Just for the record

The excitement will never quite be replaced-my first credit, in print on something other than Oxfam news. Got I was excited! Whilst still at college, I somehow managed to blag my first real job to photograph the seminal reggae band Steel Pulse for an album cover. When I say seminal, I had no idea who they were. We met (along with my co-conspirator Mike Hogan) at their nearby recording studio in Frensham in Surrey. I remember them looking at this ghostly white pair of scrawny teenagers and asking us, 'What do you know about reggae music then?' 'Er, Maxi Priest??" said Mike. Somehow we managed to leave with a spoken deal and plan but no discussion of money (funnily enough). Cut to several weeks later and we are shooting together in a nearby sand pit with them on horses on 10x8" neg. The lead singer's hair was wrapped so tall that we had to find a car with 3 tiers of seats and he sat with his head at right angles. Quite frankly, I had never come across anyone quite like this lot. Job done, we printed and printed on huge sheets of expensive fibre paper for our composite image of genius.Delivered by mail in huge envelopes, we were chuffed to make it all work. Several months later I found myself running at full pelt to the local record shop (remember them?). Grabbing he album from the new releases, the mixture of pleasure and pain fell over me: The cover, our cover, had gone to be replaced by a scrappy montage. But wait-the picture on the back was ours YES SIR! Running back to college I breathlessly handed it to Mike poking at the picture excitedly. "They used it!" 'Where's the credit?' pointed out Mike. "STEEL PULSE PHOTOGRAPHED BY MIKE HARRISON AND MARK HOGAN". Nuff said. PS. Now here is a timely update-STEEL PULSE rang today asking for imagery and stories from this session for their history film. HISTORY! I'm old!! It did make me (and Mike) track down the original images, though. Here is the first concept cover. Made by hand (no computers) whilst at college don't you know-

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