Shooting back into pop history
THIS time it was the photographer's turn to take a bow.The snapper who took the defining image of legendary Manchester band The Smiths outside Salford Lads Club returned to the scene of his most famous work.
Stephen Wright photographed Morrissey and his pals posing outside the red-brick building in Coronation Street, Ordsall.
It was taken for the sleeve of the controversial 1986 The Queen Is Dead album, ending up on walls in student bedrooms across the world.
Stephen was just starting up as a photographer when he took the shots in 1985 while living in a bedsit at Longsight, Manchester. He was paid just é300 for the job.
But it made his career and scores of Smiths fans took up his offer to recreate the same shot in return for a é5 donation to Alzheimer's Research. Some fans also wanted their own pictures of Stephen outside the club.
Recalling the day he took the famous shots of the Smiths, Stephen said: "It was a dismal grey day 19 years ago."I was a student and had been submitting pictures of groups and pop artists to music papers after getting into places like the Palace in Manchester.
"There was a picture of Morrissey, which he liked, showing flowers hanging out of his jeans.
"I was asked to do some more photos of them and arranged to meet them at the club.
"We then went to the Arndale Centre and Piccadilly to take more. In many ways I underestimated how popular these photos would become. I took them when I was starting out, sleeping in a darkroom/bedroom.
"I've had such positive feedback and it has been great fun."
Stephen invited Smiths fans to return to the club and pay for their picture to be taken, but the M.E.N. had to come to the rescue when Stephen's camera failed after he had taken the first dozen shots.
Our photographer Mark Waugh drove to the club and let Stephen borrow his camera.
The visit coincided with the opening of the Smiths museum inside the club, now a Grade II listed building.
Also on the wall is a copy of a postcard dated Boxing Day, 1985, sent by Morrissey to Stephen thanking him for the picture shoot at the club.
Published: Tue, 22 June, 2004
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