Where were you born?

I was born in Scotland, and then lived in Glasgow for a long time. Then I came to London in search of the bright lights, big city, and I’m still here.

What age did you pick up a camera and what drew you to photography?

Probably about 19 or 20. I was a student at the art school in Glasgow and I was doing a design course and wanted to use photographic imagery for screen printing. And I learned quite seriously how to operate a processor and room. And then because I was interested in photography, I suppose it was peer pressure around me. “Oh, you think about photography, you can make photographs for us and you can do this and you can do that.” So I got a camera probably about 1979 or something.

Do you remember what type of camera it was?

Yeah, it was an Olympus OM-1. Then it got bitten, if you will, as bit shattered about all that because it was something in what I was quite precious though it more to have a camera. And then I came to London and managed to enroll in the Royal College of Art for a photography degree. At that point I needed a camera, I borrowed cameras, and then eventually bought another.

So obviously I bought an Olympus OM-1. The reason why I bought an Olympus OM-1 was it was smaller than the Nikon and Canon, and all the other ones. With an Olympus I could put the body of it on a denim jacket pocket and the lens in the other jacket pocket. Then off I go to work.

Did you have an art background growing up?

I suppose I was interested, my father was an architect. And yeah, there was always imagery around, I suppose. But then the fact is I did actually manage to get into the art school in Glasgow, and that was a big achievement for me, really. I loved it there.

Did you assist anyone in photography? How did you learn your technical skills?

No, I didn’t assist anyone at all. But I did learn quite a lot of technical business after I had finished art school in Glasgow. At this time in the late seventies it was not a happy city–I was really pretty unhappy there and not a very outgoing person, but then because of that I ended up having to get a job and eventually found work absolutely, literally, at the Polytechnic of Central London in the photography department for the public, and they found that most people needed ID photos. They had to have their photograph taken, and they needed to be printed for their library ticket and student card, so I would do that. I would photograph all the students and all the staff. Also I had the opportunity to do some printing for the photography students, and this really helped teach me how to print.

How did you choose the musicians that you photographed?

I didn't choose them. It was chosen for me because they were commissions, and sometimes I wouldn't know from one day to another who I was going to photograph, but they were all very cool. I mean extremely influential people from Joe Strummer to Madonna to Chuck D. I mean, they weren't ‘poppy.’  There was a lot of substance, cultural substance to each of these people as well. They were interesting. 

An awful lot of these people have had great longevity as of their careers, but also the music. So many of them are still making really interesting music. And sadly, a lot of people I photographed are no longer with us, and that's sad. But then their music lives on and their imagery lives on.

So you got these jobs with magazines because you were establishing yourself as a credible photographer in the music scene?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Working for NME was quite an exciting time because they really thrived and covered all the new music. It was around, so there was all the new wave bands and the post-punk bands, and it was always something new all the time. But they also covered fashion and politics, which is interesting. They presented photographs in a brilliant way. It was always a big picture on the cover, and then six pages of a double page spread in the middle if you had a cover story. I did a lot of that, which was good. 

How did you come into the music scene?

As I said, Glasgow wasn’t a particularly great place at the time, quite dour, and I was a music fan, but the music in Glasgow was strange. There were bands that played in the big concert hall, so I saw all the bands that I loved. I saw the Clash, and I saw Bowie, and Television, and all these bands. But for small venue bands, there were none because there was always a feeling in Glasgow that nobody could do anything because it had to occur, and all the bars had this guaranteed drinking clientele, so they didn’t need the money to put on a band.

So, I came to London and enrolled to go to the Royal College of Art. And at the time, I really didn’t know what I was doing. I imagined I thought I’d probably like to be a fashion photographer, but I didn’t really know that much about that. And the course that I went to was actually a self-motivated course, so you had to decide what you wanted to do, which was both challenging and rewarding. So, once the tutors saw what I could do, and when we got on better in being in London, I started to go out to bars with bands playing and took my camera.

I started making photographs, and very, very quickly I went to the NME (New Musical Express) office and showed them I had some photographs and they said, “Oh, that’s really interesting. How about you go out and do a gig tomorrow?” And I said, “Okay, great.” So, I went and did a job and then that was it. They just kept employing me for five, six years, which is brilliant, right?

I actually made my analog expo presentation from tear sheets of NME along with some portraits. I was never that obsessed about presentation, and all that. It was like doing, but I’d done it. And then thought at the last minute, “Oh, this is what I do. This is my life. I’ll do this.” And that was how it all started.

I worked for NME (New Musical Express), from 1980 until 1985 or ’86. And then I worked for a number of funky casual papers and Sounds. But in between times I’d also been doing some work out of sight, but I’d been doing other work for other magazines. I worked for a New York magazine called Spin, and I worked for Japanese magazines, and also I think I did about one job for Rolling Stone and that a lot of independent stuff.

Who was your favorite to photograph?

Oh, I don’t know too many to choose from. I suppose I’d say I was never really a total fan of anyone. I was never obsessed with people. I just felt like everyone was who they were. In some ways, they were iconic or carried that kind of energy.

But the one person I always thought, “This is a great opportunity, an real change,” was Iggy Pop. I knew the stamina ahead of time he was going to break out, in a hotel room, while he was in London doing pre-publicity for an album. So for once, I actually prepared. Usually, I’d just show up and hope to capture a moment. But this time I came with intention. I brought in a background paper to create a clean white backdrop, just to isolate him, no distractions. And he just absolutely performed. Not in the sense that, just totally took control and kind of wow, he knows it, but with his face just brilliant expressions, so perfect. At one point he asked, “Do you mind if I play some music?” I said, “Of course not.” He had a cassette player, put it up on the hotel room’s mantelpiece, and played The Mules. He sang along to it. What an amazing guy.

The other obvious one I’ll always remember is the photographer Madonna. I’ve been going back through old photo towers, and the real crazy stands out. It was a totally last-minute thing; the call was, “Would you go to the record company office and shoot Madonna?” Not in her plan. I went to meet her. She was a little late, just getting out of bed in London. She’d been out shopping.

I had to shoot her; it was on the roof of the building outside, on the street. And she said, “I’ve got a better idea, why not use the hotel Madonna?” It was perfect. She was so relaxed, asked if she could shave a few minutes to do her makeup. Then we had to wait up to the next, and she just danced around up there for me. Totally wild! That was a memorable one.

How many rolls would you shoot?

That particular day? It was probably one and a half rolls.

How do you know when you got it? Who would direct that? You or the subject?

It varied. Sometimes you could tell when someone had given you all they had. And other times, the jobs were incredibly quick with no time to overthink it. In those cases, I just had to trust my instincts.

When I was working in my studio or for record companies, I’d often make more photographs. But if it was an assignment for a music paper, once I felt comfortable and knew I had the shot, I’d stop. Especially if it was going to be a cover I’d make sure there was space at the top for the masthead and all that. You had to think through those details quickly, on the spot.

So sometimes I’d ask myself, “What’s the point of shooting six or ten rolls of film?” I didn’t need that many. Nobody did. Especially when I was the one processing the film. If it was black and white, I’d finish the shoot, go back to my space at night, and process everything myself. So I learned to be efficient: better to shoot just one or two rolls and focus on making the best possible prints from those.

Why black and white film?

In the beginning, I shot in black and white because that’s what the magazines I worked for used. Eventually, they started switching to color, but it wasn’t particularly good quality. I always preferred black and white anyway! I loved it, and it gave me total control. I could take the photographs, develop the film, and make the prints myself.

Once the prints were done, I’d send them to the magazine, and they’d pass them along to a printer for scanning. You couldn’t do your own scans back then that just wasn’t an option. I’ve always had a deep love for black and white photography. I do love color too, but there’s something about black and white that’s always felt right to me.

But there’s definitely, I think that there’s definitely an emotion and a grit that comes through in black and white. There’s definitely something there, and I think it marries really well with the way you photograph and the energy that you bring to it. It just all seems to work quite well.

What I’ve always really liked about black and white photography is that it’s all about light and shade and quite often, it’s really about the shade. I’m drawn to that darker side of light. There’s a mood and depth to it that color can’t always capture.

Talk to us about your available light technique and philosophy.

The available technique well, sometimes it was just that I liked using available light. It meant accepting what was there. Other times, it came down to logistics. I never wanted to carry piles of equipment around, especially since I was working on location a lot. Like I said, it was usually the camera body in one pocket and the lens in the other minimal gear. In hindsight, it was a bit mad trying to shoot so much in low light. These days, I can take photos at night with my phone. Back then, I was probably making things harder for myself. I’d shoot wide open, with hardly any depth of field. Sometimes that worked beautifully other times, not so much, especially when dealing with moving subjects.

But I didn’t always rely solely on available light. I’d use a flash when I needed to. And “available light” didn’t necessarily mean no light, it meant finding light. A street lamp, the glow from a shop window, car headlights whatever was around. It was about seeing what was there and making it work.

Talk to us about your darkroom printing. You like to keep a lot of edges on the photo.

Yeah. The printed edge in a photograph well, I think there’s always been a divide in photography between the purists and the more flexible types. Some photographers believe a photograph should always be shown full frame, exactly as it was shot. But I was never that pure. If I felt an image needed cropping, I’d crop it when I printed it. I was never precious about that.

Later on, though, I started to really like the idea of showing photographs with a black edge around them. In smaller prints or reproductions, I’d even draw the edge in with a magic marker. But eventually, when I had more time back in the darkroom and was thinking more deliberately, I began filing out the negative carriers. That way, light would spill around the edge of the negative during printing, creating a natural black border. It became part of the print, part of the presentation.

It’s really just a feeling. These days, with so much imagery in the world so many beautifully reproduced, digitally enhanced photographs I find myself drawn back to something simpler. I’m still making black and white photographs in the darkroom, by hand. It’s all analog. And I suppose I like that they look like black and white photographs. Whether they feel like they’re from another era or not doesn’t really matter. It’s just the way I’ve chosen to present them.

Was there a sub-culture as well that drew you into it? Or was it more the action of what was being done?

I think it definitely was an element of subculture, and that was the link to the music really. I mean, I love the idea of photography, but at the same time I was trying to make photographs within the music business. I’m making photographs of musicians, but I always had the reference in the back of my head to the photographer I loved. I loved Bill Brandt’s photographs, I loved Richard Avedon’s photographs, and it was just something that was in the back of my head all the time I suppose.

One of the things about musicians, I suppose, is that musicians are musicians. They’re not necessarily models, so it’s a different thing really. So to capture some, I always wanted to capture something of someone that made it about real life. It wasn’t the glamorous and glossy eighties photography I was interested in, it was real life photography. I think it worked in a way that a lot of the people that I photographed were all, they’re just all interesting and doing things and that’s good, really. It’s great, inspiring.

You also seem to photograph on a wide angle lens?

Not always. For a long time, I stuck to a standard lens 50mm on a 35mm camera. I used a 55mm lens because it had a wider aperture, but I didn’t always go wide. Occasionally I’d experiment, play around with different cameras and formats, just to see what came of it. I had this old Japanese rangefinder which I really loved using. It was tricky to work with, but it pushed me to think differently. At one point not a complete shift, but a conscious decision I wanted to work in square format, so I started using a Hasselblad.

Eventually, I even tried the Super Wide Hasselblad, which had a fixed ultra-wide-angle lens. A fascinating camera, though definitely not easy to use. That came later not the early ’80s, but a bit further down the line. But I really fell in love with the square format. Some of the photographs you’ve seen like the Joe Strummer portrait are in that format. To me, that image had to be square. It just fits.

I guess what I’m getting at, it seems that you and the subject are very close to one another.

Yeah, it’s that energy being transferred between photographer and subject. It doesn’t feel like there’s a big distance between you, it feels like you’re both fully present in the moment. Of course, the camera creates a kind of barrier between subject and photographer, but even then, there’s something intimate about it. The camera has to come away from your face at some point, so you’re truly face-to-face. It becomes a real exchange not just through the lens, but person to person.

What drew you to the portable music concept and the B-boys in the park?

I wanted to make photographs where there was some sort of interaction, even if it’s for two seconds. It was some sort of interaction between me, the subject, and my camera. I suppose I had really been inspired by certain photographers and probably American photographers, just like Bruce Davidson and Weegee, and just photographers that worked on the street. Weegee was a different thing, but a lot of it was youth culture, and I just wanted to take part in that. But then the twist was that I wanted to do it with people with portable music. That was just something that to me was beginning to happen.

Now it’s got down to this, it’s got down to the stage that it’s all just a tiny little bud in your ear and Bluetooth. But then it was different, It was interesting to find somebody like a girl dancing in Central Park with a cassette player lying in the grass. I just loved that because it meant that I could make photographs of people doing something and some sort of action about it.

I think quite a lot of my photographs are about snippets of action. Even the really serious work of studio photography, there is still something about action in it to me. Sometimes I just quite like the idea of that. My photographs are a bit like film stills, or sometimes it’s a bit like, I used to talk about an organized snapshot. There was something there that there was a control, but it was definitely just a quick capture of a moment in time.

What advice do you have for a photographer today?

I guess my approach has always been about not relying too much on equipment just keeping your eyes open. These days, the tools we have are incredible. Honestly, all you really need is a phone.

There are times when I think, Maybe I’ll go buy some film and take the Hasselblad or the Olympus out again. But I rarely follow through. I’ve got my phone, and I love what I can do with it. If I had the chance to go back and do it all again with the technology we have now I’d have done it all with a phone. If I’d had an iPhone in 1980, 1981, or ’82… It would’ve been amazing.

As we’ve been discussing, there was always that closeness to the subject, that connection and I think a phone would’ve only enhanced that. So unless you’re doing a very specific kind of photography that truly requires high-end, technical gear like wildlife or commercial studio work my advice is simple: use your eyes and your phone. That’s all you need.