It is with great sadness we hear the loss of Dick Pope BSC
Dick’s love of stills photography came from his father who gave him a Box Brownie and let him use his Zeiss twin lens reflex camera. The camera was particularly suited to portraiture and Dick began to recruit potential subjects from his neighbourhood, turning his lounge in Kent into a makeshift studio. He had also become a regular at his local cinema, where he developed a strong passion for film and decided to combine his love of photography and cinema into a career as a cinematographer.
At age 16, he began a three-year apprenticeship at the Pathé Film Laboratory in Wardour Street, Soho. In 1968, having tried unsuccessfully to join the BBC, he went freelance and became a clapper loader on low-end British films, which felt very far away from his ambitions. Through a twist of fate, he fell in with an up-and-coming documentary cinematographer and became his assistant. By 1974, he was a cinematographer himself, travelling the world to remote and inaccessible areas including war zones and shooting films about endangered indigenous tribes such as Disappearing World (1974), highly political programmes like World in Action (1976-8), and also arts programmes like The South Bank Show.
During the 1970s and into the early 1980s he operated on hundreds of rock concerts, many for BBC’s The Old Grey Whistle Test and shot music videos for artists including Queen, Tina Turner, The Clash, The Specials and The Police. In 1984, he was approached to shoot Coming Up Roses (1986 d. Stephen Bayly) and that finally led to feature films. In 1990, Mike Leigh asked him to photograph Life is Sweet, signalling the beginning of a long term collaboration comprising eleven feature films including Naked (1993), Secrets and Lies (1996), Topsy-Turvy (1999), Vera Drake (2004), Happy-Go-Lucky (2008), Another Year (2010), Mr. Turner (2014), Peterloo (2018) and most recently Hard Truths (2024).
Remembering when Naked was presented at the very first Camerimage Festival in November 1993, Dick says: ‘My work on the film was wonderfully received especially by the students, and at the closing awards ceremony, a delegation of those students (including Hoyte Van Hoytema) invaded the stage and insisted on awarding me their own prize, which was a beautiful inscribed piece of stained glass which I still have proudly on display to this day.’ This was a pivotal moment for him. Of his mentors, he names three cameramen: Mike Whittaker, Jack Hazan and Roger Deakins CBE ASC BCS who were (or became) his partners in the documentary filmmaking cooperative, Solus Productions, in the 1970s.
(Credit: Phil Méheux BSC, GBCT Trustee)
Some messages from GBCT.
“Very, very sad about this news- he gave me a lot of tuition and a some amazing jobs, including my first Feature Film with Graham Martyr and I am forever grateful 🙏🏼 💔“
“He was so encouraging to me as a young Grip Trainee. I watched him lighting, and he’d sit with his eye on the eyepiece, for what felt like hours and hours, but was only really 10 minutes or so. Not lifting his head whilst the chaos ensued around. And I asked him one day, what are you looking for when you’re lighting and staring down the eyepiece for so long, and he said “to be honest, I do that so nobody bothers me with silly questions. Nobody talks to me when I’m looking down the eyepiece.” It was so true and it was his little escape from the chaos. That one job I did with him is still my favourite job to date.”
“Crystal Palace have lost a great supporter! Dick you were a true gent sir with a wicked sense of humour. You will be sorely missed. There is a lot of love for you out there.”
“Its a sad day we have lost a great character a wonderful unique & humorous man . Will miss you Dick your laugh was infectious . RIP”
Our thoughts and condolences go out to his family and all who knew him and worked with him.
