Having forsworn fashion and gone headlong back into making personal documentary work on my own terms, I became immersed in the British criminal underworld following an assignment photographing a writer and two larger than life London gangsters, one of whom was ‘Brown Bread’ Fred Foreman. Fred and I had bonded over scotch and conversations about fathers and sons during a nightlong Soho sojourn (Fred’s son Jamie is an actor and my aristocratic birth father Tom, had hoofed his way across the West End Stage, singing bass in musical comedies after his family fortune was blown). That morning, I called a journalist friend in Tokyo, Tatsuya ‘Tats’ Mizuno who, undaunted by my excited and slurry voice loved the idea of working on a story about the real ‘Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels’ world. Sure enough Japanese GQ took his pitch and Tats came to London several weeks later. I remember the shock and surprise from the massed ranks of large men that Fred, and his ‘associate’ Dave Courtney, introduced us to on our first outing to a packed pub in London’s East End, the incredibly stylish Tats with his velvet jacket and goatee beard and myself, suited and booted with a discreet Leica round my neck. Sore thumbs had nothing on the two of us. We hung back with nervous smiles, many cigarettes and occasional, gentle questions as the bar’s villainous clientele exclaimed that there was a ‘posh bloke and a f*****g Yakuza’ in their midst. Thankfully, the highly respected Fred had spoken for us. Three weeks later we completed our feature. Tats went home but always intending that this had to be more than just another magazine piece, I continued photographing this extraordinary, hidden society. This image is from my first solo jaunt where Dave Courtney, who had just published an autobiography to much fanfare, had been invited to the prestigious Oxford Union to discuss his life of crime. This photograph had another claim to fame when Jay Z, without so much as a by
Madly in adolescent-love at the time, and despite a cultivated bravado, I’d been pretty battered by the bullying from previous years and couldn’t tell her how much I cared for fear of more rejection, so hid behind a lens instead and we became friends. Strange as it may seem by today’s standards, Lancing College was rare at the time since it had broken a centuries old tradition of segregated, privileged, private education and introduced the opposite sex into the sixth form of a boys’ public school. The girls had their own purpose built house, Manor, set well away from the male domains that constituted the majority of the school, but happily close to the darkroom. Photographing the girls there was to become my first published story with Jane gracing my first cover. I’m glad to say, that after all this time and despite my 17-year-old tongue being glued to the roof of my mouth then, we are still friends. With a wry smile, she reminded me of late that throughout our shared school days, I couldn’t see for looking despite being constantly glued to a camera.
The man on the Metropolitan line. Near Harrow-on-the-Hill, 1982
June Marsh, the magazine’s fashion editor, was unusual in that she was happy to give newcomers like myself a chance. A freezing January day, this was one of the earlier fashion shoots that defined my ‘style’, which usually involved people moving fast and random things caught in mid air, much to hairdressers’ and stylists’ consternation. A few frames later, the Dalmatian took over and dragged Amanda through the hedge. Funnily enough, Country Life wasn’t so keen on that image.
The Circus shoot. Fashion. 1991
Even though the project Idols+Believers was about the nature of fame and not a celebrity book, photographs of celebrities and the famous had to work in a context that informed the overall idea. The crowds in the background of the Cannes film festival, was good ground for that. I’d been working there for myself that year, but a photo-editor friend had helped organise a press pass so access to some of the bigger events became easier. More often than not though, the public Croisette would provide the requisite theatre for picture taking. One evening, another friend, photographer Richard Young, invited Helena Roman, my actress date, and I to the Hotel du Cap at Eden Roc for a drink and to do some celebrity spotting (cameras are strictly forbidden in this most exclusive of ‘A’ list hotels). Away from the mêlée that is Cannes, the hotel is a haven of old European elegance and tranquillity in the Côte d’Azur. Even so, the hubbub of transatlantic voices echoed from the marbled interior as a Hollywood drinks party was in full swing. We watched over our martinis, as Antonio Banderas sat uncomfortably whilst Melanie Griffiths fended off smarmy PR types. With a click of his fingers, she jumped up, trailing behind him as they left, flouncing up the stairs. In another corner, a large male, folds of sweaty neck rippling over his collar, loomed over a slight woman. His body language reeked of discontent. As they turned around and she pushed away, hands up as if she wouldn’t be held responsible for what she might say or do to him, Angelina Jolie stalked off, distain and veiled anger clouding her features, leaving a blank faced Harvey Weinstein behind her. As Helena, Richard and I drank in this bizarre scene-from-a-movie tableau of everyday Hollywood folk, another elegant woman caught my eye. As I smiled at her, Uma Thurman, resplendent in a white t-shirt and jeans, smiled back beatifically and seeing my companion gave a slight pout, then a loaded, conspiratorial wink. T
Millie and Mrs Ansell, The Bon Accord Nursing Home, Hove. 1983
Always known by her surname, Flanagan was Gangsters Moll No.1 (to plagiarise the title of the British crime movie of the time). Brought up in London’s Finsbury Park, her mother knew the family of the notorious Kray twins on the other side of town in the East End’s Bethnal Green. A former glamour model, she swiftly gravitated to her generation of bad boys whose spurious credibility led directly to the underworld gangs of sixties Britain. She had been great friends with Reggie and Ronnie, the Richardson brothers, Fred Foreman, Joe Pyle, and Tony Lambrianou, and when I met her, she had become equally close to the next generation of UK villains. As fate would have it, she had also been very fond of the young Don McCullin from their mutual teenage stamping ground of North London. So when I suggested photographing her for the book, she bridled. She knew the kind of work I was doing was in the tradition of the great McCullin, and no way would she allow me to photograph her ‘naturally,’ but she would grant a sitting at her home if she could pose in full makeup and wearing her favourite fur. I couldn’t have planned it any better if I’d tried. ©Jocelyn Bain Hogg/VII
Walking in the distance with Ally the designer, and also modelling for this shoot, is Percy Savage, my first real mentor who taught me so much about photographing fashion and, especially, about understanding the value of beauty in imagery. Having left his Australian roots far behind him, Percy had been one of the first fashion PRs in 1950’s Paris, where he was known to walk his two leopards, gifted by Haile Selassie, around the Bois de Boulogne. Rumour has it that Dior named Eau Sauvage after the man. Having known him, I choose to believe this. This was also the day that Lydia, a refugee from Sarajevo, was hurled into a totally alien environment in every possible way on her first foray into the world of fashion and the peculiarities of that most English of games, French cricket.
Henrietta was someone I photographed regularly who was quite prepared to do more as a model than to just strike a pose. Clients notwithstanding, I would aim to cast those who understood that I wasn’t interested in photographing anyone who could only appear smacked-out and sullen, the prevalent fashion look at the time. I preferred working with those who could input emotion and personality. An aptitude for wrangling random dogs and running down the street with them at speed was also helpful although not a prerequisite. I did however put my new assistant French Franck (to distinguish him from English Frank, the location van driver) through the ringer that day. Yelling ‘faster’ as he breathlessly hauled me, perched behind in a wheelchair photographing whilst vainly trying to keep the camera still, we hared over cobbled streets apace with the runners, teeth and bones rattling. Unsurprisingly it was Franck’s and my first and last shoot together.
Working on this project, I felt strongly about responding to whom I was with and photographing in as non- judgemental a way as possible. Having preconceived ideas will readily negate any sense of spontaneity or real understanding. My only experience of London’s organised crime was watching The Long Good Friday, Villain and Get Carter like the rest of the nation, and the only ‘heavies’ I’d met were guarding nightclub doors. It’s an easy temptation to believe that because people do bad things they themselves are inherently bad. Perhaps they are, but it is absolutely not my place to make that call. I’m neither a psychologist nor a criminologist but a photographer and my own experiences of being judged on first sight without knowledge always ring in my head. Another assumption that many have made is that these large, tattooed, shaven headed men, who could conceivably be taken for the smartly dressed big brothers of the generic British football thug, are preternaturally disposed to racism. Dave Courtney, white going on high-blood-pressure- scarlet, was married to Jenny, a West Indian Londoner and this was the funeral of her younger brother John, dead too soon at 21. I was reminded by one of the men in this picture that there was no racism in crime. Black or white, the men and women of the underworld were as one. The only societal group they were all against were the police.
Teddy put it best when he said he was a ‘cousin’ of the family. A former boxer and boxing trainer he was the Pyle family’s link between the West Indian Yardies and the homegrown firms. We met when I went back into the underworld having been asked to photograph British youth. I wondered whether any of the villains from my first book could shed light on the growing issue of teenage gun and knife gangs in London, or better still introduce me to any members. That idea was immediately trounced when after my 8-year hiatus, I was invited back to an evening of un-licensed boxing at Caesar’s Palace nightclub in Streatham, by Young Joey Pyle, who’d taken over the business after the death of his father Big Joe Pyle in 2007. Joe, a formidable presence, had cemented many previously fragmented UK families and was to all intents and purposes, the Capo. His passing also timed with the major influx of varied Eastern European mafias into London. Young Joey managed a successful music and sports promotion business and transferred to the affluent Home Counties, an area of the UK where ageing pop stars and members of Chelsea Football Club enjoyed their mansions. When I described the Pyles as the Sopranos of Surrey, he just smiled ruefully. As for any knowledge or information about knife wielding hoodies, Joey was scathing about their public acts of stupid violence, which was so beneath his codes of conduct it was absurd that he should have any contact with such ‘wankers’… That first night back at Caesar’s Palace, I was welcomed as an old friend but there were a few new faces I hadn’t met before. ‘Take a picture of us’, they yelled, posing, hands raised, knuckle- dusters clamped on meaty fingers. That was the start of another five-year book project that took up where The Firm left off, but this time, looking at one family in depth at a very different juncture in the history of Britain’s criminal underworld. The work about British youth would eventually become a
This image remained unseen until recently, when I looked back over the contact sheets of the thousands of frames that this nine year personal project entailed. Luckily I come from a photographic discipline where throwing out film or deleting out takes is anathema. On reflection, the harsh look at the world of the fans, the famous, their handlers and future presidents that became Idols+Believers, signalled the culture of selfies and self-aggrandisement that we are enmeshed in today. Now celebrity privacy dictates and demands for ownership of image rights render my kind of reportage photography almost impossible. Even in the late 1990s, early 2000s it was a task to photograph ‘the talent’ without their publicists’ agreement. One way was to work for an established publication, thus guaranteeing the PRs and their clients the requisite coverage. I approached UK Marie Claire with a proposal to photograph the Oscars and happily they said yes. Having already bared my Scottishness to Joan Rivers, the Oscar’s host that year, my presence at the after party may have been rescinded by the editor of the magazine (flown in from London), for fear of further embarrassment. Instead, I was relegated to the serried ranks of snappers, standing outside the event, and only able to photograph the stars gurning to the flashing cameras in front of branded signage. I did what the magazine required and photographed a few well dressed actresses, but the better opportunity was to crane my neck the other way and watch the exit. And there he was, a TV reality host and his model wife cutting a swathe through the obsequious greeters wishing them a good evening and forlornly hoping for a tip. I look forward one day to including this picture and others in a new remix of Idols+Believers – the Trumped Up Version.
Another ensemble shoot that employed most of my actor friends, my birth father, two supermodels and Percy Savage again. This was conceivably a pinnacle in my fashion photography career. Aside from our guest cast who acted their thespian socks off, Heather had an extraordinary presence. I’d been lucky to photograph her frequently so we had become close. Although British by birth, she had made her name in Paris where she was fêted as a star. Claudia, also on the highest rung of the fashion ladder and Heather’s best friend, had an equally striking demeanour. I didn’t know then but it was to be one of my last published fashion features. Prophetically we had based the idea for this on a gangster’s wake, calling it Black Widows. Several months afterwards, I began The Firm and almost a decade later, Heather featured strongly in my second book on the nature of fame, Idols+ Believers.
This was a test shoot in that there was no actual client, but it was for portfolio material: for the model, the stylist, the hair and make-up artist and me. Fashion photography, unlike documentary, is essentially teamwork and the photographer is only as good as those working with him or her. Lucy was brilliant to work with and was almost at a level with myself being over 6 foot tall. Training to be an architect, modelling helped pay her way through college. At that height, she personified grace and floated with aplomb in this very, very long, couture dress. Quite unlike my own lack of elegance on the day, leaning out of the sun roof of my assistant Declan’s banana coloured Citröen 2CV with the camera to garner extra perspective.
My first assignment as I approached my last term at boprding school was as additional stills photographer on producer David Puttnam's film, "Ptang Yang Kipperbang". Directed by Michael Apted and written by Jack Rosenthal,. This was a dream come true for a schoolboy and was the start of my career. 1981
Amy juggles plums on Portobello road. Fashion 'test' 1988.
The Jubilee Line near Canary Wharf, E14
Hanover Square, W1
Jane posing for a portrait on Brighton beach, 1981
Young British holiday makers in the Escape Club, Laganas, Zante. “I love going clubbing here. It’s much better than home. The birds are proper fit and everyone’s more relaxed and you can party all night!” Jason, 19 from Southport, Merseyside.
Glyndebourne Opera
6am in the Coco Loco bar at Manumission and as dawn breaks, the party continues. Transexual Mercedes sits on the bar and enjoys the attentions of a tourist whilst Polly, tattoed and with a wedding veil, watches the proceedings of the out-of-it partygoers. Started in the early nineties at the onset of rave culture, Manumission is the largest weekly party in the world. It is also one of the longest running. Fourteen years of drug fuelled, sex riddled excess in Privilege, the world’s biggest nightclub, in the centre of the Island of Ibiza, the party capital of the world. Manumission encapsulated and flew the flag of the hedonistic dream. Hot summer nights of scantily clad girls of all nationalities, pulsating dance beats, sordid sex with a theatrical twist topped up with cupitos, red bull and vodka, ecstasy, coke and cannabis. ‘Freedom from slavery’ was the ethos of 90’s club culture and not surprisingly the Latin-derived Manumission, meaning “to manumit”, was soon known as the worlds most infamous club night. In 2007 Manumission moved venues and is now held in Amnesia.
'Bubbleman'. The grreen fields, Glastonbury festival 1992
Port Eliot Festival 2016
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Jocelyn Bain Hogg

Contributing Photographer

Jocelyn Bain Hogg (b. 1962, UK) is an urbane, dignified and elegant thinker who takes visual risks and defies categorization in a country that likes to categorize. He has six monographs to his name. Embedded with gangsters and villains, he produced arguably the most intimate and revealing portraits of a criminal gang ever. Bain Hogg’s documentary projects on British gangsters are part of the canon of photography and are published in two volumes, The Firm and The Family.

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