november-2010

15 YEARS | MARY MCCARTNEY
Clockwise from here, Sir Ian
McKellen; Stella McCartney;
Dame Helen Mirren; Tracey Emin
as Frida Kahlo; pearly kings;
previous page, Kate Moss; next
page, Dame Vivienne Westwood
“I HAVE A
SHOOT TODAY,
SO I HOPE
you don’t mind that I’ll be packing cameras
into bags as we talk,” says a cheerful Mary
McCartney, “but this is a good time to
chat,” she reassures me. You might expect
the daughter of a Beatle and the sister of a
top fashion designer to be guarded around
strangers, but there’s nothing prickly about
McCartney. She is bright and breezy and
chuckles frequently.
Her fi rst book, a career-spanning
collection of photographs called From
Where I Stand, is about to be published
and McCartney is buzzing about it: “It’s
great to fi nally have a book to show people;
86 | TRAVELLER | 15 TH BIRTHDAY ISSUE
I’ve never had that before. Now I can give it
as a gift: ‘Here’s my book, have it!’”
Mary McCartney was born in 1969, the
fi rst child of Beatle Paul and photographer
Linda. She was named after her paternal
grandmother (who inspired the song Let It
Be), and as a baby she stared out at the
world from the cover of her father’s solo
album McCartney, tucked inside his coat.
From Where I Stand draws on all the
photos McCartney has taken over the last 15
years, “so it was hard choosing which images
wouldn’t make it in,” she laughs. “It might
seem like a lot of photos, but there are also
favourites that aren’t in there. I kept saying,
‘Can’t we just make it a bit longer?’ I had to
get the fl ow right as well, because I included
all the different types of images: work for
commissions, portraits, my exhibited works,
and my personal photos of my family.”
It would be a tough enough task for any
photographer, but it’s complicated further
for McCartney by the fact that her family
snaps are also celebrity portraits. Paul is
shown in private moments at home, while
Stella looks at ease showing off her pregnant
belly or riding her horse at the family farm
in Sussex.
McCartney’s family presumably fi nd it
far easier to be photographed by her than by
anyone else. “Defi nitely... because I’m family,
but for me, it’s almost the opposite! I fi nd it
far harder to photograph people who I know
well than people I don’t.”
Many of her pictures celebrate British
identity and eccentricity. The book