“Musicians are like five-year-olds who don’t want to go to bed!”
Ross Halfin rock photographer
‘What is more important, this stupid little pop group, or your drawing class?’ and I said, ‘The Who!’
Without delving too much into stereotype, Ross Halfin has that worn, raspy voice of someone who has been around the block and back in the company of rock stars and roadies for a decade longer than most of us would deem sensible. Which is exactly what he’s been up to since walking out of art college in the mid-1970s to photograph The Who in concert. There followed the gobbing punk of the Sex Pistols and The Clash, topped up by regular assaults of the ear-bursting, high voltage rock ’n’ roll of AC/DC. The tours have been as far removed from a soothing drive-time playlist as you can imagine, with cross-country convoys led by the likes of Iron Maiden, Van Halen, Def Leppard, Mötley Crüe, Aerosmith, Metallica and Kiss. Incredibly, Ross’s hearing seems fine as he talks down the line from LA, where he is taking stock before a shoot later in the week with Ozzy Osbourne.
Now 62, Ross may not be rocking as hard as the acts he’s been following for over four decades, but he keeps a full diary and has recently flown in from Hawaii, where he was photographing Metallica lead guitarist Kirk Hammett and Fleetwood Mac drummer Mick Fleetwood. Already, there is a post about the shoot on his website diary page, and one image particularly catches my eye…
I like the portrait of Kirk Hammett playing the guitar by the beach with the sun going down. It could almost be a travel image!
That’s shot on black-and-white film on my Nikon. I only shoot black and white on film. I don’t use digital for black and white – I don’t think it translates well enough.
Why do you still have a preference for black and white?
I think black and white stands the test of time better. You look at something from the ’60s, say, and it doesn’t translate well in colour, unless it’s some sort of superkodachrome, but it translates well in black and white! At least, I think it does. The photographers I like always used to shoot in black and white, so I still have my preference.
So, you only use digital for colour? I have two D3S cameras, and I think you can’t beat digital colour now. If people say colour looks better in film, that’s rubbish. You can shoot in nearly no light with digital. Before, everything was underexposed. I hugely resisted going digital originally, but obviously with the world changing and the way things are, I simply had to.
Why the D3S?
I use the D3S because the quality looks so much better to me. I find them a bit too heavy for travel stuff, but I like to shoot shows and portraiture with them.
When you’re shooting a live concert, do you like to keep the gear to a minimum and quite lightweight?
Well, I don’t want to particularly shoot wide. I always shoot with the 70-200mm f/2.8. That’s my main lens and the other lens I use is the 24-70mm f/2.8. They are the two lenses I use at a show, or for a studio shoot. Until digital I always preferred fixed lenses, but I ended up going to those. Years ago, I was doing a
show at the Tokyo Dome with Bon Jovi on New Year’s Eve, and I had an assistant. I thought he was close to me, so I went to hand the F2 to him and he wasn’t there! I let go of it and it dropped 15 feet onto concrete…
Oh my God!
Yeah, and it worked perfectly. Not many other cameras can do that. That was the F2 model with the titanium head. I used to like the old F2, I liked the simplicity of them; you just did a plus or minus, overexpose a stop or a third. Whereas now I think some cameras have just too much going on. I’m not an expert on technical photography or cameras, but I can talk about how to take a picture and why I like it.
Okay, let’s talk about that. You have a great story starting at Wimbledon School of Art…
Yeah, 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? The art world ignored the Impressionists and ended up with egg on their face, they won’t ignore anything now. That’s why you have bricks in the Tate; that’s why you have Damien Hirst throwing paint on a canvas spinning around in circles.
The art world will look at it and find something in there. 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!
So how did you get away from art college in the end?
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.
Would you say The Who was the real turning point for you?
Well, I used to look at Who pictures and say, ‘I could do better than that’, which I probably couldn’t, but that was the arrogance of being young. I ended up being The Who’s photographer. I know them now, I’m friendly with Townshend and Daltrey, but in those days you could just walk in and do what you wanted.
Weren’t AC/DC significant for you too at that point?
I started shooting AC/DC at The Marquee. They had the residency on a Monday and Wednesday when they first came over in 1976, and I used to go along each night and photograph them – I’d shoot them in all the pubs! I dropped out of college and ended up working in a guitar store – I would go do the shows when I could.
Who did you shoot for back then? 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!’
Shooting a live concert can be very different to shooting a publicity shot for a magazine cover, or an album sleeve. Which do you prefer?
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.
Starting out so young, wasn’t it hard not to be overawed by these incredible stars?
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
I only shoot black and white on film. I don’t use digital for black and white – I don’t think it translates well
doing, you end up taking the picture of what they want, not what you want. And that is exactly what happened with that shoot.
What was the picture like?
It was a really boring picture of him sitting on some steps and it wasn’t at all what I had in mind. I’ve never let anyone do that to me again. Take your own picture, always be in control. Also, never panic, because you won’t get the picture you want if you panic. Think about what you’re trying to get and you’ll get it.
They’re obviously larger than life personalities and expect to call the shots, so how do you disarm them? One of the things I always do, like with Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin, he doesn’t like pictures of him smiling, so I always try to take them! I disarm him and get him to laugh about something. If he’s picking any photographs he likes looking stern. It’s their image of how they like to see themselves, so I always try to do the opposite of that.
There’s a controversial picture you did of John Frusciante of the Red Hot Chili Peppers on a cross. Whose idea was that?
That was his idea! I didn’t think he’d do it. I think the idea is like The Passion of Christ, but when I did that picture I did one of him holding a cross and one of him holding up a Fender guitar, but there was outrage over it. It’s funny how an image can upset so many people for no reason. You can look in The Guardian or The Times of bombings in Syria and bodies everywhere, or someone’s been shot in a robbery or in a school, yet you can’t have a picture of somebody dressed as Jesus? It’s offensive? It’s a weird double standard in this world, isn’t it?
Rock stars aren’t renowned for their longevity, let’s be honest, so who do you miss most of those you have photographed and known? Chris Cornell. The weirdest thing that happened with Chris Cornell was that the last three emails he sent before he killed himself were to me – I was seeing him the next day. They were perfectly normal, jokey emails. You know, saying, ‘Have you got your tickets? See you tomorrow,’ just
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
matter of fact, and I woke up the next morning and he’d killed himself. If you’d told me he was going to do that I wouldn’t have believed you. I was meant to be in Detroit the night he killed himself, but I didn’t go because I’d just got to Los Angeles from New York and I didn’t want to fly the next day. I said, ‘Look, you’re playing a theatre, then you’re playing this big festival, I’ll meet you on the day off,’ and then he killed himself. So, in a sense that’s weird. I always think, ‘What if I went to Detroit?’
That’s a sad story
But you know, you can’t think ‘What if?’ You don’t know what people are like, what they’re really thinking, you don’t know anything.
Who’s been the most difficult person you’ve had to photograph? You know, I always look at musicians like this: they’re like five-year-olds who don’t want to go to bed! The tantrums they have when they don’t get their own way, all this screaming over nothing, you know. I’ve done Johnny Depp quite a lot over the last few years and he’s probably one of the most easy people to deal with, and I would not have expected that.
But there must be some nice guys who know what to do for the camera, who make your job a pleasure?
Well, Metallica do, when you get them there finally. Unfortunately, they’re so big now you have to make an appointment to see them! But when they get in front of me they’re easy, they know what they’re doing.
Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top, he’s always great, easy to do; Foo Fighters, Grohl’s easy; Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age, I like because he’s very straightforward. Ozzy, you have to warm him up, but once he’s warmed up he’s great.
Keith Richards?
Yeah, dead easy. Keith Richards, when he’s there, gives you whatever you want. Steven Tyler of Aerosmith always wants to give you what you want, but unfortunately some of his ideas are just stupid. He wants you to get the picture and make you happy, but he does overdo it sometimes – it can ruin the picture!
It sounds to me like it’s never a dull moment photographing these guys, whether helpful or not, but is that an accurate assessment? No! When I started, it used to be like that, but now it’s so corporately run, you spend half your time trying to get around all the bullshit. Nowadays, I would say five per cent is taking the picture and 95 per cent is getting around all the shit around them and all the people trying to stop you. People trying to control you, or control what you’re doing is the problem. It’s a whole different world now, it’s all so corporately run, corporately owned, you know. I’m fortunate now, because I’ve done it long enough that I can sort of do what I like.
So, what’s the best piece of advice you would give to a young, budding, music photographer? Don’t do it.
I knew you’d say that!
I’m dead serious. It’s so controlled. When I started it looked so exciting and it was fun. Now management and everyone concerned treats you so badly – like cattle. Here’s the joke of it: Springsteen makes people shoot from behind the mixing desk! Because he’s worried about his hair and he’s the last person you’d think would care about that, but he cares as much as Rihanna does. And so does Eddy Vedder, and they just make a photographer’s life as difficult and as miserable as humanly possible.
Shooting with a 600mm lens for two songs and then they herd you out like cattle. That isn’t photography, that’s just knocking something out, and yet they’re quite happy for everyone to sit there with iphones all night shooting what they want and posting whatever they like. You try explaining that to me!
I always look at musicians like this: they’re like five-yearolds who don’t want to go to bed!