Talented Gareth Cattermole doesn’t look like he’s been a Getty Images photographer for over 20 years. He looks far too young. Maybe the job isn’t as stressful or ageing as I thought, but early into our interview he confirms that he was a mere youth when he started. “I was very young and with hair!” he laughs. “Yes, it’s 20 years at Getty Images, it will be 21 in January, and I was with another agency three years before that, so I started very young, which is quite unheard of now.” By that, Gareth means he was one of the last agency photographers to begin when film was king and his early days were spent as an office junior trainee. “Not an apprenticeship,” he explains, “but it was that sweeping the darkroom floor type of thing. There are very different ways into it now.”
At high school, young Gareth wasn’t academically inclined; he struggled at his studies, not realizing at the time that he was dyslexic. Fortunately, when his art teacher introduced him to photography, he suddenly saw a way forward. “It made me realize that there were other options that didn’t involve going to university, so straight off the bat I said I wanted to be a photographer.” Which is exactly what happened, even if it did mean he had to sweep the darkroom floor…
You excel at many types of photography, so is that variety a reflection of your curiosity?
I say this – and some people think I say this while expecting praise, which I’m not – but I always find issues with my work. I can look at any picture of mine and find fault in it all the time.
So you’re hypercritical about the pictures you produce?
Oh yes! You’re almost never going
