Sound & Vision 2008

a print of the Salford Lads club photo raised £430 and the promise to recreate the original photo for a bidder with their friends £1500 at last nights music image and memorabilia auction in aid of cancer research held at The famous Abbey Road studios.

TEXT FROM THE PROGRAMMME

The story of the image

“A sweeter set of photos were never taken”
  MORRISSEY - Boxing day 1985

This image was taken with my first Nikon, as a Smiths fan and novice photographer. The film was processed in chemicals kept in old lemonade bottles in a darkroom built into my bedroom and its both warming and funny that 20 years later it’s known all over the world.

I am still so pleased that I got given this opportunity when really it was a job that should have gone to someone like Anton Corbijn, Pennie Smith or Annie Liebovitz.

It’s part of the National Portrait Collection and there’s a large print in the Manchester Art Gallery which sits in a pool of light recapturing the finest band of an era at their peak- I’ve sat on a little bench next to it peering at it and smiled a little as when I turn my head I see a Lowry further down the wall.

When I look at the photo now, I remember fondly seeing the Smiths play live –the elegance, excitement and the irony; all set to the perfect jangle of Marr’s guitar.

The image itself is strangely casual and natural - Morrissey’s smirk is a little like the Mona Lisa’s and Andy Rourke looks as if he has a small rabbit stuffed down his jeans. It was shot on a dark winter day in Salford – no make up artists or assistants, yet I’m pleased to hear people like it still. Perhaps it’s always the music of our youth that gives us the warmth of nostalgia.

These donations are in memory of my father, Colin Wright