Live & Dangerous

I took this photograph of Phil Lynott during Thin Lizzy's gig in the RDS Dublin on June 7th, 1980. Phil was at the height of his powers as were the band which comprised Scott Gorham, Snowy White and Brian Downey.

The first concert I ever attended was Thin Lizzy in Dalymount Park, Dublin in August 1977. I had finished school and was heading for Journalism School in the College of Commerce in Rathmines. After a year in College I decided that I would prefer to be a press photographer than a reporter. Photography was already a hobby as was listening to music. I put the two together and began to take pictures at rock concerts. The Punk and New Wave scene had exploded into Dublin and there were bands playing everywhere it seemed and I attended most of the gigs.

Life was simpler then. There was no requirement for pre-clearance for press or arguments with lawyers over image rights. I usually turned up with a press card I made myself using Letraset which always passed the less than expert eyes of the door men. I had a Kowa SeR with a 50mm lens, a 135mm lens, Kodak Tri-X pushed to 1600ASA and a rapidly hardening neck. I got a lot of photographs. A lot of them haven't survived because my darkroom technique was primitive.

By the time Thin Lizzy played the RDS I was working for The Longford Leader as their press photographer. I was also equipped with Nikons and a 200mm Nikkor lens which was mostly used for sport. However, it also worked very well at rock gigs. I captured this photograph of Phil with my Nikon F2 with motordrive and the 200mm lens, Tri-X pushed to 1600ASA, developed in Microphen (one shot) for 16 minutes. My darkroom technique had improved hugely thanks to a stint working in Ennis for the short-lived "Clare News". The senior photographer on the paper was Liam McGrath, a talented photographer and first rate darkroom technician who trained me in all the darkroom techniques need to produce a print quickly.

For this shot, I focused on where Phil stood most of the time, set the exposure, took the head off the F2 and held it over my head, framed the shot as best I could and fired off a few frames at a time.

#music #phillynott #dublin #thinlizzy #rockmusic #blackwhitephotography