Atlantica - 01.09.2003, Page 16

14 A T L A N T I C A
'The Last Temptation of Christ', from Time Out London's photo series The Seven Deadly Sins.
lonely master of a shiny, angular domin-
ion – that was his ticket to the top.
TIMING IS KING
“All of a sudden, when Thatcher came into
power in the ’80s, I was the one.” Griffin is
still wide-eyed at his sudden rise to fame
20 years ago. “Business was sexy; busi-
ness was fashionable. I had started a new
way of seeing that world, and I was the big
boy on the block.”
This big boy was creating a genre out of
the conference tables and office buildings
that had only been his bread and butter
months before, getting paid a handsome
salary for its creation. On a commissioned
project photographing the construction of
Broadgate in London, Griffin admits he
had “massive money. I lit Broadgate three
times.” – an endeavour equal to lighting,
say, Wall Street. “I had money coming out
of my ears to do what I wanted.”
Well, that was the ‘80s. Though the capital
today may not be rolling in like it did in the
days of Lagerfeld and Dynasty, the work
rolls and rolls and rolls. Having taken ten
years off from photography to work in film
and video, Griffin has jumped back into
the craft with a vengeance. At the time of
print, he has just done a portrait of British
artist Damian Hearst, and has appoint-
ments to do the same with fashion design-
er Paul Smith and Scottish rock export
Travis. Griffin has also recently completed
a project for his hometown of
Birmingham, in which he photographed
the city’s “movers and shakers” for its bid
for European City of Culture 2008.
Now that Iceland will be his home 40 per
cent of the time, he’s gearing up to tackle a
similar project here. He plans to shoot 40
portraits of 40 Icelanders, “from the
President to the fishermen to Mr. and Mrs.
Joe Blogs”. The body of work is already
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