Wish You Were Here 1975

Early in 1975 Storm Thorgerson of Hipgnosis gave me an assignment to shoot pictures of Pink Floyd,who were recording the follow up to ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ in Studio 3, Abbey Road. It was a dream job for this Beatles fan. I had fantasized about being allowed into that holy building since I was a school-girl.

Engineer/producer, Brian Humphries with Roger Waters

David Gilmour

I wasn’t a stranger to the band. The previous year I had been a tour photographer on their DSOTM tour, but that was as part of a huge crew, and I was more or less hidden within their midst. This shoot, in an intimate setting with musicians who were notoriously private, was very different.

I borrowed a Leica M4 from a friend. It was the most discreet camera available at the time. I wasn’t sure if I could shoot in the main studio during a take because of all the microphones - the shutter was quiet but it wasn’t silent - so I stuck to shooting in the control room with its fascinating state of the art mixing desk and as many wires as a telephone exchange.

Roy Harper, who sung Have a Cigar - the boy with the ice-lolly is Nick Harper then aged 10.

Roger Waters

I shot both b&w and colour slide film. Most of the latter disappeared. It was probably thrown out once used in the WYWH songbook. A few reject frames remain, which is shame, but at the time none of us thought the images would be important historically. Luckily a lot of the b&w survives and provides a rare glimpse into the making of one of my all time favourite albums.

Nick and Jill

This selection of pictures includes the band, engineer/producer, Brian Humphries, singer/songwriter Roy Harper, who sung Have a Cigar - the boy with the ice-lolly is Nick Harper then aged 10. The final image is a very early ‘selfie’ taken of me and Nick Mason by him.