Lifetime Achievement
Jill Furmanovsky’s career in music photography spans more than 50 years
The winner of this year’s Lifetime Achievement Award has photographed some of the world’s biggest bands and artists for over half a century. Born in Zimbabwe, Jill Furmanovsky moved with her family to swinging London at the age of 11. The seeds of her future career were sown just two years later when, as a 13-year-old Beatles fan, she would hang around outside Abbey Road Studios with her dad’s Instamatic, hoping for a glimpse of her heroes. She managed to track Paul McCartney down to his house and got a picture of him outside. Her first-ever rock photo.
Years later, as an art student enrolled on a two-week photography course, she took the college’s Pentax Spotmatic to a gig at The Rainbow Theatre, then a prestigious London venue. The in-house photographer asked her if she was a professional. She lied and said ‘yes’, then he asked her if she wanted a job. So, with just two weeks’ training, she became a music photographer.
IN ASSOCIATION WITH CVP
It was unpaid, but shortly after, at the age of just 19, she was hired as the photographer on Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon tour.
Jill’s arresting shots of the likes of Led Zeppelin and Bob Marley, as well as punk and post-punk legends such as the Sex Pistols, Clash and Joy Division were soon regularly gracing music weeklies NME and Melody Maker and she went on to shoot for The Face, Q and others. Jill developed a close working relationship with many of her subjects, most notably Oasis,
