SNAP!

At the height of The Jam's success, the band commissioned 21-year-old freelance photographer Neil "Twink" Tinning to follow them around both in the studio and on the road and take reportage photos. The resulting shots appear in Rick Buckler and Zoe Howe's new book, The Jam 1982, which documents a year when the band were arguably the biggest in Britain, their splenetically intense gigs attended by a fanatical fanbase. Before an autumn tour taking in five Wembley Arena shows in December of that year, Paul Weller, 24, announced the band would split as "I'd hate us to end up old and embarrassing like so many other groups do". Here, Rick Buckler (left) takes us through a selection of Twink's best shots from a year when The Jam seemed to rule the Modern World.

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Paul Weller in full flight, UK tour, Autumn '82

Such an iconic shot from Twink, capturing that intense moment. Was it difficult for Paul to play like that? Well, it was mostly rhythm stuff, and in the early days him being influenced by Wilko Johnson's stuff. It was all about energy, there wasn't much attention paid to the detail of it, plus the noise of that Rickenbacker 303, they cut your head off with that almost chainsaw-like sound. And the gigs were so animated, a lot of leaping about and intense from the moment the first chord was struck. And that shot really catches the feeling of it.

Bruce Foxton, Gift front cover shoot outtake, London, February '82

We didn't devote much time to album photo shoots in those days, so while we were recording The Gift [1982], we just went up onto the roof of Air Studios in Oxford Street, and Twink took shots of us running on the spot. Did we have to do that sort of thing a lot? Not so much - most photos taken of us were just up against a wall or something, so this was a bit different! As it happened, though, Bruce [Foxton] actually went back up there the next day. He didn't feel ready for it the day before, he wanted to make sure he was wearing some decent clothes...

Rick Buckler, back of tour bus, UK, September '82