At a sunny Truck festival in rural Oxfordshire in July 2016, I was asked to take some promo pictures, and potentially an album cover, for a new musical combo by the name of BWP. BWP was a recent collaboration between Robin Bennett of the Dreaming Spires, Danny Wilson of Danny & the Champions of the World and Tony Poole of Starry Eyed & Laughing.

Both Danny and Robin were on the bill for the weekend festival and were on site. As the weekend went on it became clear that there was a chance that Tony wouldn’t make it, and so I was told the photo shoot might not happen.

Despite this, I spent some time scouring the festival site looking for suitable spots to shoot them should the opportunity arise. Potential locations were numerous considering it was a working farm with plenty of cow sheds, hay barns and other atmospheric and rustic places.

The place to go to at the festival is the Saloon venue. It’s fashioned on an old cowboy saloon and I pretty much camp out at this stage every time I go to Truck festival. It’s a hang out spot and live music venue that’s devoted to all musical things Americana, played predominantly by quality UK and North American artists.

Both Danny and Robin had already played at the Saloon stage that weekend. Late on Sunday afternoon as the festival was winding up, I got the word from Robin that Tony had arrived and was in the crowd at the Saloon stage.

Time was pushing on and we didn’t have much of it left. Where were we going to take the photos? There was only one possible answer given the time pressure, the Saloon porch. There were two vintage leather armchairs on the porch that were currently occupied. We kindly explained to the occupants our purpose and they were happy to oblige.

Eighteen months later in January 2018 and the sleeve cover for the soon to be released debut album by BWP has just been released. I’m thrilled to see that my photograph made it onto the front cover.