Thread by @dean_frey

When I posted Steve Pyke's photos of Sam Fuller today, I realized I've never done of thread of Pyke's portraits. These shots, from Edinburgh in 1983, were the first Pyke took with a close-up lens on his Rolleiflex camera. This became his trademark portrait style.

Isaiah Berlin by Steve Pyke
bromide print, 1990
@NPGLondon

Derek Jarman by Steve Pyke
bromide print, 1983
@NPGLondon
Man, these are awesome!

David Bailey by Steve Pyke
bromide print, 1984
@NPGLondon
Pyke pulls the camera back in this portrait of a fellow photographer. The dog is a nice touch.

Antony Sher by Steve Pyke
bromide print, 1987
@NPGLondon
A great portrait of one of Britain's finest actors.

Two shots of Victoria Wood by Steve Pyke
bromide fibre print, 1993
@NPGLondon

David Hockney by Steve Pyke, 1992
@NPGLondon

"Only truthful hands write true poems. I cannot see any basic difference between a handshake and a poem."
- Paul Celan

“Hands have a history of their own, they have, indeed, their own civilization, their special beauty."
- Rilke

Helen Mirren by Steve Pyke
bromide fibre print, 1990
@NPGLondon
Stunning!

Peter Greenaway by Steve Pyke
bromide print, 1983
@NPGLondon

Irish Murdoch by Steve Pyke
Oxford, 1991
Remarkable!

Richard Lester by Steve Pyke, 1994

Two shots of Prunella Scales by Steve Pyke, 1994

I love this Steve Pyke shot of Stephen Mallinder & Richard H. Kirk, of the British pop group, Cabaret Voltaire
Sheffield, 1985

Penelope Spheeris by Steve Pyke, 1985

Kathy Acker by Steve Pyke
Greenwich Village, 1984

Two shots of Jean Baudrillard by Steve Pyke
Paris, 1991

Iggy Pop by Steve Pyke
London, 1986

Keith Richards by Steve Pyke
London, 1995

Jonathan Miller by Steve Pyke
London, 1999

Peter Cook by Steve Pyke, early 1990s

Ken Russell by Steve Pyke
August 19, 1985
What a great shot!

Robert Altman by Steve Pyke
London, 1994
Pyke is picking off my favourite directors, one by one.

Paul McCartney by Steve Pyke
London, 1994
The antithesis of the pretty Paul pic that's usual for him.

Here's an even better shot of Ken Russell from his 1985 photoshoot with Steve Pyke

I've tweeted this before:
Steve Pyke's shot of Seamus Heaney at the Royal Society of Literature in London, March 16, 1995

Two shots of Franco Zeffirelli by Steve Pyke, 1994

Steve Pyke's great portrait of the legendary photographer Robert Doisneau, 1990

This is a bit different, but really special:
Steve Pyke's photo of Kurt Cobain on stage in Belfast, 1992

Japanese film director Nagisa Oshima by Steve Pyke
Edinburgh, August 1983
I think this was taken at about the same time as the Sam Fuller pictures that head up this thread. A long thread, by now!