Christie Goodwin
Here is a candid shot of Ed backstage at the Roundhouse in London. Ed had been playing ping-pong with his tour manager, Mark Friend. My guess is that Mark probably had to go and sort something out, so Ed just sat back with his phone while waiting to resume the game with Mark. I love the cheeky look on his face in this picture.
— THE ROUNDHOUSE, LONDON, 2 SEPTEMBER 2012 —
The iTunes Festival used to be an annual concert series during the month of September at the Roundhouse in Camden. The festival was very popular and quite unusual in that you couldn’t actually buy your tickets. Instead, free tickets were given to iTunes users who lived in the United Kingdom through local prize draws. The concerts were streamed live via iTunes. The Roundhouse is another one of those iconic London buildings. It started life in the 19th century as an engine shed containing a railway turntable, became a warehouse and then a ruin, and to cut a long story short it finally reopened in 2006 as a concert venue.
On the second day of the 2012 iTunes Festival Charli XCX and Ed Sheeran were on the bill. I had been commissioned by the merchandising branch of Ed’s record label. This was Ed being true to his word when I ran into him in 2011 and he said we would do a shoot together. At the time, the merchandising department needed urgent new shots to produce the Ed Sheeran 2013 calendar, and Ed had suggested they hire me. The brief was: backstage shots, a couple of portraits and the show.
There is this general misconception that bright sunlight will enable you to shoot a good picture. The truth is, though, that no photographer ever will jump in the air all excited and thrilled when stark bright sunbeams are hammering on the subject they have to shoot. It doesn’t happen. Unless the sun is in context with a landscape, or you’re working specifically with shadows, harsh sunlight is just a big no-no for photography.
Although that Sunday the weather forecast had promised scattered clouds, by the time we arrived at the Roundhouse the sun was blasting out. We met with Ed backstage and introduced ourselves to his manager, Stuart Camp. Elton John’s management company, Rocket, had signed Ed a while back, and this was the first time we had met Stuart and Ed’s tour manager, Mark Friend. Over the years, Mark would always be a tremendous help to me, getting me where I needed to be to do my job, a tradition that he started on this day.
We went over the plan for the day. Everyone backstage was relaxed and upbeat because the sun was out and people kept telling me, “Look, we brought the sun out for you today so you can take excellent pictures.” And all I wanted to do was just cry a bucketful of tears. Because of some logistic problems we had to push back the shoot while both Mark and Stuart were in constant negotiations with the iTunes people to get permission to use the outdoor backstage area for our photoshoot. By the time we got the green light it was already late afternoon and the sun was losing its strength. Yay me!
Once we got the go-ahead, I took Ed for a walk around the backstage area looking for backdrops that could work for our little portrait session. The options were limited as this was the backyard of a concert venue. It was mostly trailers, trucks and flight cases. And . . . aluminium beer kegs. They seemed to draw Ed’s interest so we started our session with a beer keg backdrop. Very urban.
I had spotted Ed’s tattoos on his arm and I thought they were such a unique part of his identity. I wanted to create a shot where your eyes would immediately meet the tattoos when looking at the picture. I asked Ed if he was planning to get any more, and he told me he was in it for the long haul and had a list of ideas he still wanted to work out on his arms. That’s when I suggested we should do some shots with him holding his tattooed arm up over his head. He wasn’t sold on the idea and told me he didn’t feel comfortable putting up his arm awkwardly without a purpose. But I knew there was something there, so I suggested that it would be merely documenting the development of his tattoos. In the end, he went along with my idea and those pictures I took that afternoon were some of the first where his tattoos were dominantly shown in an image.
Back at the lounge area that was set up for the artists, Ed picked up a game of ping-pong with Mark while I just continued casually shooting. I shot a whole sequence of impromptu pictures of Ed that afternoon, enough material to satisfy the merchandising team. And then it was showtime.
I had hoped that this would be my chance to shoot Ed for a full show, but the iTunes team wouldn’t budge on that point. Because the show was streamed live and there were so many logistics involved for them, they could only allow me to shoot the first three songs from the pit.
As soon as Ed began, he had his loyal and excited crowd singing and clapping and hopping along to his songs. It’s impossible not to get drawn in to his performance. At one moment Ed asked the crowd to hug the person next to them and everybody obliged. I had no one around me to hug so I popped out to the far edge of the pit where Patrick was sitting on a flight case with my gear and gave him a big hug. You just have to obey the master when he asks you to hug your neighbour, there is nothing more to it.
Even though I had to leave the pit after three songs, I did what I could to capture the essence of Ed on that night with my pictures. It wasn’t too hard, because he did everything right from the start. Ed rapped, played, sang and hopped from one stage monitor to the other. His second song that night was “Drunk” and, remembering the beer kegs, I thought I’d try to get some nice wide shots at the right moment when the word “Drunk” appeared on the screen behind him.
I left the Roundhouse very content that evening. I still felt sad that I hadn’t been able to get everything I wanted from a shoot with Ed, but I was getting close.
John Sheeran
I particularly like Christie’s photos of Ed when she isolates him. You don’t see the venue, the audience or the lights, the monitors or microphone stands. It’s just Ed, here superbly lit, his features contorted with all that emotion, singing his heart out. I have met many people who have been equivocal about Ed and his music. They have later seen him live and then appreciate what he is all about. Ed was born to perform and is most at home playing to a live audience. It doesn’t matter at all to him in front of how many. In the early days I saw him play to five or ten people, and he would give just as committed a performance.
