For 25 years of my life, if you had asked what I was, I would have replied: ‘A photographer’. I started off as a professional way back in the 60s, after a brief career as a journalist, specialising in theatre, dance opera and photojournalism. Despite my life being hijacked by Theatre – I founded South Africa’s first non-racial, professional theatre/arts venue – The Space – in Cape Town in 1972 – I continued to kid myself that I was, first and foremost, a photographer. It was only after I moved to London with my wife, Yvonne Bryceland – South Africa’s greatest actor – that I discovered that I was not a photographer. Nor was I a theatre director. I was a teacher. Discovering your real vocation in life is a precious thing. I started teaching young actors, directors and writers.
Along the way I finally gave up my darkroom – all those dried out chemicals, the boxes of unused paper…. I also lost faith in myself as a photographer.
Brian Astbury Photography 