Behind TIME's Cover With Adele

As Adele’s smash hit record 25 continues to dominate the music scene—it has already sold 5 million copies in the U.S. alone—TIME asked Erik Madigan Heck to photograph her for the cover of this week’s issue.

“I wanted to create timeless images that showed Adele in a simple and colorful light,” says the photographer. “She is like an old world beauty, so I just wanted to show her natural elegance. I was extremely nervous leading up to the shoot, as she’s inarguably the biggest pop-star in the world. I tried to tell myself it was just like shooting one of my friends in high school.”

But once he arrived at the New York City set, Madigan Heck found that his nerves disappeared; Adele was funny and very easy to photograph. “We worked together for an hour,” he says, “but it felt like 10 minutes as we just joked around as if we had met before.”

Subscribe to TIME

Sign up for our Entertainment newsletter. Subscribe to More to the Story to get the context you need for the pop culture you love.

Please enter a valid email address.

* The request timed out and you did not successfully sign up. Please attempt to sign up again.

Sign Up Now

An unexpected error has occurred with your sign up. Please try again later.

Check here if you would like to receive subscription offers and other promotions via email from TIME group companies.

You can unsubscribe at any time. By signing up you are agreeing to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you!

For your security, we've sent a confirmation email to the address you entered. Click the link to confirm your subscription and begin receiving our newsletters. If you don't get the confirmation within 10 minutes, please check your spam folder.

Contact us at letters@time.com.