Photographer Profile: Andy Summers

At 15, former Police guitarist Andy Summers was an art- film groupie devouring the works of Bergman, Truffaut, Fellini et al, without knowing why he was drawn to them. As the versatile artist tells Iain Blair, looking back, he reckons it was the raw emotion of monochrome that got him and, through his revered photography, he’s still exploring its melancholic magic

Legendary Police guitarist Andy Summers has always been a multi-faceted artist – a musician, songwriter, composer, filmmaker, author and photographer. And photography has always been inextricably entwined with his music – after all, as a rock star, he constantly found himself pursued by photographers and their lenses, both onstage as The Police rose to world domination and off stage as the subject of endless interviews, photo sessions and candid behind-the-scenes coverage.

But, ever restless and ever curious, like any artist, Summers wasn’t content to just sit there and pose for the camera. Armed with a Nikon FE he soon turned the lens on everything around him – the lonely, luxury hotel suites, the desperate fans, the dislocation of life on the road. “I’d always been interested in photography, and when I was 14 or 15 I had a job as a beach photographer,” he recalls. “But it was the late 70s when I started really getting into it – and getting really obsessed with creating images while I was on the road, and as I was spending so much time in America, it afforded me a lot of opportunities. I read tons of photography books and made these lists of photos I loved and the artists behind them – people like Man Ray, Cartier-Bresson, Robert Frank, Diane Arbus, Lee Friedlander.”

Man Ray and the surrealists in particular were “a big influence and inspiration. I was very interested in his photographs and I took a lot of surrealistic shots, especially in hotels. So in addition to shooting the band, I’d create these weird compositions, like a miniature frogman swimming around in my hotel shower, or toys on naked girls. I would have plenty of spare time sitting around hotel rooms, and I’d come up with all these ideas. So I was having a lot of fun with it, but I was also working at the craft of it all the time.”

Wherever the band played, Summers would wander the streets in the wee hours, “just taking tons of pictures and experimenting with different lenses, angles and light – and because we toured the world, I was able to shoot everywhere, from Tokyo and Cairo, to Bali and LA. It was sort of like my own personal photography school.” Since then, he estimates he’s taken “many tens of thousands of photos – and most of them with my Leicas. The moment I started using a Leica it felt so natural in my hand, and I loved the rangefinder system [laser-guided distance determination], and everything became far more refined.”

Summers currently shoots with the digital black-and-white Leica M Monochrom, “which I love – you can see the image on the back and correct it there, and the new M Monochrom [Typ 246] is incredible.”

He’s always been a huge fan of monochrome, saying, “to me, photography’s always been black and white. When it’s colour, it’s something else, like taking holiday snaps. Colour mimics reality, obviously, and you don’t see the world in black and white, but the rendering of it that way makes it more powerful and gives it more emotional resonance. I don’t know why it is. Maybe it’s because it’s more reductive, in the way it reduces the world to these graphic images.”

He also traces his love affair with black and white to his teenage years and movies. “I became a film buff at an early age – 15 or so – when I’d go and see all the art house films by Bergman, Jean-Pierre Melville, Federico Fellini, François Truffaut, and the whole French New Wave cinema,” he explains. “To me they were very powerful, and although I probably couldn’t have articulated why at that age, looking back I realise that all the films were in black and white. So I sat there in the dark, watching these magical images, and then, much later in life, I think I was trying to recreate that emotional feeling and the longing I had for them.”

With all this in mind, Summers has embarked on many globe-trotting photographic expeditions in recent years, ranging from Latin America and Africa to Asia, including seven trips to China alone in the past couple of years. “They’re serious trips to me, and I always shoot black and white,” he says. “If I start trying to do it in colour, I get confused; it puts me off a bit. Sometimes I will take a little point-and-shoot and take some colour, just because I’m in Thailand or China or India, and it’s all so colourful. But the serious stuff, when I’m trying to make a powerful photograph, is always with the Leica Monochrome.”

It’s only when he’s on these photographic odysseys to exotic foreign climes that he has time for his photography: “Often I have to be in very out-of-the-way places, such as western China. To be honest, when I’m back home in LA, I’m usually so busy with my music and projects and life in general that I don’t have the time. So it’s a great thrill to go to a place like Tibet, like I did last year, and travel around just exploring and taking photographs. And usually I’m alone. It’s difficult when you’re with someone, as they don’t move at the same pace. I find I walk very purposefully, with the eye of my mind wide open.”

He published his first book of photographs, Throb, in 1983, and since then has produced four more, with another on the way featuring his travels in China. His work has also featured in close to 40 exhibitions in galleries and museums around the world – his show Del Mondo recently opened the new Leica Gallery in São Paolo. Another show is scheduled to open in Rio early next year.

Never one to sit still for too long, Summers is also contemplating directing his first film and says he’s also open to doing commercials. “If it was a very imaginative, off-the-wall idea I’d love to do one,” he adds. “That’s the key for me in anything creative. It’s got to have that unique sound or look that captures me.”