Tonight:
5°c
Portrait by Rankin: the star is you
Louise Jury11 Feb 2009
He has photographed the world's most beautiful women and powerful men.
And this week, in a freezing-cold warehouse in east London, Rankin turned his lens on a less possessing subject. Me.
I had agreed to be a guinea-pig-cum-publicist for his next giant project called Rankin Live - an exhibition of 1,000 ordinary men and women to take place for charity in August.
In mammoth photo-shoots of up to 60 subjects a day, he aims to build a photographic portrait of Britain.
Which was how, I, an embarrassed photographic subject at the best of times, found myself in the hands of hairdresser Gow Tanaka and make-up artist Charlotte Cave who began the transformation from tired hack to diva (or as close as I am ever going to get).
I suppose the kind of camera-loving people Rankin is looking for are more specific than "something from Boots" when quizzed on choice of moisturiser.
But Ms Cave gamely splashed on the Crème de la Mer and kindly compared me to a young Catherine Deneuve.
Mr Tanaka tentatively asked if he could trim my somewhat wild tresses.
(For yes, even my byline picture is misleading, taken as it was when I arrived at the Evening Standard with a new-job haircut.)
Taking a seat for the tail-end of the pampering, Rankin admitted mounting the show would be a challenge.
But he said: "I wanted to do it because the technology is now there. It's something I've probably been waiting for, when you can achieve really incredible results very, very quickly and just be able to do a live exhibition.
"It really appealed to me as live entertainment, a live photographer being a showman and getting the immediate reaction as if you were a performer."
For those selected, he promises the full photo-shoot experience which the public will be allowed to watch.
Thankfully I had no audience, and I loved the results.
The chosen 1,000 get their chance of a transformation at the Truman Brewery in Brick Lane in August.
Rankin also plans to display some of his images of Kate Moss, Tony Blair and the Queen as well as portraits he took for Oxfam in the Congo last year.
