Behind the Lens: NYT’s Nobby Clark and Life in Theatre Photography

By Elizabeth McCafferty

“There’s no such thing as becoming a great photographer, right? It’s the same as saying there’s no such thing as becoming a great actor. You learn your trade and you just do it. If you get accolades on the way, that’s fantastic. But otherwise, the most important thing for me is just doing the job and earning a buck,” explains photography legend Nobby Clark. He’s been working as a photojournalist and theatre photographer for over five decades and is one of the biggest names in the industry; his journey began with NYT. “I go back to 1969. Did you know that?” he adds. Nobby’s real name is Peter, although he admits not many people know or call him that. When he started his career, one paper even refused to credit him for giving a nickname.

“My wife is an actor, my daughter’s an actor, my friends are all actors, designers and directors, but I have always photographed,” he says. Zigger Zagger, by Peter Terson, was first commissioned in 1967 by National Youth Theatre, and Nobby Clark, who was 25 at the time, officially began his career photographing the rehearsal process. “I just went for it. I’d never done anything like that before,” he confesses. Since then, Nobby stayed loyal to NYT for 18 years, while working freelance, capturing some of the most famous and soon to be famous faces on stage.

Nobby taught himself his craft before digital photography existed and acknowledges that being a photographer is very much about being part of a team: “If you want to be a professional photographer, you have to go around, show your work, and realise that you’re a very small cog in a very big industry.” There are not many theatre greats that Nobby hasn’t worked with, working with companies such as Peter Hall’s Tamburlaine the Great and the Bill Bryden Company in the Cottesloe at the National. “In a sense, I became part of their company,” he says. Recently, he particularly enjoyed Guys and Dolls at the Bridge Theatre, especially as he noticed how enthralled and captivated a young audience were by watching it.

When I ask him what it is about theatre specifically that excites him the most as a photographer, he explains: “My daughter said to me, ‘You’re a theatre photographer,’ and I said, ‘I’m not. I’m a photographer who happens to photograph theatre.’” Having left school at 16, Nobby found his education came through the theatre, and watching as much as he could, inspired by his parents, who were “great theatre-goers”.

When it comes to describing what makes a moment snappable, Nobby explains you have to see the play purely through your lens. “Nine times out of 10, you’ve taken an ordinary set, but then maybe one out of 20 you have a great picture,” he says. “I would see something in a play, which was probably not a really important part of the play, but it made a good photograph,” he adds. He chuckles that when you work in the West End, it’s “heart attack time”. As a photographer, coming up with the “goodies” is a must. “I worked with all the big people, like Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Starlight Express. It’s big time, you have to come up with the goods. If you don’t, then that’s it, you’re out.”

As Nobby’s career has evolved alongside equipment, I ask whether he has a preference for his black-and-white film photography or digital. “Well, the only way I can answer that question,” he begins, recalling the time when magazines began shooting colour while he used to work for The Observer. “A fellow photographer phoned me up, asking, ‘Look, I’ve got this job for the magazine, what do you do when you’re shooting colour?’ I said, ‘I think black and white.’”

Even on his days off from working, Nobby still enjoys taking photographs. Although he also loves “Sunday lunch, drinking with family and friends and watching football,” he supported Chelsea before he felt everything became about money and making deals. We circle back to photography, and he will turn his hand to “whatever turns up”, but when asked his favourite, he does express his adoration for Shakespeare plays. “I love watching new writers and supporting the fringe,” he adds adamantly. “It’s very important, live theatre, very important,” he explains, reiterating that you will always have a different experience watching something live than on television. “The West End is so expensive, but you have other theatres or plays at the various fringes and Edinburgh Festival where there’s loads of people just putting stuff on, and it’s great to see. You just have to go out and do it,” he encourages.

“This article really shouldn’t be about me, it should be about how fantastic National Youth Theatre is as an organisation,” Nobby reminds me. “They started my career and it’s them I have to thank for opening up the doors they did.”