Women in photography: music photographer Christie Goodwin on courage and creativity

“Sometimes you have to break rules to get the shot,” says Christie Goodwin. Once, while working as the house photographer at the Royal Albert Hall, she’d been informed that night’s performer, a certain Iggy Pop, didn’t like to see photographers. Obeying orders, she stayed invisible – until Iggy decided to launch himself into the crowd, that is.

“I know that place inside out, I knew where I had to be for the shot I wanted. It was a split-second decision,” she remembers. "I got the shot exactly – Iggy rolling on his back on the hands of the crowd, his arms reaching up.” Seconds later she found herself face-to-face with the singer as he was carried forward, “but I had my camera behind my back.” That balance of discretion and gumption is typical of Goodwin, a music photographer with the guts to point her lens where others don’t.

Though she enjoys all aspects of her work, Goodwin feels most at home in the pit. “When the music starts, the adrenaline starts pumping. Every live show has a rhythm. The first three songs are the worst: the artist has to get into it, the band, even the crowd. Then, as the concert really gets going, everybody gets excited and there’s a lot of love going between the crowd, the artist and the band. You’re in the middle of that and the energy radiates off you and guides you to take the pictures.”

Like elsewhere in the image industry, music photography is overwhelmingly male-dominated, but Goodwin has refused to let this hold her back. “There are always more male photographers than female but they don’t intimidate me,” she says. Quite the contrary. She remembers shooting from the opposite side of the pit to other photographers, in order to capture something original. It caused much confusion among her colleagues and led to one coming over to ask her what on earth she was doing.

“There are a few male photographers who I’ve shared the pit with who I know have looked down on me, but I’ve never had a client say they wouldn’t hire me because I’m a woman.” Success comes down to talent “and talent has no gender,” she adds. But it’s also about courage – “the courage to share your vision, the courage to be criticised, the courage to learn, to explore creativity beyond what’s expected of you” – and Goodwin isn’t short on bravery.