The Specials - Back Cover - Coventry 1979
The front cover was taken from the first floor of an abandoned building, looking down at the Band who were standing in a triangular shape, the strongest shape there is. But Starr, my partner in life and crime took an SX 70 photo of the same shot from the side, at ground level. When I got down the stairs she showed it to me and I told the Band to stay in position, I sized it up the the Hasselblad viewfinder, gave minuscule directions to each musician to get the image perfectly composed and clicked the shutter. Once. One single frame. I think it's because I knew it was perfect, what young and arrogant confidence that is. But it's probably the best group shot I ever did, and it certainly passes the test of time. Instead of a picture we had done earlier in the day we used it as the Back Cover, and also
the Poster. In America they used it as the Front Cover, against our wishes, back then we also designed the sleeves, and Starr did the typography by hand with Lettraset. It's an Architects Drawing, side and top elevation, not that the Two Tone fans were supposed to get that, but it justified the position when we showed it to the Record Company, they saw one sleeve, just two photographs, nothing more. Luckily they really liked it and all the hard work we put into it had paid off. I love this picture.