FEATURE:
A Missed Opportunity
Kate Bush: The Getty Files
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I am excited…
that there is a new Kate Bush photobook out. Finding Kate is an illustrated history and look at her music and songs. We get her songs represented by unique and incredible illustrations. It is a book that every Kate Bush fan will want to own:
“In 1978 a then totally unknown teenage girl topped the UK Singles Chart with her debut single Wuthering Heights and in doing so became the first female artist to achieve a UK number one hit with a self-penned song. In 1980, aged 20 she was also the first British female solo artist to to enter the album charts at number one with Never For Ever, her third studio album. Her career currently spans five decades and she has had twenty five UK Top 40 singles in that time. As a singer, songwriter, musician, dancer and record producer she has been a groundbreaking artist in the truest sense of the word, often laying bare her soul in her songwriting and she is someone who has never been afraid to take risks creatively.
Finding Kate is a large, beautifully produced coffee table book that sets out to visually and textually explore her eclectic and often experimental musical style, her unconventional lyrics and in doing so celebrate the genius of one of the true icons of British music – Ms. Kate Bush”.
I am going to keep this relatively short. I have been researching a lot recently for a possible Kate Bush podcast. In the course of reading, I have been looking at photos. There are a few from 1993 that are magnificent. There is a series by John Stoddart (search ‘Kate Bush 1993 John Stoddart’), and you will see these great shots. Bush looks gorgeous! They are quite simple, yet she looks such classy and enigmatic. 1993 was a year where she released The Red Shoes. I like a lot of the photos from that time. There are many others that have not been presented in features or made available in books as they are owned by Getty Images. This is a press agency that owns all these great photos of Kate Bush. One can buy them individually, though they are very expensive - you can use certain ones with the credit/watermark on. The seven shots I can see that were taken in October 1993 are among the best I have seen. There are also some great shots of Bush in 1985 when she was promoting Hounds of Love. Taken by Dave Hogan, Bush, again, looks wonderful! It is a shame that I cannot put any of these images into the feature without watermarks, though I have been able to embed them. I can understand how the photographers and Getty do not want the images used by anyone for free. The public would love to see these images that have not seen the light of day for many years. I especially love the 1993 images, though there are some from as early as 1978 that are hugely interesting. We have photobooks by the likes of John Carder Bush (her brother) that we can buy. These are his shots that are very personal. In contrast, the ones we see from Getty Images have been used in newspapers and magazines.
Looking back after all of these years, they do provide snapshots of Bush at various points in her career. I am not sure how many are available, but looking at shots like this makes you wonder why they are not readily available. I hope that there is some way a book can be created and published so that Getty Images can be readily available so that the photographers earn a cut and they are credited. Fans can see the images online, though there is something about having them available in a book that makes it that much more special. So many great images that the public might not be aware of. Kate Bush fans would definitely buy the book! I do wonder where a lot of these Getty Images photos ended up. I guess some were for interviews, though many might have ended up not being used. One cannot say that there are too many photobooks of Kate Bush available. I think it is an area that should be exploited more. We have only really scratched the surface when it comes to all of the beautiful and really interesting photos of her out there. Maybe there would be too many legal issues though, seeing the Getty Images shots of her, it makes me feel there is a book in it. Some classic shots that will otherwise languish, it is a shame if they were only reserved for media use and did not get collected in a handsome volume. Even if a hardback book costed quite a bit, I do feel that it would…
BE well worth the money