My First Hot Press Cover

This was tough. No time, no light, no pressure!

I was thrilled to be asked to shoot The Script for the next cover of Hot Press. I got the call on Sunday evening and it was off to Belfast the next day. Myself and Jason O'Toole, who was to interview them, went up together. We got there about 3.30pm. No sign of the band. I do a quick recon to see where I could shoot them and picked out a couple of locations, one on a roof at the back of the venue where the band were going to be playing that evening and one in a disused room with a red wall. About 6.30pm the band show up to soundcheck, Jason grabs Danny the frontman, to interview him and I shoot some individual shots of Mark the guitarist and Glen the drummer. They then have to soundcheck. I take some live shots of them onstage. Then it's cover time! Off we go to the roof, the band, the manager, the guy from the venue, Jason and me. I start taking shots, but I don't like it, the light has gone, it just doesn't look as good as I wanted to. So, I move them to another part of the roof, even worse. Plan B, the room with the red wall. I had set up a light earlier so I kick aside some empty boxes and bits of rubbish and start shooting. The pressure is on, the guys need to go! Not exactly how I imagined doing my first Hot Press cover shoot, but this is it, make or break. 10 minutes from start to finish. I get another 5 minutes to shoot Danny on his own and that's it. Phew!