See Florence and die

Alright, I'm not after having a go at Florence of Florence Against The Machine here, nor against the photographer Desmond Muckian, who took this photograph of Florence and was asked to talk about it recently by the Guardian as part of a promotion for some music-based photographic prints they were giving away, and for their regular feature My Best Shot, where a photographer chooses their best shot. (I hope they won't mind me reproducing the photograph. If they do, I shall take it down. If they do mind, you can see it in situ here.)

What I'm doing here, by reprinting the article, based upon an interview with Desmond Muckian, is demonstrating how accidentally pretentious and preening one may sound when forced into a corner of self-analysis, and then transcribed from conversation to the printed page – especially as part of a feature where you are expected to crow about what you think is Your Best Shot. (I am already quaking at the hypothetical idea of a feature called My Best Album Review, or My Best Episode Of EastEnders, or My Best 6 Music Link, or My Best Unscripted Podcast Remark.)

This is an unkind process. My guess is that Desmond is a straightforward and likable individual, like all the photographers I've ever met, but he is also an artist, by the very creative nature of his job, and it is the artist who's speaking here. Because he was made to. I don't know if Private Eye still do Pseuds Corner, but it's a candidate, in full.

I make no further comment. We'll just let the man speak. But let it be a lesson to us all: be careful how seriously you take yourself, or your job. It doesn't always translate to the printed page. (Actually, if it was a photo of somebody with a bit more artistic depth and longevity than Florence, whose most famous song is somebody else's and has released one long-playing record in her career so far, it might not be so funny, I'll concede that.)

"Sometimes you manage to capture a magical, in-between moment; this is one of those. I took it on 11 February last year at a studio in east London, as part of a portrait shoot for the Guardian's Weekend magazine. Florence came in for three or four hours, and she was fantastic to photograph. She's really comfortable in front of the camera. You get the sense she's pretty comfortable in front of the mirror, too.

"She sang all afternoon. Somebody put a Mystery Jets song on the sound-system, and she sang a duet right there in the studio; it was quite moving. It also meant that I really wanted to come at the shoot from a performer's perspective.

"My idea was to capture an off-stage moment … I was just shooting away, trying to get a good portrait – then there was an extended silence. Florence turned away from me, and I just caught the moment … What I really love about this picture is that it draws you in. It's not the kind of image you'd expect to see of Florence; you don't quite know what's going on in her head. She has this whole persona: the big red hair, the long legs, the flowing robes. In this picture, you wonder whether she's hiding behind that.

"The best portrait photography lets the subject's personality shine through. It can be pretty pressured – you often don't have very long, and your subject has been photographed countless times before. You've really got to be prepared. Most importantly, you have to express something about them that's true. If there's no truth in an image, it's stillborn."

Having scrolled down through the comments left after the Guardian article, I must ask you to remain civil. We're not criticising the photograph, or the photographer, we are marvelling at the waffle.

[As I write, my rumour that Florence will be guesting with the Wombles at Glastonbury today - cultivated over the weekend and broadcast across the site with the help of Guy and Gez Worthy FM via 6 Music - still might come true. Let's hope so. She will go way up in my estimation if she yields to the solidity of the rumour and makes it come true, only revealing that she was Madame Cholet at the end of the set when she removes her Womble head.]