The Final Frontier

Iron Maiden’s 15th studio album is at last unleashed. Mid-week sales suggest it will be No.1 in the UK chart by the weekend. The photo in the artwork was taken in Ft Lauderdale back in May. My inspiration was from the classic scenes in Close Encounters.

I felt the band in sillhouette would have so much more impact than the usual casual band shot. I had heard the record and seen the album artwork so I had a feel of the vibe. It was the last shot to be done during an afternoon of promo pictures at TYE studios and I took a bit of a risk leaving it until the end. I wasn’t sure the bands attention span would hold and I was running way over time. The band are standing on 3 steel platforms in a black-out studio, backlit with 3 heads and a smoke machine. The image is in full colour, but shot with Tungsten film with daylight flash giving an overwhelming blue cast.