Press Photographer Releases 30-Year Archive of Iconic Celebrity Images

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A woman in a white fur coat and heels sits on a stairway, holding onto the railing with one hand and clutching cards and a dark object in the other, her dress gathered around her legs. The lighting is dim.

One of Britain’s longest standing and most celebrated press photographers presents an intimate look at three decades of images covering celebrity, entertainment, and major events in a new book.

The Big Shot: Photographs by Greg Brennan (published by ACC Art Books) features more than 100 images drawn from Greg Brennan’s long career in press photography. Over the decades, Brennan has photographed a wide range of prominent public figures, documenting individuals from culture, sport, fashion, and politics in candid moments intended to reveal aspects of their personalities at key points in their lives.

A woman and a man passionately kiss while sitting together in the back seat of a car. The image is black and white, and two other people are visible in the front seats.

Older man with receding hairline wears large dark sunglasses and a collared shirt, smirking with a cigarette held between his lips. The background is dark and the image is black and white.

Queen Elizabeth II, June 2015, a photograph that was 12 years in the making. | Greg Brennan

His subjects include figures from Hollywood, music, sport, fashion, and the British royal family. Brennan describes a career built around pursuing access to behind-the-scenes moments, including encounters with Jack Nicholson, Cristiano Ronaldo, Lady Gaga, Queen Elizabeth II, and Kate Moss.

A bride and groom in formal wedding attire kiss on a balcony draped with red cloth and gold tassels, surrounded by young flower girls in white dresses and floral crowns.

A woman with long, curly hair wearing a light-colored trench coat and carrying a shoulder bag, posing and looking at the camera against a dark background.

One of Brennan’s best-known and best-selling images is a 2007 photograph of supermodel Kate Moss wearing a fur coat at the bottom of a fire escape, cigarette in hand. At the time, Moss was at the height of her fame, and Brennan’s image became closely associated with the supermodel’s “party era.”

How a Dead Flash Battery Led to His Most Famous Shot

In The Big Shot, Brennan explains how the photograph of Moss came about. He had been assigned to The Dorchester hotel in London to photograph the supermodel’s birthday party. But shortly after arriving, Brennan learned that Moss and Doherty were elsewhere at the Donmar Warehouse, a theater in London’s West End. He rushed across the city but found a large crowd of photographers and onlookers blocking the entrance. At that point, he discovered an issue with his equipment: the batteries in his flash unit were nearly flat.

A woman in a white fur coat and dress descends a dimly lit staircase, holding a clutch and a cigarette, with her hair tousled and her dress split at the thigh.

“There must have been 100 cameras, all pointed in the same direction, waiting for the perfect shot. As I glanced at the pack, I realised my flash batteries were nearly dead.” Brennan writes in The Big Shot. “There was no way I could afford to miss the moment, so I dashed back to my car, only a few streets away, to grab fresh ones.”

"THE BIG SHOT, Photographs by Greg Brennan.

After returning to his car nearby, Brennan recalled that the theater had a fire escape that also functioned as a back entrance. He had previously photograph actress Nicole Kidman leaving from this fire escape in the late 1990s. He checked it and found Moss sitting on the stairs, smoking. Pushing his camera through the ajar door, Brennan captured a series of 10 images that would become his most famous.

Told in Brennan’s own words, with an accompanying narrative by his son Dylan, The Big Shot: Photographs by Greg Brennan is presented as both a photographic record of major public figures and events, and a personal account of a photographer’s pursuit of the decisive moment, sometimes over many years.

The Big Shot: Photographs by Greg Brennan can be purchased here.

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