me at all; if you’ve ever worked for VICE, you’d get some marvellous stuff - “WATSON, your photos are MUD” was my favourite.
18. When do you feel like a fraud?
When I tried to be a professional, normal photographer.
19. What subject have you photographed or painted too many times?
I don’t take enough photos; that’s my complaint about myself - I always think I didn’t take enough photos of my subjects, because I’m lazy.
20. What do you hope people don't notice in your work?
That for some reason I tend to cut off people’s feet in my images (not in real life).
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