“A lot of what happens is intuitive – composition, knowing when to grab a shot, editing. Like my head is giving me instructions I just follow,” he explains. “Black and white is timeless and theatrical. It gives a better sense of place and emotion. Colour is a distraction and only really works if it helps the story the photo is telling. I do all this for myself. I used to send on my photos to bands’ management but almost always got no response.
Within a performer’s facial gesture, there lurks something precise, definitive and sculptural. Figgis’s shots chisel this out and make sense of the blur of artistry, of sound and light, of instrument and flesh, of microphone and mouth. “It’s trying to grab that split second. If you are a moment too late or too soon, it is gone and you have to wait for the next one.” A good performance is a sequence of critical moments? “The first time I shot The Stooges there were loads of moments where I was half a second too late. But with someone like Iggy there is always another moment. I get distracted checking out something elsewhere on the stage. And then, aaaah no, he did that and it’s now gone.