HOWZAT

Profits from Rankin Live! will go to Oxfam. The idea came to him while he was shooting in a refugee camp in Congo, also for Oxfam.

It reminded him, he says, of the importance of shooting people as people. You can watch him, with his subjects, extracting life stories. Just before me, he shoots Anisa Doha, a 37-year-old Muslim who lost her youngest son two years ago. When they finish, they hug, and he wipes his eyes. No half-measures here.

“It’s the angle he captures,” she had said to me, beforehand. “He looks at people differently. He sees something in you that you might not even see in yourself. He has this amazing talent, to bring out the part of you that dreams of you.” Here’s hoping, I thought.

It’s the sort of thing, anyway, that Rankin would like to hear. He seems hungry for depth. “I don’t know if my portraiture is twisted enough,” he says, over that beer. “I’d love to do something less… positive. I look at other people’s work, and I think, God, that really means something. Socially. Culturally. Historically. And then I look at mine and think, well, I just do these friendly photos. Which are really… nice.”

He talks about fashion as though it were an addiction. The thing about the very best models, he says, is that even when they’re being fake, there’s still something real there. “The Kate Mosses, the Heidi Klums and the Giseles,” he says. “They always give you something of themselves. They can be anybody for anybody, but they can always be themselves. It’s strange.”

So, that’s what I’m hoping for. To be anybody for anybody, but also myself. Rankin has me straddle a chair, like Christine Keeler. “Look through the camera,” he says. “Speak to me with your eyes.”

He’s surprised that I’m married, he says, as he shoots away. Didn’t notice the ring before. Didn’t think I was the married type. Not gay, just a bit more wild. How old am I now? 32. He was wild at 32. God yes. Married, too, sure, but crazy. He’s getting married again, in a couple of weeks. Can’t quite believe it’s true. And how long have you been married? Two years? And how long have you been together? Since you were 19? Wow. Never cheated? Never even been tempted? Any kids? Just the one? Four months? Must be knackered, mate.

Intrusive questions, sure. With half a dozen other people right next to us, all the more so. But you answer, and like the best sort of interviewer, he pulls the personality out of you. He wants to see my teeth at first because they’re gappy, sort of like Madonna’s. In the photo we end up with, though, I’m covering my mouth. Looking at it makes me remember what Anisa Doha said, about Rankin seeing something in you that you might not see yourself. This is a portrait of a knackered, secretly quite timid, happily married new dad. Not so rock and roll as I’d like to pretend, but I can’t say I mind. You think Lindsay Lohan could pull off a look like that? No chance.

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