Soft lads ..

Earlier in the summer I shot a whole series of pr portraits for a company in Cheshire, then took it upon myself to 'photoshop' a portrait of one of the ladies. Nothing drastic - just a bit of skin-softening, a bit of wrinkle removal - that sort of thing. I added the retouched photo to the folder of images I sent to the client, and mentioned that I'd be happy to do the same for any of the other ladies involved in the shoot. Skip forward two months and the marketing chap has just come back to me. 'Er, still able to retouch some of the pix?..' he asked. 'Sure..' I said 'Which ladies?' 'Erm.. ' he paused 'It's actually three of the men!...'

I had the 'pleasure' of shooting a birthday party for an 11 year old last night. Thirty-five eleven year-olds in one room and a DJ with what sounded like only two records! Sorry, CDs - er, ipod tracks! Hell, doesn't matter what he was playing, he played 'em loud! Add to that the screaming of all those kids and I came away with my ears whistling better than any punk gig I've been to lately!
Little darlings!

Speaking of music, I'm pleased to say that Phil Oakey's made it onto one of my T-shirts! A new designer fashion shop in Tokyo has just opened, and is featuring four of my music images on its shirts. The usual suspects - Joy Division and Morrissey - are in there, as well as Devo and, for the first time, the lead singer of the Human League. I photographed the band in 1979 - back when they were a proper group, not with any of those girly girlies in there - although I certainly suspect Mr Oakey would have been the first in the queue for a little bit of photo-retouching...

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