Using my first camera I was lucky to be working in Manchester and start my career photographing musicians performing live. As time went on these included many famous names including Madonna, Prince, Miles Davis, Nina Simone, Bono, U2, James Brown and others.

These photos have been widely published in magazines, books and online. These images a small part of the visual history of modern popular music.

Some are my music photos are available as limited edition prints at www.smithsphotos.com. I’ve been told this is the most famous photo of the SMITHS which I love. However, in my opinion it’s the band and not the photo that’s classic although I love it that people enjoy it years later and that I manged to capture The Smiths at their magnificent peak.

I consider myself so lucky, as a huge fan to have got the opportunity to see and shoot the Smiths live and then to get to meet them and shoot the famous Salford Lads image.  

My first live show I photographed was in 1984 at the Free Trade Hall.  I was so skint I could only afford one reel of film and had to walk a long way home afgterwards. From this show I caught the shot of dead flowers hanging from his jeans, but my favourite now is of Morrissey waving flowers above his head, which I took from the side of the stage.  More live shows followed and then Rough Trade asked me to shoot a session.

“That” photo was shot on a cold, dark, winter day in Salford. Yet somehow it has a darkness that sets the right mood. It seems so casual and unposed and in a way that’s just how it came together.

These days it’s been accepted as part of the collections of the National Portrait Gallery, the Manchester Art Gallery and the Salford Art Gallery. All rather funny when the original film was processed in a bedroom and darkroom, with the chemicals kept in old drinks bottles, a far cry from modern, clean digital photography!