Music Photographer Mick Hutson Who Shot Iconic Rock Photos Dies Aged 58
Legendary music photographer Mick Hutson who captured icons of the rock world has died suddenly aged 58, his family has confirmed.
Hutson’s work regularly graced the pages of music magazines and he captured a host of legends including Ozzy Osbourne, Eric Clapton, Paul McCartney, Metallica, David Bowie, Ice Cube, and many more.
Hutson had more than 80 front covers of rock magazine Metal Hammer to his name, according to the Brighton Argus.
Biography
Hutson was born in the city of Newcastle, in North East England in May 1965 and before beginning his photography career he worked as an oil worker in the North Sea.
When Hutson wasn’t working on an oil rig off the coast of Scotland, he would go to rock shows and drink pints while on land.
“I’d always been one of the boys who drank in the rock bars around Aberdeen half the year and spent the other half toiling my life away offshore,” Hutson told the Daily Mail in a 2015 interview.
“I loved going to all the local rock gigs, took some photos for a few bands here and there, and decided that I wanted to get into photography as a full-time gig.”
Hutson began studying photography and during that time he met David Redfern, a legendary jazz photographer, who took him on as an apprentice.
After spending a few years with Redfern, Hutson managed to get on a tour with U2 in Arizona and didn’t stop working after that.
Charming, Fun, and Wild
Hutson had a reputation for working hard and playing hard. He was bullish in his pursuit of a photo, once stopping traffic in New York City so he could get a shot of Metallica walking in the middle of the street, much to the chagrin of the local cabbies.
Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich pointed at Hutson and said: “Look at all this chaos! It’s all your fault, Mick!”
RIP Mick Hutson. A colossus of rock photography, and just as much of a rock star as the rock stars he photographed pic.twitter.com/RZ0tstsJVT
— JULY 7TH IS THE BWESTEST DAY IN HUMAN HISTORY (@jamesjammcmahon) June 3, 2023
During another shoot with Metallica, he convinced guitarist Kirk Hammet to strip naked and pose on a posh toilet in a Berlin hotel with only his guitar covering his modesty.
David Bowie’s Facebook page made a tribute to the photographer with a photo of the late rocker performing Under Pressure with Annie Lennox at the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert at Wembley Stadium in 1992.
“The real secret of my photography, if there is one, is charm,” he once told Digital Camera World.
“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 photographers’ pit at a gig. It’s all about constant negotiation.”
After budgets for music magazines began to shrink, Hutson embarked on travel photography and reportage. According to Metal Hammer, he captured child soldiers in Rwanda and traveling to Afghanistan.
“He was a vagabond and an adventurer at heart, tough as nails, sensitive as could be at times, but he always delivered, and he was never, ever boring,” says Alexander Milas, who was the Editor in Chief of Metal Hammer from 2006 to 2016.
An inquest into his death will be held on Tuesday, June 13.