Laura Davis meets the fan who has spent 23 years collecting 2,000 photographs of himself posing with celebrities
GEORGE CLOONEY is somewhere in Sydney and Richard Simpkin is determined to find him. He has kept an eye on his hotel and the venue for the motivational talk the Hollywood star is giving but three days on there is still no sign of him and no picture to add to Simpkin’s collection.
“It hasn’t happened,” says the Australian photographer.
“He was using the car park at his hotel and he didn’t go out much. I don’t always get my photo.”
Simpkin has been taking pictures of himself with celebrities for 23 years and has amassed some 2,000 photographs.
Among the famous names he has has posed next to are Nelson Mandela, Tiger Woods, Gregory Peck, Audrey Hepburn, Jack Nicholson, Joan Collins, Keanu Reeves, Pierce Brosnan, Taylor Swift, Paris Hilton, Kim Kardashian and Drew Barrymore.
The collection is not only a pictorial Who’s Who and a testimony to dogged determination but also a documentation of the changing effects of time – a teenage fan morphing slowly into a 38-year-old man.
Between 500 and 600 images will be shown at Liverpool’s Open Eye Gallery next month – displayed chronologically on a single wall in an exhibition curated by UK photographer Martin Parr.
