‘I have outtakes of them all standing up – there’s no safety equipment and they’re not hanging on to anything. They just said to me, “Hurry up, Beez!”’
A
t the age of 12 I was working for the Clash, handing out flyers. I looked older than I was and got to see all the punk bands before getting into reggae sound systems. Multicultural Bristol was a great place to grow up, and by the time I was 14 or 15 I’d be going out late most nights and coming home mid-morning.
Having failed the entrance exam to be a gas fitter, I enrolled on an audio-visual course – one of Thatcher’s new National Training Initiatives. I specialised in photography and started documenting all those nights out – my friends and the scenes I was already part of – offering an insider’s perspective. Photography also gave me an opportunity to explore new environments. If there’s something you’re not sure about, a camera is a good way to have a look at it, be part of it, and then learn from it.
After college, I got work as a stringer for NME, and also for a Bristol magazine called Venue. This picture was taken for a Venue editorial called Life on the Bridge. I went to get some shots of the Clifton Suspension Bridge and the toll keeper and so on, and on the day I was there a gang of maintenance guys happened to be on site to change the lightbulbs on top of the towers. They said: “Do you want to come up and take a shot of us?” Of course I said: “Yeah!”
