William Richards is a university educated Jamaican photographer. He has captured almost every modern dancehall and reggae artist with timeless prestige and taste, “except Shabba” he says. His work has been featured in every top music magazine globally including The Rolling Stone, Billboard Magazine and may more.
“My father was my first phonographic influence,” he says. Although he credits three women Cedella Marley, daughter of Bob Marley, Sharon Burke and Marie Bruce for introducing him to the world of reggae and dancehall.
The Jamaican music photography scene wasn’t as saturated as it is now up to ten years ago. William marks himself as the second generation of photographers who chronicle the ebbs and flows of dancehall.
“In my youth I thought I was the first but later I found out there Johnny Black, Adrian Boot , and I’m sure I am forgetting a million others, I was still blessed in the 90s and maybe still am one of the most prolific ‘documenters’ of reggae and dancehall culture,” William said.
With inspirations like Adrian Boot whose work in cultural photography includes History of a Music Revolution and Reggae Explosion – The Story of Jamaican Music, The Bob Marley Exhibition; The Ultimate Experience William prizes himself as “an influencer who gets to interpret the dreams of these icons.”
He shares a secret with WMV about how the album cover for Sean Paul‘s RIAA certified triple Platinum album Dutty Rock (Atlantic/VP Records) was created after he shot multiple images.
“Well first of all there was an alignment, with Sean Paul and the Dutty Cup crew from long before that album. I had been working with Sean and that crew probably about 5 years before that album. Steve Wilson is a school mate of mine so we already had a synergy. We had some socio-economic similarities as well, growing top middle class but working in a genre typically dominated by the working class so there was a natural connection,” he said.
“That album cover was a graphic, a piece of photo art, the finger that is being held up is from another frame so we didn’t get the shot. Well we did get the shot but in today’s age we are able to further get the shot, taking the expression and the gestures form two different shots. That is actually the work of celebrated author Marlon James, a friend of mine from university. He was the graphic designer and he assembled those images,” William revealed.
In the 90s William had a monopoly on creating album covers in reggae and dancehall being the go to guy for record labels like VP and Island records. He said he didn’t get to shoot Shabba Ranks but he created Capleton’s More Fire, Beenie Man’s Island Records debut Blessed, “It’s one of my favorite album covers I ever shot. For Patra’s 1995 release Scent of Attraction, at age 26 William was commissioned for his first album cover for Epic Records a division of Sony Records where Patra was signed. He said he didn’t like the final output.
“I didn’t have much input, they chose images I didn’t like, they painted her lips red, in a black and white image which I thought was extremely tacky even in the 90s to put red lips on a black and white project, who does that?” he said disappointedly.
“I Love the fact that no one is gonna know my name but my image is gonna be over millions of households and when they hear the music there is an association with the imagery and I love that.”
“Album covers are not as big as they used to be, one of my joys used to be just looking at album covers,” he said.
Among his most recent work is Skeng’s Beast Of The Era Ep.
“What I met when my eye met his eyes (Skeng) is a sweet 21 year old kid, his baby mother was there and he was locked into his music but also locked into his family,” he recalls the experience. He said Skeng’s team wanted images that showed him as the goat.
“The goat is not a term I like, how is he a goat? He is 21 years old, how is he the goat? The greatest of all time? call Shabba a goat, or Sean. he has time to be a goat. But at the same time just the boasyness to make that claim gives me a sense of who he really is. We went hard with the imager so we actually got some goats and shot him with goats. It’s not always one path, it’s always a collaboration, sometimes it’s my makeup artist, my assistant, sometimes it’s a graphic artist who puts a hand where there was just a face and gets a more iconic image, there is never just one road.
As artificial intelligence becomes more improved, advertising agencies will need the eye of the veteran photographer less, says William as he is being acutely aware of ChatGPT and DALL-E-2. He says his retirement plan includes a path to passive income such as an exhibition or sale of his catalogue.
“Any image that you shoot editorially, the magazine buys a year’s use and then the rights for the use of that image is reverted to you. They used to have a thing called ‘buyout’ in the states which is no longer available. you have to specify the rights. But basically when you create a commissioned image you assign the rights of usage to an advertising agency, magazine or record label and usually you assign a timed usage and you try and retain as much rights otherwise for yourself.”
“The resale of images can be a huge earner, I have an archive of thousands of images of reggae and dancehall acts over the years, it’s my goal to have an exhibition first.”
Watch the full WMV interview with William Richards on YouTube here.
