Five quick questions with rock photographer Ross Halfin

Kiss takes centre stage at a rock show, but Ross Halfin takes center stage at The Photography Show (Image credit: Copyright Ross Halfin)

Ross Halfin has worked with every major musician and band of the last four decades, creating some of the most memorable music photographs of all time. His archive is literally an A-Z of rock, from AC/DC, The Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney, Guns & Roses, The Who, Led Zeppelin and ZZ Top.

Ross discusses his enormous catalogue, changes in music photography, his unique access and relationships with his subjects, plus his ongoing passion for travel photography on The Photography Show's Super Stage, on Monday 16 March at 1:15pm.

I grew up in Wimbledon Chase and the Wimbledon School of Art had an annexe there. I always wanted to go to college and it was a big thing for me to go to art college. But when I went there in 1975, it was just so pretentious. You know? They thought I was this ignorant philistine, but it totally deluded me and after wanting to go there so much, and finding the whole place so up its own arse, I absolutely hated it!

I was a big Who fan – I used to follow The Who around and they were doing three nights at Wembley. I queued up for 11 hours to get tickets and took a camera to the show. Before the show, I was called in to see the head of figure drawing, who was from the Royal Society of Portrait Painters, and he tried to scold me in front of the class by saying, ‘What is more important, this stupid little pop group, or your drawing class?’ and I said, ‘The Who!’ because you’ve got to remember that, when you’re 16, that is important. People say, ‘What bands do you like?’ I couldn’t tell you now, but I could tell you what I liked when I was 16, because when you’re 16 it really meant something to you.

There were three papers at the time: Sounds, NME and Melody Maker – I ended up liking bands that Sounds covered more, like Rush and Aerosmith when they came over. There was a guy at Sounds who wanted to start a magazine, he wanted to call it Kerrang! Like the sound of a clanging guitar. This was 1980 and he came up to me and he said, ‘Who have you shot in colour?’ and I said, ‘I just shot AC/DC,’ which was the first show for the Back in Black tour at Hammersmith. He said, ‘That’ll do,’ and that became the first cover for the magazine. Then I realized by doing Kerrang!, because of the union rules, where you got paid £12 for a black and white, they had to pay you £30 if it was in colour. So, I started to learn and I thought, ‘right, I’ll become this colour photographer in that case!’

It depends on what I’m in the mood for. If it’s a great light show, I’ll shoot it because it’s interesting. If there’s no lights, then probably not. I try to photograph everything in available light, because it makes you think more; think about what you’re doing; think about where you’re placing them; think about what the light is doing to the subject. Before you could just take a light reading and know it’s f/8 with f/11 behind. But these days I like to shoot with available light.

The first time I met Robert Plant, I was really impressed, ‘Wow! It’s Led Zeppelin,’ and he walked up to me, poked me in the chest and said, ‘Do you know how to take a Robert Plant picture?’ I was shooting the cover for Sounds in the ’70s and said, because I was young, ‘No, how?’ And he just went quickly and poked me in the chest. I did the shoot and he really disarmed me, I was a bit in awe of him. After that, I thought I’ll never let anyone do that to me again, and I never have, because if you don’t take control of what you’re doing, you end up taking the picture of what they want, not what you want. And that is exactly what happened with that shoot.

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Prior to joining digitalcameraworld.com as News Editor, Adam was the editor of N-Photo: The Nikon Magazine for seven years, and as such is one of Digital Camera World's leading experts when it comes to all things Nikon-related.

Whether it’s reviews and hands-on tests of the latest Nikon cameras and lenses, sharing his skills using filters, tripods, lighting, L brackets and other photography equipment, or trading tips and techniques on shooting landscapes, wildlife and almost any genre of photography, Adam is always on hand to provide his insights.

Prior to his tenure on N-Photo, Adam was also a veteran of publications such as PhotoPlus: The Canon Magazine, so his wealth of photographic knowledge isn’t solely limited to the Big N.

Five quick questions with rock photographer Ross Halfin

Five quick questions with Ross Halfin

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