Acclaimed photographer Kevin Cummins talks to DACS about his prolific and varied career photographing legendary musicians such as David Bowie and Joy Division, making a living from his work and receiving Payback royalties from DACS.
On deciding to become a photographer…
“I studied photography at art school in Manchester. The year I was graduating, punk started. I was interested in photographing musicians and initially, it was a way of getting into gigs for free. I photographed
David Bowie at the Free Trade Hall in 1973, and there was one moment in the show where he does this mime. I was in the wrong place to get a picture of it, so I went to another gig a couple of weeks later and stood in the position I wanted to stand in to get the right shot. When it came out okay, I thought I'd like to do this for a living – that was the catalyst.
“Then when punk started, people I knew were forming bands and I was there to photograph them. There was a nucleus of about 50 people who used to go to gigs all the time, and we all knew each other. Then I met Paul Morley who had just started writing for the
NME and we decided to do a piece on the Manchester scene. My first published piece was a double-page spread. And then after that, it was this slog of doing live gigs and getting quarter page pictures in. It was quite a good start really.”
On starting out…
“My first piece in the NME was published July '77, and then it just went on from there. I'd sometimes photograph people for myself, but with a view to licensing the photos. Sometimes I'd do it for record companies, and there wasn't much money around really.
If I shot a gig for the NME, I'd go to the club, I'd photograph the band, and then I used a darkroom about ten miles outside Manchester. I'd drive there at about midnight, process the film – and I wouldn't rush process it, because I knew that there was some worth to the pictures. I'd have to do it properly and do it to proper timings. Then I’d produce a contact sheet and look for the best six pictures, then print those. By the time they were dry, it would probably be about five in the morning. I'd drive back, then Red Star parcels would deliver the pictures so they’d be in London for 9am. I'd get home about 6am, have an hour's sleep and then I'd go back to the darkroom, where I worked, in return for them giving me the keys so I could use it at night.
If the NME used the picture, I'd get £6.50, and it’d probably cost me about £20 to do it. I knew though that one day, if I'd built up a reasonable archive, and if the pictures were used again and again, I’d be able to earn something back from them.”
On archiving his work and legacy…
“I understood archiving. The photographers I liked weren’t really rock and roll photographers. I grew up liking photographers like Diane Arbus, August Sander and Bill Brandt - photographers who had a worth on a gallery wall. I wasn’t sure if music photography would have that longevity. I also hoped that one day I could have a retrospective, so I understood there was a worth to archiving and looking after my negatives.”
On shooting Joy Division in analogue …
“Now, you can shoot for the rest of your life on one SD card. Back then you had to make every frame count. When I shot
Joy Division, I went with two rolls of film. The band were messing around trying to make Ian [Curtis] laugh, and I was thinking ‘please stop!’, because I wanted them to look serious. They were constantly trying to make him laugh, so I had to just stand there because I couldn’t afford to waste a frame. That’s probably why certain sessions become iconic because there's so few of them, and because - if you look at one of my contact sheets from then - every single frame counts. The picture of them in the snow on the bridge – there are only two frames; there’s a horizontal and a portrait, and that’s it.”
On the importance of DACS…
“When you're freelance, you need all the support you can get. It’s especially hard when you’re young and starting out. It's very important to have that support network and to realise that you're not working on your own. You will encounter people whose sole aim is to rip you off, so it’s nice to realise you've got DACS on your side.”
On receiving royalties each year through Payback…
“Knowing that DACS is prepared to work on your behalf and to get money from sources that you didn’t even know exist is reassuring.
Payback is a nice bonus. The royalty comes as a lump sum just before Christmas – the right time for a lot of people.
I think it must be very difficult these days for young photographers to actually earn a living because everybody thinks content should be free. Seeing your work get ripped off is very depressing. The royalties you receive through Payback at the end of the year makes up for those moments. It’s really important."
On what’s up next…
“At the moment I'm preparing for an exhibition at a gallery in São Paulo, Brazil. They want to produce a series of twelve screen-prints using twelve of my pictures. They’re being made this summer and the exhibition will launch in March 2016. I’m also currently working on a large commission with
The Lowry Hotel in Manchester, who are buying 22 very large prints of my photos to give the hotel a more celebratory Manchester feel.”
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Find out more about Kevin Cummins
Photograph: Kevin Cummins, photographed for DACS by Brian Benson. Photo © Brian Benson, 2015.