Hannah Verbeuren isn’t your typical portrait photographer. Her new book, Midnight: A Thousand Nights in Sodom, out now via Bazillion Points, isn’t a collection of smiling faces bathed in soft light. Instead, it’s a deep dive into the gritty, electrifying world that shock rock black metal mavericks Midnight have created.
“It was during my high school years that I really started to appreciate the power of photography,” she recalls. “I was always the one with the camera, capturing all the crazy moments. It was a way to express myself and connect with my friends.”
Cleveland itself, where Midnight and Verbeuren both hail from, is a city with a rich musical heritage full of grit and grime. It was there that she crossed paths with the at-the-time local metal band and became fascinated by capturing them. She started attending their gigs, drawn to the intense energy and raw emotion of the live performances. Naturally, her camera came with her, documenting the band and the mosh pits that swirled around them.
“I was immediately captivated by the energy of metal music,” she adds. “The intensity, the passion, the raw emotion—It was something I’d never experienced before. And I knew I wanted to capture it all. Every show from the band was just unmatched in intensity, and I became really drawn to that energy, the whole energy of their performances was so great. You would just see people going wild, and then they put on such a great show. I love shooting metal shows, but there’s isn’t like anything else.”
Throughout her time working as a graphic designer, she kept up with concert photography every chance she got, taking any opportunity to capture Midnight on stage or behind the scenes.
“I never really gave up on photography,” she admits. “It was always a part of me. I just needed to find the right outlet. Metal music is a very special world. It’s a place where people can be themselves and express their emotions without judgment. I wanted to capture that feeling in my photographs.”
Soon, Verbeuren realized she had more photos of Midnight than she knew what to do with, and she just kept adding to the collection, touring with the band, shooting hometown shows, and shooting behind the scenes whenever possible.
“I started looking through what I had gathered, all the live footage and everything else, and realized there was definitely enough for a full photo book,” she explained. “I just had so much cool footage of the band, and I wanted to use it all.”
When it came to capturing certain behind-the-scenes moments, many male photographers would have backed off and waited for the stage show to start back up. But Verbeuren came alive in those moments, using her unique perspective as a way to make the book something new and different.
“There would be these moments when they were by the pool, just lounging, and I think a lot of male photographers, they wouldn’t have wanted to take photos when they were sitting shirtless by the pool,” she explains. “But when I saw them sitting there, the contrast between their look and image and then to see them lounging poolside, I knew those would be great shots. I wanted to use my female gaze to actually capture those things that most wouldn’t in a metal photo book.”
Athenar, the mastermind behind Midnight, agrees that there is something special about the book that won’t be found in other photo books or metal memoirs.
“The sunny Portugal poolside photos are quite unique,” he says. “There are plenty of graveyard, practice spot, etc. photos to be seen of other bands, but this band but hangin pool side with a glass of wine … now that’s classy!”
“It’s great ‘working’ with her cuz it’s not ‘work,’” he adds about the process overall. “It’s all pretty natural. If it’s something I don’t feel comfortable with, I just have to say, ‘Nah, let’s not do that,’ and she won’t get vag hurt. Or vice versa, if I say, ‘Hey, let’s do this,” she can say, ‘Nah, that’s lame,’ and I won’t get butt hurt.”