‘I’m not trying to make him handsome’: Polly Samson on photographing husband David Gilmour – in pictures
Guardian Sta·2026-04-22·via The Guardian
The acclaimed author has spent two decades taking pictures of the Pink Floyd guitarist on tour and in the studio – an experience that still gives her chills
Romantic reflections … Mirror, 2024
Wed 22 Apr 2026 07.00 BST
David Gilmour, West Sussex, December 2024
Firmly rooted in the literary world, with five highly acclaimed works of fiction published to date, Polly Samson has also been documenting concert tours on film and digital for 20 years. Her sixth book, David Gilmour: Luck and Strange – Studio/Live, is a full throttle photographic ‘trip’ providing fertile and vivid ground for her inaugural show with Leica. Polly Samson – Between This Breath and Then is at the Leica Gallery London until 7 May 2026.Samson’s book David Gilmour: Luck and Strange – Studio/Live is published by Thames & Hudson. All photographs by Polly Samson
David Gilmour and Polly Samson, Dressing Room, Tonight Show, New York, 2024
The work is an intimate perspective on the creative process formed between two longstanding artistic partners – herself and her husband David Gilmour. Samson has been documenting Gilmour, in the studio and during live performances, since the making of the album On an Island in 2005. She also collaborates with Gilmour on songwriting. She was the main lyricist for Pink Floyd’s The Division Bell (1994) and The Endless River (2014) as well as Gilmour’s On an Island, Rattle That Lock and, most recently, Luck and Strange
Muse and Magpie, West Sussex, 2016
Samson’s framing of images reflects her background as a writer; there is a narrative weight while remaining open, suggestive and sometimes playful. One cannot help but wonder when you look at the image Muse and Magpie what that story is and there certainly is a very personal one. ‘I wish I could say that the magpie here was a wild one. In fact, she was rescued by my son Charlie and his wife Janina Pedan and lived with us, on and off, for a while. She is immortalised in Charlie’s memoir, Featherhood’
Romany Gilmour, 64 Candles Project, Hove, 2024
Polly Samson: ‘Charlie Andrew, who produced Luck and Strange, wanted a bit more atmosphere in the studio, “perhaps a candle” he said. I’d watched Barry Lyndon recently, and thought it’d be interesting to try lighting it entirely with candles. I was using my film camera (for the first time for a decade) so it was a tense few days waiting for them to be developed. This one’s of Romany [the couple’s daughter] recording the harp on the album’
David Gilmour and Polly Samson, Mirror, 2024
There is a definite emotion that cloaks Samson’s work, deeply and sometimes darkly. This portrait of the artist with David Gilmour and their dog, reflected in a large mirror, placed in a misty landscape, is all about atmosphere rather than spectacle. ‘I am really uncomfortable on the other side of the lens but I do take the occasional selfie. I found this mirror and propped it among silver birches by the river. I waited for the rising mist but I eventually cheated with an out-of-shot fire of leaves and twigs’
David and Romany, Intuit Dome, Los Angeles, 2024
‘Even in a concert packed with people, you need an outsider’s eye. Sometimes that can feel quite lonely in the way that writing alone in a room can feel. With a group of people on stage, and particularly when your daughter’s there as well, this feels so weird because they look straight at you but they can’t see you because they’ve got the lights shining right at them. They look at you blankly. This image was taken during a soundcheck. I love that Romany has been caught acting out lyrics behind her father’s back. She is a very good comic’
David Gilmour, Royal Albert Hall, London, 2024
‘In this image, David is lit by the screen film for the song Time. I may be under a speaker cabinet and David might turn around in my direction but not see me. It’s quite odd; it gives me the chills sometimes. It’s like being a ghost. I was thinking that I could write about it one of these days’
Somebody Always Knows Better, West Sussex, 2026
‘I took this earlier this year. I noticed that the lock of an old canal had flooded and it reminded me of a scene from Tarkovsky’s Stalker’
Hattie Webb, Madison Square Garden, 2024
‘Hattie Webb is a gift to photograph. She is so expressive. She and I became friends via email during the pandemic because she’d read my novel, A Theatre for Dreamers’
Hands, West Sussex, 2024
‘The candle light in our kitchen was so good on this evening. I’d photographed some tulips and a wine bottle and the dog, before I clocked how David’s hands looked just there across the table from me’
Madison Square Garden, New York, 2024
‘Because David’s not vain, you can really go for his essence. That sounds so pretentious! I’m not trying to make him look like the most handsome man in the world, so the fact that he’s not looking for that and doesn’t censor is really freeing. Sometimes I can look at one of the pictures through a vain man’s eyes and think, “Oh dear, he’s not going to like that.” And then he looks at it and he’ll know if it’s good for all the right reasons, and he’ll say, “Yeah, I really like that one.” And then I know he’s seeing what I’m seeing’
Los Angeles, 2024
‘The backing vocalists from the Luck and Strange tour have since formed a band – the Marshall Gilmour Webbs – who are playing gigs in the UK and Europe this summer.’ Polly Samson is the author of the short story collections Lying in Bed and Perfect Lives, and the novels Out of the Picture, The Kindness and A Theatre for Dreamers. Her work has been translated into many languages and in 2018 she was appointed a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Quotes from Samson are taken from an interview with Jill Furmanovsky, alongside quotes exclusively for the Guardian
