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JOURNEY OF A MUSIC PHOTOGRAPHER
1994-2010
REWIND
The idea for this book was conceived in the late 1990s when the dance music scene was in full
swing after a decade of success. I remember presenting my music photography portfolio to a
gallery curator, who politely informed me that it was “too early” for an exhibition and book of
my work. What the gallery was looking for was the “sixties rock & roll scene”. They were not
interested in dance culture yet!
Maybe I gave up too easily, maybe I should have seen more galleries, but the work commissions
continued to flow so I put the idea to one side and forgot all about it.
Skip forward 20 years or so, and the Covid-19 pandemic of 2020/21 has given me oodles of
time to bring this project to fruition. When someone asked: “Why are you doing this now?”,
my reply was a simple one. “I finally have time to focus on it. Everything has shut down; there’s
no shooting, no gigs, no parties, no nightclubs and no festivals.”
Actually, there is another reason. Everything is about timing and it feels that now is the right
time. That curator was right. The distance of time allows for a different perspective on an era,
a genre, and a career.
As I looked at the photographs in chronological order, I began to think about my career path
and how the sequence of events had transpired, how my journey had unfolded. Was I simply in
the right place at the right time or was I so eager and prolific in my picture-taking that sooner
or later things were bound to happen? Either way, it’s been a cathartic experience editing the
images for this project and a complete pleasure rewinding and reliving the memories flooding
into my mind with every photograph, each one bringing back a unique feeling of nostalgia and
joy. In short, it has kept me sane during the pandemic and allowed me to remember the fun
times I spent with the artists featured here, some of whom became friends. It has also been a
time of deep reflection and sadness as some of them have tragically passed away.
PRIVILEGED MOMENTS
As I write, it’s 22nd January 2021, we are in the second lockdown of the pandemic in London,
and I’ve just learnt about the death of UK DJ legend Phil Asher (Phlash) who has passed
away in his sleep after a heart attack. With tears rolling down my face as I write this, I recall
meeting Phil back in 1997 when photographing him for The Face. I met him in West London
and we walked around the area chatting as he showed me some of his favourite spots. He was
instantly engaging but unassuming, one of the loveliest people I have met. He was a humble
and generous man, and he remained in my life as our paths crossed several times over the
years. The last time I saw him he reminded me how long we’d known each other, 24 years to
be exact. I’m extremely grateful that I had the opportunity to know him and it has made me
realise the importance of photography in preserving the memories of our musical legends.
Another UK legend lost too soon, a few years earlier, was Paul “Trouble” Anderson. I had the
honour of photographing him in the early days for Touch magazine for a feature called “Stars
and their Cars”. I went to meet him in Battersea with his push bike; he wa a wonderfully unique
and amazing individual. Several years later we met again at Suncebeat Festival in Croatia where
I shot my first ever virtual reality video of him. He was a great deal thinner and had lost the
use of one arm, but he was a fighter and continued to deejay, making sure we all had the most
amazing boat party. Paul tragically lost his battle with cancer only three months later.
A few years earlier I was devastated to hear the news of the death of Frankie Knuckles, the
“Godfather of House”. I’d had the pleasure of photographing him and the other DJs from Def
Mix Productions, the DJ agency and management company, for their 25th Anniversary in Miami
in 2007, for Defected Records. As Judy Weinstein, Def Mix co-founder and “most powerful
woman in dance music”, said, it was a very rare occasion to get them all – Frankie Knuckles,
Hector Romero, Satoshi Tomeii and co-founder David Morales – in the same room at the
same time. I felt enormously privileged. We had a great deal of fun that day, Frankie giving me
what he called his “Diana Ross pose” and messing about with David Morales.
All of the photographs presented here are my privileged moments with the artists, moments
frozen in time that will never occur again, but will hopefully convey a sense of the artists’
enormous contribution to our musical history. It becomes ever more poignant when they are
no longer with us.
THE COLLECTION
This collection represents the first 16 years of my music photography journey, recording my
encounters with the artists in chronological order as much as possible. I have chosen a variety
of images, from posed deliberate shots for PR purposes, showing the persona the artists are
expected to present to the world, to more casual relaxed outtakes where the artists are
perhaps truer to themselves. I present my personal selections here and have included as many
unseen moments as possible. Despite being commissioned, most of the selected images are
ones that were never published, ones where the subjects are off-guard. Compared with the
present day, where the corporate machine has taken over and it’s more difficult to have those
one-to-one situations with artists, in the early years I was pretty much left to my own devices.
Largely, I could create with absolute freedom, so the work I produced was a lot more personal;
shoots were essentially a collaboration between the artists and myself.