As far as first gigs go, it’s not bad: shooting Oasis at Knebworth as part of their sold-out, legendary 1996 performance.
But for Sharon Latham, this bit of early work would become the start of a lifelong association with the band. What started with shooting gigs at Knebworth, the Etihad and Maine Road became, over the decades, a chance to shoot Noel Gallagher on the road with his band.
Now, those photographs are being put on display at the Gibson Gallery in London, and paint a fascinating picture of a life on the road with one of the biggest stars of the Britpop era.
For our interview, Latham rings in from a football pitch in Burnley, Lancashire – apt, considering that football is how she got to know Noel in the first place.
“My first major photography job was as Man City's club photographer,” she says. “That’s where I met Noel. Originally Noel and Liam used to come to the games, until things went wrong. And then Liam would be on one side of the stadium and Noel would be on the other. I always used to bump into him.”
The turning point came when Latham took a photograph of Noel on-pitch when Man City won the league in 2012. “It’s such an amazing candid shot, and he asked if he could have the picture. And then I got this text, I was like, ‘No, it's not really Noel Gallagher!’ And from there, we’ve stayed friends.”
When Latham quite her job in 2016, Gallagher was nonplussed. “He said, ‘But it's the best club in the world. What are you going to do?’ and jokingly, I said, ‘It's okay. I’ll come on tour with you.’ And he went, ‘okay’.”
Since then, Latham has been on tour with Noel and his band, the High Flying Birds. She’s shot him across multiple countries, hundreds of venues: both backstage and relaxing, and on-stage playing to thousands of fans.
“Noel is one of the nicest people to work for,” she says. “He's incredibly kind. Incredibly funny and incredibly thoughtful as well. I mean, I know when to back away and when not to get involved in things... because you get used to reading people and being with them for so often when you're on tour, you don't want to be in their face all the time.”
She also paints a picture of a man who knows exactly what he wants. “We were shooting a promo for a tour picture… I went to the studio, and he said, ‘Right. I've got this idea,’” she remembers. Latham ended up hastily shooting him using a Venetian blind as a backdrop.
“I think I snapped about nine or 10 shots and he just went, ‘There we go that'll be one of them… see, if we'd hired some big massive fancy advertising agency to shoot that, it’d would have taken all day to light. 20 minutes for Shaz. Thanks, see you later!’”
A lot of Latham’s photos also show Gallagher getting ready to go onstage, walking down a venue’s corridors on his way to greet the fans. But behind the scenes was often where the magic happened.
“Backstage there was a lot of fun,” he says. “He was easy going. After the gig we’d sit down and have a chat and a catch up. It was great, but I can't repeat some of the stories because you just can't. I mean, you really seriously can't.”
However, Latham does have memories of meeting countless celebs in the backstage dressing rooms. Dave Grohl, Kylie Minogue, Paul McCartney… the list goes on. She cites one example in Los Angeles where Noel invited her to come for a drink backstage.
“Lars from Metallica was there. There was Debbie Harry's drummer… I said [to Noel], ‘Look there's even a Bradley Cooper lookalike over there.’ And he went, ‘Oh, no, that's Bradders. Come on.’ And Bradley Cooper got up and hugged me.”
Does she have a favourite image? “I get asked this quite a lot,” she laughs. The one that sticks in her mind is a still from the Manchester Arena: the first gig that Noel had played there since the infamous bombings in 2017.
“You can see the whole of the audience with Noel and the band's in front, and he was singing Don't Look Back In Anger… it's just this massive hoard of people and you can see them all individually singing this song back, screaming at him, and then he's really small in the left hand corner. It's just a spectacular picture.”
One of the things that often sticks with her, she says, is the age of the people in the crowds at these performances.
“I find it incredible that when you stand and watch the gigs from the side of the stage, you see all those people singing the songs back… and you look at their age, and some of them are, 16-17. It's another generation isn't it? It's another set of fans that have come from people my age, because I'm in my 50s, and I've brought my kids up with Oasis music. So that’s why they’re there.”
And when the time comes to see Oasis again, she says she’ll be going. Though there are currently no plans to shoot the brothers live.
“I’m just looking forward to going to the gigs, and whatever comes from that.”
A New World Blazing by Sharon Latham is at the Gibson Gallery in the Gibson Garage London until April 2025; gazette.gibson.com
