Mick Hutson

Hanging out of helicopters, stopping the New York traffic, sweet-talking kidnappers: a celebration of Mick Hutson, music photographer.

- Scott Rowley

Mick Hutson, celebrated music photographer, died on Thursday, June 1, 2023, aged 58. Mick was known for his work for Metal Hammer, Classic Rock, Q and Select magazines, among others, and he shot many of the biggest names in music. His pictures were used on official album releases by Nirvana, AC/DC, Primal Scream, Queens Of The Stone Age, Mike Oldfield, Judas Priest and more.

Mick was born in Newcastle in May 1965. He grew up in Aberdeen, and when he left school went to work on the North Sea oil rigs: 12 hours a day, 14 days on, 14 days off. On LinkedIn he lists his occupation back then as “roughneck”: slang for an unskilled labourer on the drill floor. The Collins dictionary says that a roughneck is someone who is “not gentle or polite and can be violent”. That’s not even close to being a fair description of Mick, who was known for his good humour and charm. In fact he once told Digital Camera World that “the real secret of my photography, if there is one, is charm. Charming the PRs into a few more minutes with the band, charming the artist to let me photograph them somewhere other than the hotel corridor, and charming the tour manager to let me stay that little bit longer in the pit at a gig. It’s all about constant negotiation.”

He left the oil rigs to do a master’s degree in Photography and Film. “But it didn’t count for anything,” he said later – what really mattered was doing the work. He went to work for the famous music photographer David Redfern. “I learned a lot – a huge amount – in the couple of years I was with him,” Mick told Primal magazine.