Sometime in the late 70's, shrouded in the smog of 80 fags a day and bored out of my socks, I left gainful employment and went home to tell my pregnant wife that I had accepted redundancy and was going to become a photographer. 30 odd years later she is still laughing but it's now because it was probably the best decision of my life. I don't miss the smokes and I still can't believe that it's possible to make a living working at the best hobby around.
If I keep practising I may get to be a good snapper someday. I know this because I have had some of the best mentors around and I've yet to meet another photographer who wouldn't willingly share all his or her hard learned techniques over a pint and a "sanger". So for balance I've spent the last two years on the board of the Professional Photographers of America helping to improve international interaction on copyright, education and the onslaught of digital imaging. Prior to that, I did a five year stint as President of our own IPPA, picking up an Associate-ship of that fine body and a Qualified European Photographer distinction along the way.
And what other profession would allow me to meet every musical hero that I've ever had. I've hung out with Highwaymen, backstage with Willie Nelson, coffee and a chat with Waylon Jennings, a tour programme for Kris Kristofferson and a day at home with Johnny Cash. I photographed Bono for his Louis LeBrocquy Portrait, did wedding snaps for Joe Elliott and got videoed at Croke Park "shooting" my Lonesome Highway buddy Steve Averill and the rest of the Radiators.
My three kids and the best photographers and digi-techs in town are Norton Associates and do the real work at our Pearse Street Studio photographing everything from a bottle of Lucozade to the latest high-rise apartments. They do this so that I can swap techniques and photos with Kenny Rogers or spend time with Emmylou Harris and every combination of the Hot Band through the years. Being a Country Music Freak is a cross to bear but I did get to photograph Dolly Parton, Crystal Gayle, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Wynonna and lots of others just to keep my poor old male heart ticking over. Although sharing a pint recently after the Alison Krauss gig with Paul Brady, Ciaran Tourish and Jerry Douglas is up there with breakfast in Longford last year with Earl
Scruggs, I hope that shooting CD covers for great Irish talent like Ricky Warwick or Zoo or the emerging Conway Sisters will propel them to mega stardom and drag me along to millionaire status with them.
Being a music photographer is the best gig around.
Ronnie Norton, Oct. 2005
Photographer, Fan, Frustrated Musician and Country Music freak

Sheila Rock was born in the United States and has lived and worked in London since 1970. Since 1979, she has had a successful career photographing the entertainment and music industry. Subjects include artists such as Sting, Paul Weller, Enya, Yossou N'Dour, Sinead O'Connor, Placido Domingo, Bryn Terfel, Sir Simon Rattle and institutions such as the Royal Opera and the Royal Ballet in London.
The FACE magazine in the 1980s launched her career. Her editorial work has since appeared in German Vogue, Elle, Glamour, Architectural Digest, The London Sunday Times, French Spoon, The Telegraph Magazine, Irish Tatler, and Brides Magazines.
She has had recent solo exhibitions at the June Bateman Gallery in NYC, the Photographers Gallery, London and the Blue Tulip Gallery, Windsor. Previous exhibitions in London, England, include ICONS OF POP at the National Portrait Gallery and THE PHOTOGRAPHERS CUT 1960-2000 - the Rock n Roll Years, at the Proud Gallery. Her work is in the permanent collection of the National Portrait Gallery.
She has recently published a book of portraits on Tibetan Monastic Life - SERA: THE WAY OF THE TIBETAN MONK - a monograph published in 2003 by Columbia University Press. The accompanying exhibition showed in London and New York.

Noel Gallagher thought she was a caterer who took good pictures…
Brought up in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), Jill Furmanovsky moved with her parents and brother Michael, to London in 1965 in time to join in with Beatlemania. She became one of the 'Apple scruff' teenagers that hung around outside Abbey Road hoping to catch sight of the Beatles. Her first rock shot was of Paul McCartney standing outside his house with two of her school friends, taken on a Kodak Instamatic.
Following a foundation course at Harrow School of Art, Jill studied textile and graphic design at the Central School of Art and Design. After only two weeks training in photography, she had a lucky break when she was offered (and gleefully accepted) the unpaid job of official photographer at London’s premier rock venue, The Rainbow Theatre in 1972.
Artists photographed in her 35 year career include many of the biggest names in rock music: Pink Floyd, Bob Marley, Eric Clapton, Blondie, The Police, Led Zeppelin, The Pretenders, Bob Dylan and Oasis. She has also made videos for Oasis and The Pretenders and continues to shoot in the music industry.
Jill’s book 'The Moment – 25 Years of Rock Photography' is a seminal work in the genre. Her subsequent Oasis book 'Was There Then – A Photographic Journey' (with text by Daniela Soave) followed a ground-breaking exhibition of the same name that toured in the UK and Ireland in 1997. In December 2004 Jill celebrated ten years of documenting the band.
Jill conceived Rockarchive in 1998 with the idea of making unseen work from her own archive and that of her colleagues more accessible to fans and collectors of photography. That it has succeeded in surviving and thriving while maintaining its original aims is a mark of pride for all concerned.
Jill has won many awards for her music photography including The Jane Bown Observer Portrait Award for her classic Charlie Watts portrait in 1992. In 1998 she was honoured with the accolade ‘Woman of the Year' for Music and Related Industries’.

In the 1960’s, Roy Esmonde exited Kilkenny with his camera to pursue a passion for music and pictures that endures to this day. Beginning as a teenage photographer with a press agency - the grandly titled National Press Service of Ireland - he soon joined the big time doing national campaign work in the studio of O’Kennedy Brindley Advertising. He left O’KB to peddle his pics to the world at large and set up his own studio doing advertising and fashion photography. He turned his lenses to photojournalism too, working for SPOTLIGHT MAGAZINE (the Hot Press of its day) and the fortnightly arts and culture magazine, Hibernia.
Much later he found a proper job as a producer/director in RTE. Once he got
over the shock, he moved on to set up his own independent production company, Media Nua Ltd., and now specialises in documentaries. His interest in music lives on and recent projects include documentaries like ‘A FAIRY TALE OF NEW YORK’, ‘UNCLE JACK AND THE BOOM-BOOM MUSIC’, and ‘YOU RAISE ME UP’. Within the past couple of years he’s also made ‘FROM ARDOYNE TO THE ARAS – INSIDE THE MCALEESE PRESIDENCY’ and ‘NOT FADE AWAY’, on French colour photographs of 1913 Ireland. He is currently working on a documentary about John Feeney, one of the most famous ‘Irish Tenor’ exports to 1930’s America.
During the 1960’s & 1970’s, Roy photographed and even managed Irish bands.
About his photo of Luke Kelly, he says:
“ I always loved Luke’s singing. When he was in the Dubliners, he introduced me to great songs like the ‘The Peat Bog Soldiers’ and ‘The Springhill Mining Disaster’. Luke was always fantastic to photograph. He had a marvellous craggy face, a great personality, and was a lot more fun to
work with than his somewhat fearsome reputation would suggest.” –Roy Esmonde

Cathal Dawson didn't take up photography until therelatively late age of 27. Before that he spent a number of years doing sweet fanny adams. Washing dishes in the great hotels of Europe, pumping petrol in the great petrol stations of Ireland and signing on the dole at various stages in between seemed to be about the extent of his capabilities. Eventually he decided he needed to do something positive with his life and, following the suggestion of an interested party, borrowed a camera and started shooting.
The results were shockingly bad but the bug had bitten and consequently he joined the Dublin Camera Club. It was there he learned how to process and print b/w film. Making full use of the available darkrooms, he would often go in around 8pm and find himself emerging at 6 or 7 the following morning, eyes squinting in the light of day, exhausted but exhilarated because he might have produced one print he wouldn't be ashamed to hang on his wall. He had his first picture printed in the Sunday Press sometime in early 1988. That picture was taken in the RDS at a Level 42 gig, having smuggled a camera body and lens in with the help of a female friend, who refused to allow security to frisk her on the way in!
After that he started going to gigs regularly, blagging his way in with the camera (somehow managing to convince security he was a press photographer), and then continually submitted photos to various papers and magazines, particularly Ireland's premier music magazine, Hot Press, until eventually they accepted and printed a picture sometime in late 1988. Cathal has been working regularly with Hot Press ever since, shooting almost exclusively in black & white, (until around 2001) and primarily in the music scene.
Over the years he has photographed many of the legendary figures of rock including David Bowie, BB King, U2, Oasis, Sinead O'Connor, Johnny Thunders, Manic Street Preachers and many others, too numerous to mention. His photos have appeared in Hot Press, NME, Q, Mojo, Rolling Stone, Select, Marie Clare, and various other European and Asian magazines.
Cathal began shooting colour neg around 2001 and made the switch to digital photography in 2003, but his first love remains traditional black & white. He is currently selecting his favourite images from his vast archive to produce in a limited edition collection.