And cut!....

So that's the end of '11...
How was it for you, darling?

It's time to pop the corks for the New Year, and I for one can't wait for all the adventures and photo-opportunities that lie in wait for me there. As it is, I'm diving straight into January with a new exhibition of my work at Corvino's Deli in Culcheth. I'm mashing out the detail next week and you'll be the first to know about it when it's up! I'd love to see you down there! Of course, I'm not hiding from the realities of being in business in these old tough times of ours and, if I have one resolution, it would be to continue to adapt to the changes being thrust upon anyone working as a photographer in the digital age. Actually, of course, I have no choice! As I always say, I don't 'do' photography, I am a photographer, and if I want my career to reach the 34 year mark I've got to keep on being the best I can be to make every Wedding couple's day fantastic!

So, I'll end 2011 with a shot from last Thursday's Wedding, and I wish you all you wish yourselves in twenty-twelve! Happy New Year!!....

That's that...

Hello! I've got a hangover! How are you?

So, it was straight home from yesterday's Wedding with Laura and Ali at Willington Hall and headlong into a boozy night with friends, but the show goes on and I've just finished editing the shots from yesterday. Check 'em out...

So that's that! My last Wedding of 2011, and every one of them has been a blast! Congratulations to all my couples! Now then, two Anadin, please...

Once more, with feeling...

One last Christmas Wedding photograph for you, and then it's full-steam ahead for the New Year. This shot's from Peckforton Castle in Cheshire where, in May, I will actually be a guest at a Wedding! A GUEST! How the hell do you 'be' a guest? I've not done that for years! I know one thing for sure - I'll be a guest with a camera, just so that I don't feel too weird! Anyway, today I'm back in my comfort zone as the photographer at a Wedding, over at my old fave Willington Hall. I won't mention the gale-force winds or the hail hammering against the windows, and just hope it clears a little before this afternoon! Please!! Catch you later...

Boxing Day Part Deux..

Ah!...  Sprouts eaten - check! Wii played - check! Family argument - check!.. and for me that's Christmas put back in its box and let's all get on with normality please! Hope you made it through, and everything went to plan! I'm now the proud owner of a bottle of Jack Daniel's, a Jack Daniel's T-Shirt, a Jack Daniel's hip-flask, and a .. ok, you're getting the idea .. Oh, and a bottle of after-shave!

Hope I don't sound too cynical! I do like Christmas, and I've had a lovely time, but now my focus is on Thursday, when I shoot my last Wedding of the year. I've already had an enquiry for 2013, too, so I hope that means there were lots of romantic proposals over the festive season! Many congratulations if you are now a new 'Bride or Groom - to -be '...

Right! Is it ok if I take this party hat off, now?

Christmas Eve Eve...

I'm sure you've all been very good little boys and girls this year so today, as a treat, I'm showing two of my favourite Santa photographs. They were shot, of course, on the Ho Ho Holympus XA!
Laters.....

Deck the halls...

I did it, I did it....All my Christmas shopping, sorted! In one afternoon! Now it's down to others to see that I get a Fuji X100 and a Nikkor 85 1.4 for Christmas.. oh, and a round-the-world airline ticket to carry on my travel photography. I love this shot from Greece, shot on two and a quarter trannie with my trusty old Yashicamat. It's just been added to my Flickr sets, as I'm plugging my Print Sales today with a revamp of my 'PhotoShop' page (See what I did, there?)

Hey - he said, in a corny American accent - why not treat yourself to an original print by Martin O'Neill this Christmas? Ho ho ho!

Best foot forward...

I really need to hit the streets and start buying a few things for Christmas, but I've had a gift come early and I can't stop playing with it! (Behave!) I've unearthed a small stash of old black and white photographs from my Olympus XA days, and as I have no idea where the negatives might be I've spent the whole morning in me jim-jams scanning the prints and retouching the dust spots. Here's one I vaguely remember taking. I think it was at a disabled childrens' art-exhibition when I worked for the Runcorn Guardian, so we're talking 30 years ago at least! Can't wait to get the rest of them up on Flickr to show you, but for now I really need to get festive and start pounding the streets. Any ideas what my Mum might like?...

Give it some welly...

Not your normal shot from a Wedding, but all the more fun for that... and now I really must move on from the fact that it was snowing on Saturday!!

I had my office Christmas party last night which, as a self-employed photographer, is a little more tricky than it sounds! It involves trying to tie up with as many other freelance snappers as possible and heading into town for a booze-up. But have you ever tried to get a gang of freelance photographers together in the same room? It's a bloody nightmare! There's always someone who'll get a job coming in and have to miss the 'do', and even as late as 3pm yesterday one photographer pulled out, saying he was too busy! Mind you, in these straitened times, if it's a choice between working and drinking, it's obvious the booze'll get the boot!

Ding dong!...

Phew! Let me pause for breath! What a weekend! That'll teach me to complain about the rain, because no sooner did I reach Heaton House Farm on Saturday than it began to snow, and boy, did it snow! It actually snowed too much to be able to shoot in, and Plan B was definitely in progress as the guests hunkered down in the Hall. Still, job done, and very well too, if I may say! (What? You want me to be modest about my work?..)  So, one more Wedding this year and then I can put my feet up and think about .. next year's Weddings!

By the way, I know it's getting close to Christmas now because I watched Alistair Sim as Scrooge yesterday - the definitive Christmas movie for me! What do you think?...

Rain, rain go away...

No sooner do I think about Plan B - alternate routes through the snow to today's Wedding - than the snow disappears and it starts to pour down. Nowhere near as photogenic, but at least it means I'll be able to travel safely to the venue. Oh, hang on! The Wedding doesn't even start until 3.30.. so I won't be able to do any shots in the snow anyway, and you try getting 140 people to go outside on a dark, winter's evening! Just as well I've been assigned a room to make into a 'studio'...! Bring it on, Heaton House Farm...

You're on your own..

It's a solitary life being a freelance photographer and, as much as I thrive on that responsibility, it's still nice to get the odd fillip every now and again! Well, this morning I got two!

I awoke to an email from tomorrow's bride, Sarah, who's sent me a list of all the shots she'd like me to take at her Wedding. It's all helpfully split into sections - shots before the ceremony, for example, and shots after the ceremony, and funny requests like 'try to catch the smokers under the gazebo'...! Well, I like the bit about the Ceremony itself. She's put " All yours - you know what you're doing!"

Alongside that was one of them there 'unsolicited testimonials'.. sent into Linkedin from a chap who used to be in charge of all the Apollo theatres in Manchester, where I used to cover a lot of the opening nights and dress rehearsals when I worked for the Manchester Evening News. He's written "Martin was always able to take the one everyone else wished was on their roll of film” 
I mean, how nice is that?

Now, today's photograph.. No, it's not me! It's another of my Olympus XA shots, taken at a retirement 'do' in some factory or other in Warrington. The chap's obviously volunteered his skills as a 'snapper' to record the event, but the picture sums up for me the difference between a photographer and someone who just owns a camera. He's not making anything happen at this event. In fact, if anything, he's being ignored. That's why it's so important to choose someone with a bit of personality when you choose your Wedding Photographer. Unfortunately, if you're just choosing by the cost, then these days you're not on your own...

Hair today...

Pity the poor punks in Indonesia, shaved of their mohicans and thrown into a bath to be 'spiritually cleansed'! Still, it gives me an excuse to show yet another Olympus XA 'drunkard in a toilet shot', and this one did make it into my book Don't Miss This!

Hopefully there won't be any unrest on Saturday, as my next Christmas Wedding draws closer. I'm at Heaton House Farm, and I'm keeping a close watch on the weather forecast, but we've already decided to shoot Plan B - a studio light in a back room - as the ceremony doesn't even begin until 3.30pm! I'm going to have no daylight to work with at all and the couple have rather a long list of family groups to get shot - photographically, you understand - although I think last week's bride could have happily shot her mother! She got lost on the way to Willington Hall, putting the ceremony back half an hour. No real problem for the Wedding party, but it made all the difference to me as it scuppered any chance of shooting outdoors at this time of year! Grr, where's my gun? My FLASH gun, my flash!....

One hell of a hangover..

They say the best camera in the world is the one you have with you, and for a good ten years from the eighties I always carried an Olympus XA camera with me wherever I went - including the loo! So, here's a shot for all you 'Office Party' boozers who might be feeling a little down and out this morning, because the makers of my little camera are feeling a little under the weather today too, as they sway from the hangover of an alleged $1.5bn deception! I really hope they survive, even if they're bought by Fuji (Another favourite brand of mine) and I for one will raise a glass when the whole sordid affair is over and done with...

PS: The shot was one of the images that didn't make it into my collection of Olympus XA photographs. It's a book called 'Don't Miss This' and, hey, it would make an ideal Christmas present for the photographer in your life!
Cheers!
Hic!

Ever, ever?...

Did my passion for photography come from my Dad? Hard to say! He did own a Kodak Instamatic, but it was always kept in its plastic box in the sideboard, and I can't ever remember him using it. I do know that he was always very supportive once I got the photography bug, and he signed as my guarantor when I bought my first 'good' SLR on HP! It was a Yashica FR1, a couple of snazzy Japanese steps up from the Russian Zenith EM you can see him using here, but all this talk of the Credit Squeeze reminded me of the very first camera I bought on the 'never never'...  That was a Halina Paulette Electric, and a second hand model cost me £16 in 1975. Thing was, unlike today, it was only mine when I'd paid for it, and I had to traipse down to Alan Halkyard cameras in Eccles every Saturday to pay another pound off the price. Crikey, I used to feel wonder if I'd ever own it! Finally, of course, I got my sweaty palms on it, and loved it all the more for the effort it had taken to own it.

It's time, as the economists keep telling us, to get back to get back to those values!

Noel...

True story! My girlfriend and I were putting up our (artificial!) Christmas tree yesterday, and the insertable branches were lettered from A to M as they grew in size down the tree. Well, we put in the A's, the B's.. right down until we got to the K's.. and then the letters skipped to M. "Hey.." I said to Lesley "There's No L..!"

Hahahhaha! Jeez, you couldn't make it up! Anyway, from that slightly painful pun we move to a lovely detail shot from last weekend's Wedding - this was the holly draped along the top of the piano in the Ceremony room at Willington Hall. One of the couple's friends played Christmas carols on it as the guests sang along, and it was just lovely! I'm back at the Hall in just over two weeks. Can't wait!

Blogging, on a Sunday?..

So who blogs on a Sunday? Well, me, of course! I've just got so much to tell you! I was just working my way through Kate and Stefan's Christmas Wedding photographs when I was spurred on by a lovely email from a 'summer couple'... Get this! .. "The photos you took are fantastic - we are currently printing lots of them off as Christmas presents for parents etc! We really enjoyed the day. Thank you for getting that all important balance between capturing the day and not being too intrusive. You did a great job." Lucy and Pete, Soughton Hall.

Ah! I love a bit of good feedback, but enough.. I must crack on! I have three Wedding albums to get finished for Christmas!...

Aaagh!...

Well, I was right! The weather did play havoc with yesterday's Willington Wedding, and even the poor bride Kate decided enough was enough, calling off any idea I might have to get more posed photographs!
I chanced my arm early on and tried to get my 'trademark' crowd shot organised, but promptly ditched that idea when only about 20 of the 140 guests braved the elements and came outside! There was, however, just enough of a break in the monsoon after that for me to get this shot at the front of the Hall, and then the sun went down and the cloudburst started again! Still, I shot 535 images, and feel really good that I captured the spirit of their lovely Christmas Wedding.

Next week I'm at Heaton House Farm, near Congleton, and that Wedding doesn't even start 'til 3.30 !!

Oooh!....

The sun is rising and it looks like a nice day for a White Wedding. Trouble is, the white stuff's hailstone! It's blowing a gale and it's bloody freezing, too! Did I say I liked Christmas Weddings? Oooh, 'course I do, and all this weather won't be enough to stop me from getting on with shooting today's Wedding. The thing is, though,  it will make the bride, groom and their guests think twice about stepping outside for any photographs, and where I am today, Willington Hall, in Cheshire, is going to get pretty crowded with 140 guests and a big Christmas tree in the room! Oh, and it'll be dark outside, too!
Apart from that.. bring it on! Nice day for a White Wedding .. Gulp!

A little social-networking...

Enjoyed a nice little get-together last night, 'social-networking' with local business people as varied as a mortgage advisor, a private health provider, the owner of an industrial estate and a South African guy who used to farm chickens and now renovates houses! What a mish-mash! Had a great chat with a lady about music, too. She was raving about my Joy Division photography, and I was in awe of her living in Georgia and drinking coffee at Michael Stipe's bar, but the best thing to come out of it - for me - was the fact that I might be in line to stage a new exhibition of my work! The owner of the deli where we all met - Corvino's, in Culcheth - said she's seen my work online and would love to show it on her walls. Exciting stuff, and I'll obviously keep you informed as to how I get on. Hey, I'll even invite you to the opening. You can network with me .. socially!

Copy that...?

Putting pen to paper is my preferred way of making a record of anything, so imagine how freaked out I was when my computer suddenly couldn't read any of my back-up discs yesterday! A heart-stopping moment, you'd call it, if it was a movie review! I mean, it's less than a fortnight since I cleared as much as I could off my hard-drive and actually put it on those externals! Turns out the fuse had gone in the plug! That was all! Heart starts again.. phew!

Does make you wonder, though, doesn't it! For example, as I write I'm surrounded by boxes and boxes of negatives, and shelves groaning with transparencies. Solid, real photographs! Palpable, tactile work!

Ah, but what if..? Hmmm...I really must get them all scanned and backed-up on the computer!
Ah, but what if.. ? 
Oh, sod it!

Hey, that's my job!..

Not a sight you see every day, but then this bride is a Wedding Photographer! I was very flattered to be asked to shoot her Big Day and she was, after all, a rather useful helping hand!

Hey, thanks to everyone who went for my potty-mouthed Blog title yesterday! I had hits from as far afield as The Philippines, Israel and Bulgaria, so heaven knows what image I'm putting out in those countries.. tee hee!

I've got one of those 'Sit at the computer and go through Wedding Images' kind of days today which is actually rather nice, as it takes me back to the summer whilst the hailstones lash the windows here.

I had three emails yesterday inviting me to pay for courses to 'Learn Photography' .. Hey, that's my job!...

Oh, Bollocks!...

Hey, Happy Monday everybody! Hope all's well! Did you have a nice...? Huh? The title? Oh sorry, didn't mean to alarm you! Don't worry, nothing's wrong! Far from it! I just read an article at the weekend about the art of succesful blogging, and it said you had to choose a title that grabbed readers by 'the short and curlies'.
I thought 'Oh, bollocks' might be just the thing to say!
Alright, I know that's not exactly what the author of the article had in mind but actually, it's not as if we haven't got reason to use the exclamation at the moment, is it? The Economy, The Weather, Man U's slim chances in the Champions League...
Oh, bollocks! Stuff it! Christmas is coming and I've got a busy month ahead. Who's got time to be down? Here's to pretty pictures, chocolate advent calendars and Christmas Weddings! It's December! Hurrah, hurrah...

(Now that's a much more eye-catching title...)

Decisions, decisions...

Do you know, I just might pack up this photography lark and go and be the Manager at Sunderland! Just can't make up my mind!..

Idle moments...

Phew! Late blog today as I was out early to get into Manchester. I was covering a Management Presentation at the Palace Hotel, and I was just browsing through all the shots I took when I came across this nice juxtaposition. The 'nose' photograph was obviously taken during the presentations, but the shot of the lone girl on the Oxford Road station roundabout came about whilst I was idly staring through the window during the changeover of speakers! Just thought they looked good together .. that's all. No such thing as an idle moment in photography, eh? Not when you're always seeing things! Oh, and by the way, I did do some 'proper' photographs, too!..