The Photographers

Scarlet Page
Scarlet studied photography at the University of Westminster (formerly known as PCL) in the mid nineties, after which she assisted international rock photographer Ross Halfin. Scarlet’s straight forward, easy-going attitude makes bands and artists feel comfortable and allows her to portray them in a relaxed and cool way. As a result she is equally as popular with record companies as with the bands themselves, who often request her to cover tours or live events.
Scarlet shoots music editorial including Q, Mojo and Kerrang. In the States she shoots for Blender, Flaunt and Spin magazines. As well as working regularly with British bands such as The Darkness, Placebo and the Stereophonics, she also often shoots in the U.S with artists such as Marilyn Manson, The Foo Fighters and The Red Hot Chilli Peppers
One of Scarlet’s biggest commercial ventures to date was her collaboration with Robbie Williams on his best selling book Somebody Someday. Scarlet toured with Robbie and documented the time superbly which resulted in the images for the book.
The Darkness also asked her to be their offical photographer at the height of their fame, which she greatly enjoyed. She joined the band on a world tour and had many memorable shoots with them in varied locations from studios in London, to the blue mountains in Australia and throughout Europe and The States with the resulting images being used on CD sleeves, DVD’s, for posters and magazine covers.
Scarlet continues to be commissioned by bands and their labels and has recently shot Supergrass, The Fratellis and London-based U.S. youngsters Cage The Elephant. She also did a shoot for The Independent behind the scenes at the MTV nights in Islington.
Scarlet has branched out in the last couple of years, doing several fashion shoots including Banana Republic for The Standard as their flagship store opened here and a look book for FrostFrench. She has also been involved in several charity projects - notably a black and white exhibition of people in the public eye with children close to them for the charity War Child that was shown at Proud Gallery, Camden and was subsequently hung at The Royal Albert Hall as well as at Scarlet’s former college. Recently Scarlet completed a series of portraits of celebrities with their pets for the 2009 calendar of established pet charity - PDSA and has also been working on the Electric Dreams project shooting Sadie Frost and Nicholas Hoult.

Sam Jones
Look, a Woman! Sam Jones has been taking portraits of musicians, actors, whatever since 2000 working on titles such as NME, Uncut, Observer Magazine and numerous record companies (in the days when they still had budgets!). Tips on dog friendly B&Bs from Nicky Wire: tea served by Julian Cope in full military regalia’ documenting the Kasabian boys ascent from Barfly to stadium greatness- these have all been yummy experiences.
You can see her work at www.samjonesphotographer.com

Tony Mottram

Photo Tony Mottram’s Archive
Tony has been a regular and contributing photographer for all major UK publications past and present including Melody Maker ,No1 ,Sounds ,Metal Hammer ,RAW & Bass Guitar Magazine (C21). 1983 saw Tony have a retrospective exhibition at the NEC Music Live event. As a syndicating Retna photographer his iconic rock photography has appeared in Vogue, Elle and the Sunday Times. With an archive dating back to the mid 70’s his images have an enduring quality which resonate with the viewer while capturing that “rock moment” forever. Prints are available through Rock Archive & www.tonymottram.com.

Michael Robert Williams

Photographer Michael Robert Williams is well known for his original and creative portraits.
He has photographed a wide range of subjects, from Oasis to The Killers, and from Nick Broomfield to Bernardo Bertolucci.
His portraits have featured in many publications, including Filter, Uncut, Time, Intersection, Remix, Die Zeit, and NME. In addition to portraits for magazines Michael has produced artwork and promotional images for record labels and artist management, and commercial clients including adidas.

Cameron McNee
Australian born photographer Cameron McNee chased a dream that lead him to london in 2000 where he studied photography at London College of Printing. Since then he has been cutting out a life and reputation in the UK in the fashion and music scene. Returning regularly to his home land down under, he’s recently been working with musical artists ‘End of Fashion’ and ‘Angus & Julia Stone’ whom he just shot a music video for.

Stuart Nicholls
Hairy photographer born in the woods and brought up by monkeys and rare insects. Now shooting great photo’s but barley able to walk on 2 feet and stop swinging from any trees he sees.

George Chin
Retna photographer, George Chin, has directed the promo video of up and coming band Voodoo Six for their next single “Faith”. The band are featured in this month’s Classic Rock Jan 2008 edition as one of the magazine’s editorial choices tipped for major success in 2008. George, a veteran of shooting concerts, has worked as the official tour photographer for major rock artists the Rolling Stones, Guns n’ Roses, Iron Maiden, Aerosmith, among others and has brought to the Voodoo Six project his vast experience of photographing and working with bands performing live to cross over the boundary from stills to screen.

Paul Slattery

Photo by Johnny Marr

Paul’s first shoot was of Link Wray, his teenage guitar hero at the Lyceum London in June 1975. He got such a buzz he decided that this was the life for him. Subsequently photographing the Pistols, The Ramones and The Clash he went on to photograph early sessions with U2 and Joy Division. Flirting with Heavy Metal he became good mates with Lemmy photographing them numerous times as well as bookending the eighties with some of the most iconic images of The Smiths. In the late eighties and early nineties he photographed the bands that captured the spirit of the times namely the notorious Stones Roses and the early Manics, touring with both bands in Japan. In 94 / 95 he went on the road for a year with new signings at Creation, a small Burnage band called Oasis, which nearly finished him off. He still is recovering from those days and continues to shoot.

John Rahim

In 1986 I had the tough decision of either to go to the Glasgow School of Art to study photography or peruse my second love, music. I choose music and joined a band called The Wake who were signed to Factory Records at the time. Headed up by the former songwriter of Altered Images they had just kicked out Bobbie Gillespie who had drifted off to form the Jesus and Mary Chain, I seemed like a perfect replacement. I left after 2 years however during that time had, recorded an EP with the record producer John Leckie, had toured extensively with New Order and the Happy Monday’s, had appearances on the Tube and sessions with John Peel.

Alas though at 18 I realised that I was a crap bass player and would be better off working on the other side of the desk. For the next 8 years I worked for record companies first London Records then Sony Music working as a talent scout and A&R manager. I was lucky enough to work with some great bands however I left the industry in 1996 to set up my own internet design agency. Initially designing label and music sites I moved on and managed and oversaw larger corporate projects. I stayed in the Internet industry for 9 years and worked for some big agencies and brands including Carling, Calvin Klein, Penguin Books and Condé Nast publishing.

In 2003 I got back into photography after a 20 year break and started working in the social side getting my work published in Brides, Cosmopolitan Bride and You and Your Wedding. I have recently started covering gigs and hope to focus on studio and editorial work.

Timothy Cochrane

Born a baby somewhere near Wales, and now based near London , Tim spring- boarded his career in photography in Sydney, Austria, working for SonyBMG as their house live photographer doing tour doco’s, promo shoot and gigs, shooting such legends much as THE Johnny Marr, Pearl Jam , Sky from Neighbours and Lou Reed.

He started, as many do, snapping for student media, before leaving the Pot-noodle lifestyle behind for more nutritional meals and less sleep. After returning to London in February 2007, he’s been bribing picture desks at NME, The Observer, The Telegraph, Play and Disorder to publish his shots in exchange for Curly-Whirlys and Ribeena. He tries to run his own website and blog at originally named www.timothycochrane.com

Edd Westmacott

Cutting his teeth at the legendary melody maker in the late 90s, Edd has since photographed the biggest names in music for everyone from Q to word, mojo and nme. far more rock ‘n’ roll than most of his subjects, his hair is one of the few natural phenomenons which can be viewed from space.

John Horsley

John started his career working with Brian Cannon / Microdot on the iconic photography for the The Verve in late 1996. More of John’s photography was used for the singles.

For the cover of Bittersweet Symphony Brian Cannon selected an image of a street performer from John’s portfolio, which was taken looking through a crystal ball.

John Horsley: It was basically a shot that Brian saw and he liked. Inside both the Bittersweet Symphony covers there’s a shot which looks like it’s on a sort of a ledge. I was trying to make the ledge of the windowsill, that the camera’s balanced on, merge with the path. To make them run along the same line as the path. So when you look at it, it looks normal but then you look at it a little bit more and you actually realise it’s a bit of a visual sort of trick there, if that makes sense.

The Drugs Don’t Work

John Horsley: That wasn’t the original cover that Brian had come up with. That was a very last minute change. Everything had been approved by the guys in the band, Richard had given them the nod to approve things while he was away in Majorca, and the original shot was supposed to be quite different. It was hard to describe. The other one was very much figurative and a bit like an attending spirit and it was quite spiritual and it tied in with a similar feel to the cover of Bittersweet Symphony. I think at the time there was a bit of a panic on by Richard ‘cos he felt that it was too drugs related and he didn’t want people to take the song out of context. So the shot on the actual cover that was used is just a detail. The actual shot of mine that was used was the background. If you look at the cover of the colour, the blues and the green, that was actually a detail that was taken from another of my shots. I was a bit pissed off about it, to be fair, at the time.

The deal with Micodot

I was working on a freelance basis per single - the record company paid me. I think the reason he was looking around to work withb other people was at the end of the day all the bands are going to have the same look if they’re using the same photogrpaher. So I think Brian was just trying to extend his range of work.

Michael Putland

Michael was born in 1947 at Harrow-on the Hill near London. Encouraged by his uncle he began shooting at age nine, and upon leaving school at sixteen he started work at a London studio where he assisted in advertising, fashion and architectual photography. Michael was privileged to work with Louis Klemtaski, the legendary motor racing photographer, during this period. After briefly assisting Time / Life photographer Walter Curtain, he decided to go out on his own, sharing a studio with two friends and eventually securing work with the music magazine “Disc & Music Echo”. His first assignment was Mick Jagger.

He went onto photograph John Lennon and Elton John, among others, before moving to Sounds magazine and continuing to photograph the biggest names inmusic. He began to travel extensively and worked for most of the major record companies. Michael relocated to New York in 1977, where he continued his record company and editorial assignments, shooting artists as diverse as Billy Joel, The Clash and the Bee Gees.

Whilst in New York he funded the photo agency Retna and after returning to London in the early eighties, he opened the London Branch and continued to shoot mainly musicians including Madonna and George Michael. Since then he has handed management of Retna over to the current management team allowing himself more time for his first love: photography. Whilst his current work is still predominantly portraiture, his sitters are likely to be classical, jazz or world musicians and lifestyle subjects.

Simon Sarin

Simon was born some time in the 70’s and some would say he still belongs in that era! A true maverick with a love all things rock ‘n roll. Where there is an All Access Pass and a free bar there is Si. A self taught snapper who picked up a camera as no one else was shooting the bands he liked, and subsequently the results have paid dividends. Not only has he had an Arctic Monkeys cover shot on the NME under his belt but he recently had the pleasure of photographing his beloved Chas ‘n Dave for their DVD! Now his sights are set to snap Steven Segal his hero or maybe even Rocky Balboa the ultimate acolade. A legend in his own boozy lunchtime he has covered most major festivals / gigs and recent sets include Bloc Party and The Aliens. Look out for more of Si’s work in the not too distant future.

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