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Debra
DEBORAH MAILMAN
ACTOR
Deborah Mailman has an uncomplicated
‘girl next door’ reputation and it’s deserved.
When she arrived at Sydney’s Observatory
Hotel for a magazine photo shoot however,
photographer Carlotta Moye wanted more.
“I wanted to capture something of who she is
on the inside; she has a radiance and energy,”
says Moye who also determined to capture
Mailman’s enigmatic glamour. “I was reminded
of the incredibly sexy, yet unobtainable beauty
of the movie stars of the 30s. That look was
perfect for Deb: she has this accessibility while
also keeping something hidden. You just have
to look at those eyes – there’s a story there.”
Photo: Carlotta Moye
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Rachel
RACHEL WARD
ACTOR, WRITER,
FUNDRAISER
A woman of “veiled strength” is how portrait
virtuoso Lorrie Graham describes actor Bryan
Brown’s wife, actress, writer, philanthropist
and mother of three, Rachel Ward. Sinking
languidly into a sofa in her Whale Beach home
for a magazine profile, the English-born beauty,
says Graham, was as comfy in her own skin as
the well-worn furniture in her unpretentious
home. “Rachel has no need to accentuate her
beauty,” says Graham. “It’s clear that other
things, like family, are far more important to
her.” And Ward is the feisty matriarch. “There’s
a calmness there,” Graham muses, “but there’s
also a very strong backbone.”
Photo: Lorrie Graham
Delta
CATE BLANCHETT
SINGER
STAR
“I didn’t know a thing about Delta before I
took this picture,” confesses Carlotta Moye of
the image she took for the then teenager’s
debut CD, Innocent Eyes. Half an hour after
the session began however, Moye felt like
she’d known Delta all her life. “She just kept
getting more and more beautiful as I shot.”
Photographed prior to Goodrem’s diagnosis of
Hodgkin’s disease (a cancer of the lymphatic
system), the singer was bubbly and energetic
on the day. “I backlit her because I wanted
her to look ethereal; then, at one point, she
lifted her arms and I caught this wonderful
moment.” Moye considers it unlikely that she’d
recapture that innocence again. “It was one of
those rare, fleeting moments at the beginning
of a journey,” the photographer muses, “when
everything seems possible.”
Photo: Carlotta Moye
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Cate
DELTA GOODREM
“If you look at the different parts of Cate’s
face separately, she’s not beautiful, but the
sum of those parts – luminous!” exclaims
photographer Graham, loath to use such a
clichéd description for her subject, but finding
no better word. Graham said she found the
actor a dream to shoot, despite the lateness of
the day, the awful hotel room location, and the
rapidly fading light. “She was neither difficult
nor prissy, rather she struck me as being
extremely well-grounded,” Graham recalls.
“Also, Cate’s intelligence adds to her beauty
– she has a beauty that glows from within.”
Photo: Lorrie Graham
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Elizabeth
MARGARET OLLEY
SOPHIE MONK
MONARCH
ARTIST
SINGER
Snapping celebrities is no sweat for
photographer Polly Borland, but she was
starstruck when she stood before the Queen.
“Here I was a metre from her; it was a surreal
moment,” she says of the London studio shoot.
Borland was told that her close proximity to
the monarch was unprecedented “No one had
got the camera that close before, or used such
strong lights,” she laughs. “HRH walked out
saying, ‘I think you’ve blinded me’.” Borland
had barely five minutes to get the picture,
commissioned for the Golden Jubilee and
published in the Sunday Times magazine,
but she was immediately struck by HRH’s
elegance. “She seemed really glamorous,”
Borland recalls. “She had the aura of a very
wealthy woman, which you don’t usually pick
up in photographs of her.”
Photo: Polly Borland
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Margaret
HM QUEEN ELIZABETH II
She may be an octogenarian, but that wouldn’t
slow down acclaimed artist Margaret Olley.
“She’s a sprite,” laughs photographer Graham
who found it hard to pin down her subject for
this portrait. “Margaret cooked lunch during
the photo session and we dined in the midst
of this beautiful chaos. Every surface in the
house was covered with objects and lots and
lots of vases filled with flowers; Margaret kept
disappearing into the thick of it.” The still life
painter is more than mischievous, Graham
confides, she also has a sharp tongue. “She
calls a spade a spade,” Graham confides.
“Margaret takes no prisoners.”
Photo: Lorrie Graham
Sophie
Photographer Carlotta Moye says that she
first met Sophie Monk at a shoot for girl group
Bardot and has since “shot that girl inside out,
upside down and back to front”. Moye recalls
the blonde bombshell was “a little insecure
back then, hiding behind the other girls in
the photo.” What a difference a solo career
makes. When Monk was approached by FHM
magazine, she insisted that Moye take the
shots. “I felt quite protective of her,” admits
the photographer. “I didn’t want her to look like
a hooker.” They eschewed the neon coloured
push-up bras suggested by the magazine, and
created a 60s siren instead. “I love the fact that
she looks cherubic in those pictures,” say Moye
of her favourite subject, who these days has
nothing to hide.
Photo: Carlotta Moye
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Rebecca
SHIRLEY HAZZARD
ACTOR
AUTHOR
“Rebecca’s life experiences have humbled
her,” says photographer Juli Balla who was
photographing the television star for an
Australian Women’s Weekly story on the actor’s
traumatic childhood. “She was delightful,” says
Balla, who found the actor had not only come
to terms with her difficult past, she had most
definitely moved on. “She’s an Amazonian
woman,” says the admiring photographer.
“She has not only survived, there is a sense of
triumph at overcoming adversity.” Balla tried
to capture some of Gibney’s strength and spirit
in her portrait and felt she succeeded. “You can
see how serene the actor is,” she says. “She
has very little ego.”
Photo: Juli Balla
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Shirley
REBECCA GIBNEY
“Shirley Hazzard is a bit like Audrey Hepburn:
she has a timeless elegance all of her own,”
says Graham who found it hard to drag herself
away from the talk of politics, literature and
social events that peppered the conversation
in Hazzard’s New York apartment the day
the photo was taken. Shooting the portrait
before Hazzard’s husband and greatest love,
writer Francis Steegmuller’s death, Graham
found Hazzard’s prim, precise, put-together
look belied the most unnerving intelligence.
“She was charming and quite serene,” Graham
recalls of the 2004 Miles Franklin award
winner, “but it was clear her mind was like a
steel trap.”
Photo: Lorrie Graham