All out....

I'd be a busy boy today if I were still a Press Photographer, as public sector workers down tools and walk out over their pensions dispute. I could take my pick and photograph striking airport workers, teachers, Mersey Tunnel toll booth operatives .. you name it! At least I don't think the Fire Brigade is coming out today, as they did in 1977. I remember walking down to Eccles Fire Station that November and shooting a couple of frames on my Yashica Fr1 and, to my wannabe press photographer delight, the one I'm blogging today got into the Eccles Journal.

I never want this blog to get political, so I'll skip merrily along from the nitty gritty of today's actions. I mean, it's a worrying time for us all, so who needs another ranting blog going on about a double-dip recession and the rising cost of everything!?

EIGHTY POUNDS it cost me to fill up my car last night! Eighty!!

Oops!

Ditch the Bentley?...

Here's one for you if you're getting married at Knutsford's Belle Epoque Restaurant any time soon. It's a montage I made a year or two back, and I've just found it again whilst I was searching for another image. It brought back some great memories - the Belle Epoque's a really funky place to get married. Anyway, I was looking for images because I'm trying to design a new promotional postcard to leave at hotel receptions and so on. But, Man! How on earth do you edit all my years' Wedding photography down to five or six images? It's like - I've got to have a picture of a bride getting ready, but then I need a shot of a couple in a church - or should I use a shot of them in a field, and I've always liked this shot of this bride shedding a tear, and look at this shot of the groom spilling his champagne, but that would mean I'd lose the shot of the Bentley and, and....etc., etc., etc....

I'm really happy with the front of the card, but the rear of it's driving me crazy! I fear I shan't get much else done today!...

It's the little things...

I trapped my left index finger in my car door the other day. Hurt like flip, but that was before I tried to type on my keyboard. Ouch! And now, today, my internet connection is running sooo sloooowly that it makes me realise how much I take a normal run speed for granted. Same as my car - there's an engine warning light keeps coming on, despite my car running fine, but it really unnerves me and makes me wary of every single judder whilst I drive. Not a lot to do with photography, that lot, but after the news of Gary Speed's death it just makes you realise you've got to enjoy what you've got!

Had a great day at yesterday's Wedding Fayre, so much so that I've booked to do it again in January. Get your 2012 diary ready, and book me in for January 15th at The Fir Grove Hotel, south Warrington!

Nice day for a ...

White Wedding....erm, Fayre!
Hope the horrible weather isn't putting you off coming to see me today. I'm at The Fir Grove Hotel Wedding Fayre, just south of Warrington. Come on down for a chat and a check on my work. Walk this way and hopefully 'aisle' see you later! Groan!...

Dance like no-one's watching...

Feeling hot to trot today... It's my last Wedding Fayre of the year tomorrow, and then I kick off my Christmas Weddings as we hit December! I love Christmas Weddings! They have just that extra little sparkle of magic about them, though they're usually a lot harder to shoot! All that low sun and early darkness and freezing cold weather stuff! Certainly keeps you on your toes!

Anyway, if you're around I'd love to see you at the Fir Grove Hotel in Grappenhall tomorrow, and if you behave yourself I might even give you a packet of Love Hearts! Boogie on down, why don't you...

Clean slate..

So there you have it! My friend closes his pet shop today after umpteen years in business, and walks away with only his sanity intact. So that's at least another four people out of work as from 5pm today and means I'll have to join the masses and start shopping at Pets at Home! Sorry to begin a Friday so negatively, but you can imagine it's pretty upsetting!

Anyway, speaking of starting over, I really need to speed up my Mac. The poor thing's got steam coming out of it and I'm running out of coal to keep it going. Short of a spare £1500, I decided I'd drop all my Weddings and PR work onto the back-up of my back-up system (If you see what I mean) and then I could securely delete all the files and regain some memory. Cripes! What have I started? The flippin' thing has now been deleting for over 24 hours, and still hasn't got rid of all my files! I'm gonna have so much memory I won't know what to do with it! Oh, I know.. I'll be a Photographer, and fill it full of photographs!

Guys, I don't want to sound too twee here, but after 33 years I really do thank God I'm still managing to make a living out of what I love...

How to get ahead...

 ..in photography!

Be a milkman! At least, that's according to a lady I know who owns a bridal shop near me. She sold her posh chaise longue on Ebay the other day, and a chap who said he was a milkman came to pick it up. Realising he was visiting a Wedding dress shop, he told her he shot Weddings at the weekend. "He's really busy, too.. " the lady told me!

So, that's the secret - Early to bed, early to rise, and cream off the work of the professionals as often as you can! Hard cheese for me, I suppose! Do you want a yoghourt with that?

This way, darling...

Time for more photographs of me! (Well, it's been a while, eh?) And right on cue my old boss at the Warrington Guardian sent me a picture of all the photographers who worked for Cheshire County Newspapers back in 1981. I'm at the back, the kid with the punk hair and Buggles glasses! I had to laugh because I'm doing exactly the same in that shot as I was in a picture taken of me this August! 
"This way, darling! Look at me! Look at the camera!.."

We were having an exhibition in Warrington Library as I remember, and this 'press pack' photograph was taken to publicise the event. Sadly, I know that at least two of the guys on that shot are now dead, and amazingly Mike, the chief photographer, is still on the paper, after all these years! Ironically, this week I had a report handed to me, with comments criticising 'age, parts and efficiency'...
It really is time for a new boiler!

Er, press that one...

So I've finally got a smart-phone! All singing, all dancing, app filled and fantastic! The only thing it doesn't do is make me look smart! I stand over it, squinting at the screen with my spex on my head, slavering with my tongue hanging out, flicking through the screens like some perv with a porn mag and screaming with frustration as menus go flying past me! It's keeping me up at night, too (The phone, not the porn mag!) Emails that my computer just flings straight to the trash ping merrily onto my Samsung at regular intervals through the wee small hours, and I'm sure my electricity bill has doubled with the amount of times I have to charge it! Leave it with me is all I can say! I'll get the hang of it!

So, my picture of ye olde quaint phone box seems an appropriate illustration for today's blog. It's from my 1980's series, Don't Miss That, and it brought up an interesting point. If you look closely you can see the horse's bridle, held by the caller in the phone box, and oooh, it would be so easy these days to simply photoshop that out. If I did that, though, I would completely change the meaning of the photograph. I'd be saying that yes, the horse is queueing to use the phone, which is, of course, completely untrue. As it stands, the reality of it suggests the horse is standing in line, which is so much more funny than simply 'making it' queue there with computer trickery. Grr, I hate photoshopped imagery! Is there an app for that?..

Turn on, tune in, drop out....

What's the best thing on the radio these days? The OFF switch! Hahahahaha.....
Honestly, I've had enough! I can't stand it anymore! I've had it up to here with Adele and Lady Antebellum, and DJs that just have to tell us they "Really like that song.." and Davina Bleedin' McCall buying shampoo that's been tested on "British hair".. (What??!!) ... and Scottish people telling me that the Co-op is "Gerd with Ferd" and, and....Aaaaagh!!!!  So yeah, the off-switch is on as far as the radio is concerned, and I'm back to playing cassettes of old John Peel shows from the 80's... Ah, that's better!

Sorry, folks! This has all come about because I emailed one of my PR shots of Johnny Mathis to great old Manchester DJ Phil Wood the other day (That's him on the right!) Now HE was good! (Phil, not Johnny! Sorry Johnny!) He was funny, informative, entertaining and, more to the point, he worked in an era when the bloody music was worth listening to! Like wise James H Reeve, Phil Sayer et al.....

These days the DJs, the ads, the music.. it all just plops off the end of the corporate drip pipe and washes down the gutter of "modern" entertainment! Well, they've lost a listener here, folks, and erm.. I actually do like Johnny Mathis! Now where did I put my pipe and slippers?

On yer bike...

Check out the Apps on that! Yes, it was time for my annual booking at Birmingham's NEC yesterday, for the opening day of the Carole Nash Motorcycle show. This is where I have to spend the whole day in the company of a bunch of lycra-clad lovelies, shooting them for PR purposes on a variety of the latest motor bikes! (Well, someone's got to do it!) Oh, this shot was to show off a new app that the company has just launched, since you ask!

Joking aside, it's a full-on, hard working day, where I had to be at the show early to shoot the stand without punters swarming all over it, and then cover a whole list of photographic requirements that had to be uploaded to the company's website before I left. All in all a very tiring day and a very busy week, but all so satisfying from a photographic point of view. I've shot cheese, call-centres and a motor-bike show this week. Can I have the day off now, please?

Nice one, my son...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now, I'm not one to boast but I've just had the third amazing testimonial in a week! Out of the blue I got this sent to me on Facebook yesterday morning.. "10 yrs ago today you shot our Wedding at Statham Lodge Hotel - the best wedding pictures I've ever seen and you captured our day perfectly!. Thank You from Keith and Jen Harris"  Isn't that amazing? Ten years after their Big Day and they were still nice enough to take time out to think about me! I'm so flattered! It reminds me of the time I was invited to the 25th Wedding Anniversary of a couple whose Wedding I'd photographed. They were now grandparents, for goodness sake! It was an amazing evening, and it brought home just how much a part of a couple's Big Day I actually am. It's a responsibility and an honour that I carry with pride!

Hm! Maybe I am one to boast.. but who cares? I don't do photography.. I am a photographer! Here's to the next twenty five years!..

Who?..

I went to see Colin Newman last night! Who? Wire, you know.. the band! Who?..
Sigh! I first bought a single by Wire when I was 17, and finally got to see them play live at Academy 3 in Manchester last night. The three original members of the band were either bald or getting there, the bass player had glasses like bottle bottoms hanging round his neck, and our Colin had to have the lyrics lined up on an ipad.. but what a noise! Absolutely fantastic, and my ears are whistling this morning in testament, but we came downstairs after the gig and the foyer was full of kids pouring out of a gig in the larger room there. Now they'd all been to see Madina Lake.       WHO?...

Had a great Thank You card in the post yesterday. It was from Chris and Fred, whose Wedding I shot last month. They said their guests thought I was the "best wedding photographer they had experienced"..   Nice!

Work, work, work...

Nice to be busy with the "day-job" this month, and the PR work's picked up as the Weddings quieten down until December. Last week I was sloshing around the mud of a building site, shooting apprentices for a Construction company, and this week I've been up to my eyes in Cheddar as I shot the new images for a cheese manufacturer's website! Talk about variety! Later this week I'm shooting images for a new call centre in Manchester, then I'm off to Birmingham as the official photographer for the Carole Nash Motorbike show at the NEC! It's great to be thrown so many photographic challenges but, at the end of the day, all the jobs boil down to being able to deal with people.. a skill that so many amateur Wedding snappers lack! Say Cheese!

Never look back...

..unless you're a beautiful bride in a gorgeous photograph, of course! This is another shot from Wendy and Phil's Wedding at Manchester Town Hall on Saturday, caught just as Wendy peeped over her shoulder at me. Now, I look back all the time in this blog, what with my constant reminiscing about my 33 years as a 'snapper', but a pal and I had cause to look back with sadness last week.
We all need a hobby, and I've kept tropical fish since I won a goldfish at the fair in 1973. Ever since then I've more or less always bought my new fish from this one particular chap, who used to have a pet-shop in Eccles. After many years there he moved to Leigh, and doubled the size of the shop but, alas, he's come to the end of the line! At the end of this month he's going to shut his shop door for the last time. He's been ground into the dirt by the likes of Pets at Home and supermarkets that sell dog food. All his skill and expertise, his in-depth knowledge of pet-keeping, his patience with new animal owners, his free advice to the constant stream of worried callers... it all counts for nothing when the bottom line is PRICE! People are happy to buy at the 'Pile 'em high' shops, then go running to him when their fish die, but they won't support him by buying from him in the first place from his shop on the high street. He's got two bright flourescent CLOSING DOWN signs on his shop windows, one of the saddest sights I've seen for a long time, but of course, it's all getting close to home when I hear that constant cry of "We like your photography but my friend has a good camera!" Good luck, Steve! All I can hope is that we laugh when we look back on these hard times!

Ho, ho, ho...

What a great Wedding that was! I really enjoyed yesterday's fab shoot for Wendy and Phil at Manchester Town Hall and yes, Father Christmas is already in situ over the entrance to the building! Of course, that meant that I wasn't able to use the locations I normally enjoy for my photography, but it was fun to wing it and 'take over' Albert Square to get the whole Wedding party out onto the monument! The thing is, that Wedding is now going to be in the holiday snaps of about a million tourists, 'cos they all flocked round us and started taking their own shots as I worked. Ooh, I do hope they've got some nice pictures of me!

Busy, busy week ahead... More to come tomorrow!

Let there be light...

Ok! Let's rip! Off to Manchester Town Hall for today's Wedding shoot, and let's just hope that sunshiney thing in the sky stays put! The diary goes quiet at this time of the year, so this is my last Wedding for a month! (Oh, good grief! What am I going to do? Erm. the garden, the front room, the hall, stairs and landing, the.. ) Ok, ok! Let's just say I won't be bored over the next month, and then it'll be time for the first of my lovely Christmas Weddings! Can't wait! They're a whole new ball-game, although even at today's Wedding it'll have gone dark an hour before the Wedding breakfast! Soup up the SB900's, boys....

11.11.11

There's only one subject to blog today, of course, and here's an image of an old Remembrance Day Parade that I shot back in the late seventies. It's the Cenotaph in the front of Eccles library, with some of the guys from my old Army Cadet unit standing guard by the monument. But it's a poignant shot in other ways, too. The long, curving building that you can glimpse in the background was the old Co-op department store, called Centenary House. Long gone, of course, like the soldiers from almost 100 years ago, the space filled by a horrendous, modern bright yellow Aldi store, but captured nonetheless by the simple fact that I was able to shoot unhindered in the public domain.

See how important street photography is? How a shot with one purpose can, with the passing of time, have so much more value? So how come we've ended up in a world where you daren't even take a camera out in the street anymore? In fact, funnily enough, I blogged the other day about the last time I took out a camera in Eccles. I was warned to put it away by a guy that saw me shooting. What would the War Dead make of that? Killed for our freedom? Remember that!...

How cool....

OMG! (As my niece would say!) Have you been watching the new David Attenborough 'Frozen Planet' series? Isn't it incredible? What amazing shots, what dedicated cameramen, what patience, skill and artistry! It's all absolutely jaw-dropping .. as was a web-site I came across yesterday whilst I was supposed to be ploughing through my magazines.

Now, I love travel as much as the next person, and I often joke with my Wedding couples that I'd be happy to whizz off on honeymoon with them, just to make sure they got their 'Holiday of a lifetime' captured properly. (Well, it's nice to offer, isn't it?) However, I've now found a photographer who offers exactly that option. He'll go away with the newly-weds and take "several excellent shots" of the pair as a married couple on holiday, no doubt on any pristine beach of their choice. (I'm squirming as I write this!) Wait 'til you hear the bottom line of his blurb, though.

He says .. "If this is outside the United Kingdom you will appreciate this is completely at your cost"...!!!  Like, how cool is that?...

Making a meal of it...

One of the great things about covering the corporate dinners and events that I do is that I get to spend some time wandering around the tables, prowling for those unguarded moments whilst people scoff their nosh! I've just added a few more of those shots to my Flickr stream 'Social Seen' - Check it out !

I get a bit of breathing space today, as I'm still waiting for the wedding image choices of three more of my couples before I can make their albums. What I really want to do is get stuck into a pile of photography magazines that's been building up on our coffee table for the past two or three months. Gotta keep up with the trends, don't ya know! One trend I'm not doing very well with, though, is 'Convergence'.. the idea of stills photographers making movies. I fell for the con early on, and bought two DSLRs with video capability. Trouble is, as soon as I get to a Wedding, I'm instantly the photographer, with absolutely no time to prance around making films. If some photographers can do both, then good luck to them, but I'm sticking with the one thing I'm good at .. capturing those blink-of-an-eye moments as they happen! Ooh, there's another one...

Do you fancy a..?

Such a lot of bad news going around, so I thought I'd give you a laugh! This is an old Olympus XA shot from my 'Don't Miss This' period, shot on Church Street in my home town of Eccles. I haven't been down there in ages, though I remember that the last time I visited, a very helpful 'local' came up to me and suggested I "don't wave a camera around round here!"....

Anyway, busy making a new Jorgensen Wedding today. I absolutely love them! They're so classic in their design - plain and simple, prints under black mattes, job done! The Wedding in question was at Manchester Town Hall in May and, ironically, Saturday's bride, Wendy, has been looking at those photographs online since they went up. By my reckoning that means I'll be making her album next May, and that'll be another year gone!

Oh, one more thing! I've re-re-jigged my Wedding Photography video for YouTube, and it's finally viewable on those new-fangled Smartphones whatjummies.... Have a look, if you fancy it!

You make your own luck..

Brrr! First ice of winter this morning, and a nice early e-mail asking if I'd shot a cover photograph for our local Village Magazine. Ooops! My busy weekend meant I never got time to do it, but two minutes in my garden got me this! Now I admit there was a bit of Photographer's luck involved, but wasn't it great that this little flock of Canadian Geese just happened to fly past whilst I was standing there in my dressing gown? The thing is, I guess you make your own luck in photography. If you're looking and, more importantly, seeing - and you're also technically capable - then you're going to come up with the goods. I just wish that would sink in with the amateurs who brag to me at Weddings that they "once" got a great shot when they caught the bride and groom unawares. "Oh, that's so cool.." I drool.. "And here's me only doing that 500 times every weekend!"

Sparkling...

I'm sure I must have blogged this image before but hey, it deserves an annual outing! It's a shot I did when I worked for Eddy Shah on Messenger Group Newspapers, based in south Manchester. It made it to the company calendar for 1981, and I'm trying really hard not to think about that being 30 years ago!!!

I went to the opening of the new Open Eye photography gallery in Liverpool last night. Met Mitch Epstein, a favourite American photographer of mine, and had a little think about how they should hang my next exhibition there. Only joking! I don't think my photography's "serious" enough for them!
Never mind... the wine was good, Mitch signed my copy of his book and I almost had my photograph taken with him! (The lady I handed my camera to was a little slow off the mark when it came to pressing the shutter. Hey ho..) Happy Bonfire Night!

You talkin' to me..?

Oh, yeah? What you trying to say?  Am I getting paranoid or are the knives really out for us snappers these days? Ok, only joking! In fact, I laughed out loud when I saw this alphabetical page listing in my new Thomson local directory, 'cos obviously I think it should read ' Pest - People who buy a digital camera and think they're a photographer'..  Now that would make much more sense!

Anyway, I've spent the morning on a mud-soaked, rainy building site, shooting portraits of new apprentices for a construction company. I almost feel like I've got a scoop, what with apprenticeships being in such short supply these days, though I've had to come home and sponge all my gear down with a damp cloth. There was mud everywhere! Ask me nicely and I'll put a shot of me and my muddy boots on Facebook.  Ah! Now that would be Post-Photographers! Ho ho...

Somewhere...

A glorious rainbow soars across the sky, nature's paintbrush at its most beautiful, and arches down towards the golden pot that is .. Risley Prison! It's another Seen photograph - just uploaded to Flickr - and now I await the knock on the door from the authorities for photographing the outside of the jail!

I'm keeping a close eye on the sky today. Tomorrow's PR shoot is on a building site in Oldham, but it's actually all portrait photography and rather dependent on a bit of decent good weather!
Maybe I should wish upon a rainbow?

That's handy...

Oh, good Lord, it's happening again! Dead people? No, I see gloves! Single gloves, all over the place! Lost, trampled, soggy wet gloves! They just won't leave me alone! Ahem! Calm down, Martin! Well, it's that time again - The cold weather's coming and the gloves are out once more, which means I've started seeing 'em on the floor all over again. I've just added another five pictures to my Flickr set 'On the one hand'  .. which is now over 200 images strong! Do you think I've got a syndrome? :-)


Anyway, just popped another 250 image Wedding CD in the post, and I'm almost up to speed as far as couples picking their images is concerned. I actually need to get into the garden today, and clean up the beds if I'm ever going to shoot any new Florescence pix next year!


Just hope I don't find any gloves!

Dancin' Queen

Working on a new Jorgensen album today and, much to my delight, here's one of the shots that the bride has chosen to  go in it. I just love the fun and joy in it - Christine and her bridesmaid bopping to their ipod in the hotel room as Mum has her hair done before the Wedding. This shindig was in May, which seems so long ago now that we're already in November. Where on earth is the year going? Well, I know where I'm going on Friday. I'm going to the re-opening of the Open Eye Photography Gallery in Liverpool. I'll be turning into a photo-groupie again as I'll get to meet another favourite snapper of mine, the American Mitch Epstein. Autograph-hunter head on, Martin!