Guardian/Observer staff photographer Sarah Lee first watched Dont Look Back whilst perched on a crowded bed in a Camden flat with a struggling rock combo called Coldplay. As she’s now a BAFTA photographer, Sarah checks plenty of other names in this episode, including Idris Elba, Tom Hiddleston, Austin Butler and Cate Blanchett. On celebrity photography: “I like having no control. I like pressure. I’m always terrified”. On Dylan album cover photography: “He knows why it works. He doesn’t need Christopher Ricks to write 4000 words on it.” We also focus our telephoto lens on Sarah’s love of Joan Baez and her admiration for Cat Power’s recreation of Dylan’s 1966 gig at the Royal Albert Hall (“It felt like witchcraft”).

Sarah Lee has been a photographer for The Guardian/Observer since 2000, specialising in portraiture, features and the Arts. Her work has appeared on the covers of Time magazine, Weekend and Billboard as well as in Rolling Stone, The Sunday Times and Vanity Fair. Commercial clients have included Leica, Visa, Apple and Transport for London. In 2012, she shot most of the portraits for Coldplay’s MX album. Sarah is a fellow of the British American Project and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. With the writer and broadcaster Laura Barton providing the introduction, her photography book West of West was published in 2020.

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Recorded 21st April 2023

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