I'm in love with the girl on the ...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In photography, some things just work. A young couple hug in Eccles precinct, the lad's arms wrapped tightly around his girlfriend with a dangling 'sign' that says 'Virgin'! But I think this photograph is made so much better by the fact that the kid has spotted my camera. It's like we've caught him 'at it' .. we know what his plan might be now with this young lady, who almost seems embarrassed to have been discovered with him .. or am I reading too much into it? On another level, remember when everyone went around with LPs (they were never albums back then) in plastic bags from record shops? And, of course, this all ties in nicely with my Chris Sievey blog, as his band The Freshies did that famous track 'I'm In Love With The Girl On The Manchester Virgin Megastore Checkout Desk'. Hey, maybe that's her!

In me 'ead!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chris Sievey would have been 70 years old yesterday. Shocking to think he didn't make it past 54, the poor bugger, and even harder to realise he's already been dead for 15 years. Chris was Frank Sidebottom, if you see what I mean. It was his head inside Frank's, the only way he ever gained any real taste of fame after his band The Freshies failed to make it big. I was lucky enough to photograph a gig by the group in 1979, and shot them again a couple of days later during a fun day out in Sale. Years after that, I photographed 'Frank' at some launch event after I'd cheekily encouraged him to creep up behind Sophie, the Duchess of Edinburgh. (She wasn't best pleased after she spotted him, I can tell you!!) So this is for you, Chris. I just want you to know you're inside my 'ead, too!

65, eh? ..

 

 

 

 

 

Bloody hell, I've reached the grand old age of 65. Happy Birthday to me! Until recently*, hitting that milestone used to mean retirement after 50 years of hard graft and probably death within a fortnight! Sixty-five meant you were an old-aged pensioner, put out into the long grass to concentrate on your hobbies and contemplate the approaching end. It meant an awkward little soirée with your work-mates and a speech from the boss, two cans of Watney's, a gold clock and a bouquet for the missus. Until I was eighteen I worked at the Gardner Diesel factory in Eccles, where there were retirement parties like those in the offices and on the shop floor on a regular basis. I used them to 'practice' press photography, honing my skills until the day I could quit my shitty job and start working full-time on a newspaper. Here are pictures from two such events, the lucky new pensioners gripping hands with their gaffers and staring their demise in the face. How I feel for the chap that received an electric razor ..

*If I were still working, I would now face another two years at the coal-face before my time was 'up'. The retirement age was raised to 67, which makes me feel all the better (smug alert) for retiring a full ten years early. Anyone for frisbee?

Modest men, lovely men ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As a follow-on from my 'Read this' post, here's a photograph I took of André Kertész with a cake that was made for his 90th birthday. It was July 1984 and he was at the Museum of Photography, Film and Television in Bradford for the opening of a wonderful exhibition of his work. (It was there that I first came across the word 'festschrift' - a collection of works published in honour of an artist - because I bought a copy and still have it, signed by the great man himself .. )

I believe Salford artist Harold Riley had a lot to do with bringing this exhibition to life. I lived down the road from him and photographed him often. "I'm a painter," he modestly told a lady at an event one time. "Oh yes?" she replied. "Can you give me a quote to emulsion our front room!" ..

Modest men, lovely men. I hope they're chattering together excitedly in heaven ..

Ps: This is from an original print, on RC paper, with my hand-written caption up the side! 

Read this ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I've splashed out £35 on David Hurn's new book 'On Reading', an homage to a 1984 book of the same name by the great André Kertész. That first book cost all of £2.50 (Technically $5.95, as I bought it in New York!) but I don't begrudge the higher price of David's book because - don't tell anybody - I think it's better than André's. His eye for a quirky moment conquers André's quietly contemplative photography, meaning there's so much more to see in the modern photographs ..

I own autographed books by both 'masters'. I got André's in person when I was lucky enough to meet him on his 90th birthday. Just got to wangle a meet with Mr Hurn now .. 

 

Gwapple me gwapenuts!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well I guess I know what I was doing thirty-seven years ago today. I was reading the British Journal of Photography, which I bought religiously every week for the grand sum of 60p. On this particular cover, the famous TV botanist David Bellamy peered out from behind a leafy bush in a pose I can only imagine he adopted every time he encountered a photographer. (I shot him exactly like that myself!)

 

Inside, there are articles on 'Stills video' for the press and news agencies (I remember the Manchester Evening News buying in just such a system) and the Canon EOS 620. There's a review of an exhibition at The Barbican - a 20th century collection of French photography entitled 'Art or nature', and there are adverts for the Mamiya 645 and the Bronica GS-1. The thing that surprised me most was the 'Classified' pages at the back of the magazine. There are .. wait for it .. EIGHT pages of jobs within photography, ranging from Slide Technicians on £8000 a year, Photography Lecturers on eight to fifteen thousand, Cruise Ship snappers, Black-and-white printers, E6 technicians and even Senior Photographers with the Ministry of Defence with a requirement of City and Guilds qualifications and at least an A,B or C pass in English Language, Mathematics and one Science subject ..

As David Bellamy (Or at least Lenny Henry) would say .. "Gwapple me gwapenuts!!!" 

(And if you don't understand that then you are TOO YOUNG!)

 

Happy Hockney

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I went to Paris recently to see the fantastic new David Hockney exhibition, then discovered yesterday that he and my Dad share the same birthday. (Two great men, two warm summer days in the 1930s!) I was lucky enough to photograph the artist back in December 1996, when he had a show at Manchester Art Gallery, but the work on display in the capital blew that exhibition away. Staged at the magnificent Foundation Louis Vuitton, it features 400 works of art over several floors and, although I found some of it rather childish, there's no denying the vibrancy of his paintings. And to walk into a room and see a picture that's fifty feet across .. wow! Highly recommended, and open until the end of August if you happen to be en Paris ..

PS: Having finished my photographs, I shook the great man's hand and asked for his autograph. I still have it to this day. You'd swear he's written 'Gary Lowry' .. ! 

PPS: Don't you just love the holes in his cardigan!!