Christie Goodwin

This music photographer has worked with many of the biggest names in rock and pop. She speaks to Steve Fairclough about her career

It took Christie Goodwin until she was in her 40s to find her true vocation: photographing musicians. Although she had already been a photographer for over 20 years, a chance commission from the manager of the rock band Status Quo took her career in a whole new path. Since then, Christie’s growing reputation in the field of music photography has led to her shooting major stars from both sides of the Atlantic. She has been photographing Ed Sheeran since he was an unknown 17-year-old playing in pubs, and regularly shoots the tours of legendary musicians.

How did you get into photography?

I’ve always been fascinated by pictures. When I was little, to keep me quiet, my parents would put me on the settee with a big photo book, and I would be ‘gone’ for hours. I just loved pictures. I would look at a picture and have this whole story in my head about that picture… What happened before that picture, and what happened after. I’ve always been fascinated with that.

My dad had a camera, which I wasn’t allowed to touch. I knew that there was a connection, that the camera made pictures, so I was obsessed with this camera. I ran off with it a couple of times and got told off. In the end he gave up, and bought me my first analogue camera for my 14th birthday. From then on, it was just me and my camera.

Did any photographers inspire you?

To me, it was the pictures. I wasn’t interested in the photographers. That only came when I studied photography, because then you have to study various photographers and their styles.