Continental '82

 

 

 

 

 

 I do like a project for the winter. In the past I've concentrated on fiction-writing and my photo-books, but this year I'm using the time to sort out a box of negatives I've had since 1982. That was the year I spent five weeks criss-crossing America on a Continental Airlines Visit USA air-pass, which allowed me unlimited flight all over the continent. I think it cost £200, and I went over with just £200 in my pocket, travelling from New York and New Hampshire to Seattle, Houston to San Francisco and Boston to Denver, dossing in airports or with pen-friends or friends of friends, as well as a second-uncle of my Dad's and even a very kind Californian lady whose photograph I took when she visited Warrington to campaign against proposed nuclear weapon storage at the former RAF Burtonwood (I think!)

I travelled light, carrying only my trusty Olympus XA camera, and I shot Ilford HP5 and Kodak Tri-X to produce well over 500 black and white negatives, all of which have just been sitting in this box for the last 43 years. Now I've started scanning them to digital, transporting myself back to when I was just 22 with untold adventure ahead of me. (Although, I must admit, I've already seen some things I can't even remember anymore. There's a shot of me with a vast grassy canyon behind. Turns out it's Cannon Mountain in upstate New Hampshire. Not a single memory of it! Would never even have known I'd been there without that photographic evidence!!) I see the work as my own personal Stephen Shore road-trip, or a Robert Frank tribute, and I'll produce a book of course, to go (unsold) with all the others I've produced. But, hey ho, it's worth it for the creative satisfaction I'm getting. Continental '82 is what it'll be called. Available in no good book shops ..

The shots above show a 'cowboy' on a vast, empty DC-10, and a skinny oik with pretensions to photographic grandeur on the deck of a Staten Island ferry. Ah, the joys of youth ..

 

Bless you ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I've just had a quick two-day flit to Manchester, bringing back memories of the days I used to go plane-spotting at the airport there in the 1970s. Back then, the roof terraces were open to spectators and you'd literally be above the jets and passengers as they got on or off their flights. Such freedom has long gone, of course, which is a shame but I can obviously see why. Also long gone are jets like these, the Boeing 727 and the Vickers VC-10, not to mention the entire Pan-Am airline, which went out of business many years ago. Anyway, a good time was had by all and I came back with duty-free gin, Cadbury's chocolate, a couple of new books and .. a stinking cold! 

Bless you, Manchester! 

Music to my ears ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

I've had another of those lovely unexpected messages, when a person not known to me recognises themselves in one of my photographs. In this case it's the charming little baby in the pram, who's now a 40 year old lady living in London. (And still charming, I'm sure!) She wrote to tell me she'd seen herself and her dad in my Café Royal photo-book and cried when she saw it. "My dad," she said, "was 30 in this picture and he's now 70! Not doing too well health wise and this is such a special shot, it really moved me." 

Well, that moved me too, and I was so pleased she got in touch. I love it when history comes to life again. When my random wanderings capture something that brings joy to someone's life. I mean, think about it. For forty years this lady didn't know this photograph existed, and now here she is, enthralled once again by her dad's tooting on a toy trumpet! 

Music to my ears!

F16

 

 

 

 

 

The world is going down the toilet. As Israel bombs whichever the fuck country it wants to, Russia continues its brutal destruction of Ukraine and Poland's had to launch F16s to shoot down Putin's drones. On top of that, and literally as we speak, France is going nuts at tyre-burning blockades around the country because a Prime Minister had the temerity to tell them they're up shit creek without a paddle ..

What's wrong with this picture? Yes, exactly .. this is two people TALKING to each other, back in the days before tweeting and texting and thinking the worst of your fellow man (woman!) because they didn't agree with your social media stance. I wish our leaders were like this, meeting over the divide to communicate and hammer things out. Maybe even reaching out a considerate arm to better facilitate their dialogue ..

I pine for simpler days, when F16 was a camera aperture and tweeting was left to the sparrows and the blue tits. I realise they were only simpler because I was young and gormless and ignorant of the world about me, but it would be nice to go back there for a while, wouldn't it!

Balls ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Today's blog isn't a blog, because I was going to blog about all the pretensions that surround a lot of photography but, having just watched the 'I am Martin Parr' documentary, I can leave it to Grayson Perry, who sums it all up nicely, thank you very much. In the film he talks about the 'wafts of philosophical waffle' that often pervade the art of photography. It's a load of balls, in other words! Ooh look, a picture with a ball in it .. deep! (I can't explain why I like this photo so much. As a kid, 'training' myself to be a press photographer in the 1970s, I used to photograph the Sunday League footballers who played on the field behind our house. It used to amuse me that, just like us, these 'grown-ups' would often lose their ball too, and have to send someone off into the undergrowth to retrieve it!)
 

End of non-blog!

    

Backs against the wall ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm hearing a lot about the British flag appearing all over the UK, and how that's not going down so well in some quarters. Here in France the tricolour flies everywhere, a welcome sign of civic and national pride. If only that was the reason a lot of the Union Jacks are being displayed in the UK. Anyway, I'm not getting into politics, I just wanted an excuse to show you one of my old photographs, a picture taken on Jane Street in Salford during the celebrations for the Queen's 1977 Silver Jubilee. Jane Street has long gone, a chap takes his life in his hands when he attempts street photography of kids these days, and the simple meaning behind the good ol' red, white and blue has gone out of the window .. Sigh!

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!