Behind the Lens with Douglas Corrance

Edinburgh clothes seller “Madame Doubtfire” had a formidable reputation and the expression to match. So I knew there was a striking image just waiting to be taken. I was also aware that if I didn’t get it, it would be my fault. All the material was there: not only Madame Doubtfire’s expression, but the fact that, at just the right moment, one of her cats jumped up to sit beside her. It was the 1970s, pre-digital, and I had an anxious wait until the film was processed to see if I had captured it.

If the name Madame Doubtfire sounds familiar, it is because it was the inspiration behind Anne Fine’s best-selling 1987 novel, which was later adapted for the screen as Mrs Doubtfire, starring Robin Williams. The real-life inspiration was actually called Annabella Coutts. She lived in a basement in Edinburgh with a coterie of 30 cats, and across her shopfront were scrawled the words “Madame Doubtfire”.

The shopfront was so untidy that while I was photographing Madame Doubtfire, she was engaged in good-natured banter with a local constable, who was using great diplomacy to persuade her to tidy up. “I’ve known him since he was a bairn,” she later told me. It was clear that he had respect and affection for her.

The space is now a much smarter art gallery. Back then it provided an interesting backdrop for our work. To compose a photograph, you have to be able to take in every detail of the scene in front of you and ensure that the shapes in the foreground balance. I also like to consider how figures relate, or not, to their environment.

I am actually a photographer by accident. I was fifteen when I took my first published picture. It has stood the test of time, and has even been accepted, along with several others, into the Scottish National Galleries’ permanent collection. It is now such an automatic thing for me to carry a camera that I never leave the house without one, and some of my favourite shots have been taken close to home. Photography has earned me a living for the last 58 years, and I have enjoyed great freedom working across press, advertising and tourism photography.

I’m not in search of the Holy Grail of photography, nor to imbue my work with a message. At the forefront of my mind is capturing a satisfying composition that balances all the elements. As long as you know how to notice them, images can be found anywhere – sometimes where you least expect them.

But back to Madame Doubtfire. There was, as I said, an anxious wait at the light-box as I went through 36 exposures. Initially the film looked fine: the first lot through the loupe was sharp, even though the cat had moved. But in another Madame Doubtfire wasn’t quite right. Then there it was – the one in which everything was just right. Only now could my breathing return to normal. With digital photography you don’t suffer this uncomfortable suspense. For that reason alone, I’d never want to return to using film again.

words & photography // Douglas Corrance