Better with age...

Had a cracking day at Peckforton Castle yesterday - the first Monday Wedding I've ever done - and despite a few spits and spots, as the weather forecasters now say, I was able to shoot all my pictures outside, apart from this requested one in what's known as The Wine Cellar. (I seem to remember ending up there around midnight on the day I was a 'guest' at my last Peckforton Wedding. Burp!) Anyway, I'm hard at the editing suite now, and then that's it until .. oooh, Saturday, when I'm zipping over the Peak District for a Wedding near Sheffield.

I did the first part of a Press Photography course at a college in Sheffield in 1980, and happened to bump into the current course leader last week. I asked him where the hell the students were going to get a job in these times of cutbacks and newspaper shut downs, and the best he could do was shrug and admit that he mostly teaches video these days, as most 'publications' are more concerned with getting short films online rather than photographs into hard print. Sigh! I used to love that rush down to the newsagents to buy a copy of the day's Manchester Evening News, flicking eagerly through the pages to see how many shots I'd got in (My record was 27 .. in one day!) A lot of those newspaper cuttings are still on my shelf, yellowing in their scrap books, and Lesley for one would have them down the recycling before I could say "Have you sorted my expenses?"

I refuse to let them go! Apart from their historical physical prescence as newspapers of days gone by, they're a fascinating reminder of styles, trends and habits that have changed so much in the space of only 34 years. Like the wine that used to be stored in that cellar, they just get better and better with age... 

All right on the night...

Flippin' 'eck, that was a bit good, wasn't it? Danny Boyle's opening ceremony? Very good indeed, especially the magical chimneys and the parachuting Queen! One is most amused! Could have done without Paul McCartney, but apart from that it was pretty much all right on the night! Cripes, I'll have to be careful here - there's a little bit of a positive vibe coming out of all this, and I might just have to knock one Z off the Olympiczz ... it's starting to wake me up! Speaking of a great show, this shot was taken back in day when 'they' tried to introduce American Football into the UK. These young Manchester Allstars fans were up behind the posts at Salford Rugby Ground! As you can tell, it didn't quite take off!...

So, I went to see Morrissey on Saturday night. First time I've seen him in absolutely yonks, and damn near enjoyed almost his whole show, the rabscallion! It was practically all right on the night! (Meat is Murder went on far too long!)
By sheer coincidence, that afternoon I was approached by a Photographic Gallery in Bedford, asking if I'd like to contribute to an exhibition of Smiths and Morrissey photography, scheduled for October. Er, that's a yes, please! More details to follow...

Now, I'm going to say something I've never said before! I'm off to shoot a Wedding .. on a Monday! Feels weird! I've never shot a Wedding on a Monday before but hey, bring it on! Sunny Peckforton Castle here we come! Last time I was there I was a 'guest' at a Wedding, and that felt weird too, but normality is restored today and I'm back behind the camera where I belong. Actually, did I say sunny? It's pouring with rain as I write this, so it's safe to safe at least one thing is back to normal, unlike the spelling on the back of this kid's head! Not quite all right on the night!..

The Big Day is here...

Well, the big event is almost here! Yes, folks .. it's time for that amazing, one-off event that's got everyone buzzing with excitemement and flocking to the arena. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you .. Morrissey! Oh, you thought I meant the Olympiczzzz? Sorry, still can't get excited about them! To be honest, I wish I could, 'cos I feel like everyone else is having a groovy party and I'm not invited, but they're just not floating my boat! Bit of running? Bit of swimming? Nah, not interested! And the fact that it's the London Olympics, and you hear people say things like "Oh, I'm sure such and such an event will be fine, even though it's not in London" just makes me feel even less a part of it!

Anyway, back to the important stuff. Yes, the Moz is back in Manchester tomorrow night for his only gig of the year, and even though it's at the MEN arena - and I hate the MEN arena - some things just have to be done for His Mozness. Ironically - given the fact that I've just had 100 of my music images selected for a gallery in New York - this is the first gig I'll have been to this year! How bad is that?
I remember once going to three in a night in the 'old days' .. ! And how mind-mushing is it to think that the shots I did of The Smiths at the Free Trade Hall are twenty-eight years old! Blimey, if I'd had sex that night - which didn't actually happen until I was 47 - I'd be the proud dad of a strapping almost-thirty-year-old, who could be queueing up with me to see Morrissey for the first time in their life! (Pause for shudder!)

Anyway, I know now I've turned into my Dad, so just to save you the time and effort, I'll fill in the dotted lines for ya!.. Two, three, four ..."I was happy in the haze of a drunken hour, but heaven knows I'm miserable now..."

Tra la la......

And here isn't the news...

I had to switch off the Today programme .. er, today .. because I just can't take any more bad news! Double-Dip Recession, Syria, Korean Flags, Gas Bills.... Aaaaaaaaagh! So .. er, today .. I offer you a little Olympiczzz symbol of solitude, peace and quiet .. composed of some of the flowers in our garden. (Click the pic for a closer look!) I am playing a little Julian Lloyd Webber as I type this, and when it's written I think I'll chill with a nice glass of Sauvignon Blanc and listen to the bird song from the trees. (Oh, it's only 8.45 in the morning, so maybe hold the vino!) Day off today and I plan to relax, maybe shoot some more flowers for my ever-growing Florescence range .. and avoid the news like the plague!
Happy Thursday, folks! Sod it, where's the corkscrew?...

She falls into frame with a professional pout...

No apologies for a blatant plug of a blog today, but I've just had a range of music T-shirts launched .. and I'm dead excited!! A 'Photographers Project' has picked up on my work and designed a range of shirts featuring everyone from Joy Division to Siouxsie Sue and even Devo, The Meteors and .. Martha and the Muffins! They look great too, and I'm just waiting for a tasty box of samples to land on my doorstep at any moment!

One of my favourite Siouxsie and the Banshees tracks is the 1980 song 'Red Light', appropriately named after the safe lights in darkrooms - God! Red lights! Darkrooms! The opening line of the song is 'She falls into frame with a professional pout', accompanied by the sound of a motordrive zipping film through a camera in time to the music - God! Motor Drives! Film! The song's a veritable history of analogue photography! Hey, it even mentions Polaroids and Kodak, and there's one line that I can use with 'Shoot 'n Tutor' when Siouxsie sings 'The aperture shuts, too much exposure!" I'll use that in my next workshop.
Just don't expect me to sing it...

GR8 lol...

I heard a news report yesterday that said we now text each other more than we actually call each other. Hm! Did I hear it or was I texted it? Cripes! Anyway, I'd had mobile phones for years before I even went near that technology. I just couldn't see the point of spending ages trying to type a msg with my two clumsy thumbs when I could simply press speed-dial and talk to my friends!
Shows you what I know, eh? ..  ;-) !

Gave me another chance to dive into the archive, though, and look what I came up with. Rabbit! Remember Rabbit? Rabbit was the Big Thing in 1992! All you had to do was carry that brick of a phone around with you and then, when someone wanted to contact you, you were sent a bleeper msg which would prompt you to go and find a Rabbit transmitter point, marked by a turqouise Rabbit sign stuck onto a nearby building, so that you could then phone them back. What a brilliant idea, eh? Er, no! It last less than two years and loss the company millions! Still, it made me a few bob, as I got to do the PR photography all over the North-West. Here's our hairy friend Mike Harding - on the left - (Sorry Mike!) plugging the cutting edge gear in front of the Liver Buildings in Liverpool. Ain't technology GR8, lol....

Flower power..

Had a great day at the annual RHS Tatton Flower Show yesterday and came home with a car-load of gorgeous new plants and flowers. Just gotta get 'em into the garden, now! It's incredible how popular horticulture and gardening actually is these days, and I hope my Florescence series of flower photographs ties in with all of that. It's hard work, though! There were actually two flower photography stands at the show yesterday, and all I can say is .. I admire their bravery! I looked into the possibility of having a stand for my own work, but at well over £1000 for the four days I decided not to bother! I'd need to sell an awful lot of place-mats to get my money back from something like that! Meantime, I'll keep them up at Botany Bay, where things are quietly ticking over though not, I have to admit, selling as fast as I'd like! I can only hope the power of flowers will prove to be irresistible in the end...

Kids, eh?....

End of term, and the kids are free again! Well, for the next six weeks, anyway!
I love the photograph I'm showing you today. This little girl was crying because she was leaving her primary school to go to the high school, and her old teacher was taking a moment to comfort her. Now I hate, hate, hate to say this but I'd really worry about taking a photograph like that today. I'm getting paranoid about pointing a camera at a kid! What a world we live in! Kids think you're a paedophile and you need training to go up ladders! I ask you!...

Popped out last night to see me old mucker Peter Dench open his exhibition at the new White Cloth Gallery in Leeds. Very nice it is, too, and I'm glad I nipped across, all the more so because it gave me time on the train to knuckle down and write a bit of a Biog about myself. Two different photography galleries want to put me on their sites, so I'm having to get a new portrait taken and pen some words about my life as a snapper! Put me in mind of .. I think it was Grandmaster Flash's song White Lines. There's a kid on the start of the record who asks Mr Flash to tell him the story of his life. The Grandmaster says "Well, I was born a long time ago ... and now I'm here with you!"
"Yeah.." says the kid "But what happened in between?!.."
Kids, eh?...

Gimme a break...

Oooh, you can't go up there!

I'm just back from a PR shoot in an office in Manchester. Nothing too fancy, just six people around a desk. I stood on a chair to give myself a bit of height, set up my lights, and waited for the group to assemble. Just then, a lady came up to me - Mrs Health and Safety! "You can't stand on that!.." she said, pointing at the chair "You'll have to use a ladder.." "I haven't got a ladder with me.." I replied "Can I use one of yours?" "No.." she said "You're not trained!.."

Well, that put me in mind of a shoot I did in about 1980. A 300 foot chimney was being demolished at Tetley Walker's brewery in Warrington. My boss had a fancy Russian Panoramic camera, and the idea came about that we used it to photograph the demolition gang, who were knocking the chimney in on itself, dropping the bricks down inside as there wasn't enough space to simply blow the chimney up.
I got the shoot! I seem to remember it was on a Saturday morning, and it was just written down as another one of my jobs for the day, a nice change from the summer fairs and dominos tournaments of a typical weekly newspaper. The thing was, there was no other way up than by climbing a set of ladders, which were tied around the chimney all the way up to a platform of planks around the rim. Once you reached the planks, you had to let go of the ladder and haul yourself over the planks until you could stand up! (And then, of course, you had to do the same thing in reverse!!) However, as you can see, I survived and the camera allowed me to get the whole of the chimney top in the shot. Now, here's the fun shot! Yours truly on the top, with my trusty FM and my fantastic glasses!

Harnesses? Helmets? Ha! Gimme a break....

Dear, oh dear.....

I don't usually use my blog to gloat, but hey.. there's always a first time!
Remember that Wedding I went to as a 'guest'? Well, the reason I was a guest and not the 'official' photographer is because I am the groom's mum's partner, and there was no way she was going to let me work on her son's Big Day! Still, I took the gear anyway and managed to squeeze off 1,150 shots to make a fab CD for the lovely couple. Good job I did, 'cos you should see the state of the 'official' photographs! Man, I have never seen a grimmer job done of a Wedding. Just look at this group shot, for example! I mean, come on! And this was how it was presented to the couple on their CD, by the way - as the one and only choice of group photos! As for the rest of the CD .. well, there are a mere 267 other shots on it, from an entire Wedding day shot by two photographers! They're shot with direct flash, at awful angles and without capturing any of the spontaneity of a Wedding Day.

Dear, oh dear? You betcha!
They charged over two thousand quid for this sh*te!!!....

Put your hands together....

Well, alriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight! Good evening, Manchester! It's great to be here, man!

          OMG! I've got some really exciting news! Pause, deep breath! ..

I've had my music photography accepted by a 'Fine-Art' Gallery in New York! Yeah! Rock on! Like, groovy baby! I sent them 101 shots for consideration, and they've taken the lot!! How good is that? I am so excited! I've got everything in there, from Joy Division and The Smiths to Devo, The Gun Club and Siouxsie and The Banshees (No Freshies, ironically, but they never did quite hit the Big Time! Sorry Chris!...) Anyway, I'll let you know when my pages are up and running on their website! Meantime, check 'em out here..

Mick in the middle..

My good pal Mick Middles, erstwhile music writer and red wine drinker of this parish, got hitched to his beloved Vicky at Sale Town Hall in Manchester on Saturday, and they picked me to take their shots for them. I am so flattered! The funny thing was that, when we talked about their photography, I mentioned a shoot I'd done in Sale in 1979 with Chris Sievey and his band The Freshies, and thought it would be fun to replicate as we were so close to the location - ie: The Tesco car park! Well, as you can see, the plan worked and all the more so because, after that one frame, Mick decided it was too dodgy to carry on and get any more shots - Hey, it's not my fault people were driving up and down the ramp to do their Saturday shopping! Imagine!  Anyway, here's the amazing thing. The Wedding was a small one - 9 guests - but guess who was one of them. Tosh Ryan! The guy who owned The Freshies' record label! Small world, eh?

PS: Ok, I realise there might be one or two of you readers out there who haven't heard of Chris Sievey, so I'll tell you he was the man behind  - inside! - Frank Sidebottom, and he sadly succumbed to cancer a couple of years ago. The Freshies played Bowdon Vale Youth Club in the same series of gigs as Joy Division in 1979. You can check out the shots here...

Joy Division? They're just one of the bands Mick has written a book on. He's also written about The Fall, Arcade Fire, Stone Roses.. oh, the guy's a genius! (That ok for ya, Mick?)

That's lucky!.....

Friday the 13th, eh? Well, lucky for me that it was raining when I got up, 'cos it meant I could get out into the garden and shoot this little montage of droplets on my plants. (Click on the pic for a close-up) Lucky, too, that Lesley and I had to postpone a trip to Wales this weekend, as my pal's suddenly decided to get hitched tomorrow (As you do!) and it's meant I'm available to shoot his Wedding! It's going to be really funky - I believe the bride's wearing a black leather motorcycle jacket! - and there'll be a whole seven people there (Eight if I can get onto a shot!)  I can't bloody wait! Best thing of all? It's the third time he's married!
Third time lucky, eh Mick?...

No Moss Gathered...

50 years of the Rolling Stones, eh? Like, cool, grandad! Now take your medicine! Wow, that is going some, though it's not like they are still, actually, er .. going .. is it? God, it's bad enough when bands of 'my' era reform, and I think that says it all. The Rolling Stones were a band that my Dad liked. They were just a little too early for me, like someone who's now 40 saying they wished they'd seen Joy Division. Still, we all get 'our' time, and I'm just so pleased that I was born in the BA era. BA? Before Adele!

Anyway, in the interests of topicality, here's my shot of Bill Wyman, which is as close as I got to shooting the Stones. It was when he opened a branch of his Sticky Fingers restaurant in Manchester. I seem to remember he never offered me any food, but that's the photographer's lot for ya, right there on a plate. Or not....

Looking forward to another Shoot 'n Tutor workshop today, with a young lady whose Prom Shot I did about 4 years ago. I'm not saying she's keen but, for her birthday last week, she got a new Nikon D3000, a Shoot 'n Tutor session to learn how to use it and a birthday cake in the shape of the camera!
Now that's what I call having your cake and eating it...

You da best...

It seems the search for happiness is doomed to failure, apparently, because we're always projecting things forward (An expert said!) We will get that promotion, we will win the lottery, etc., etc., etc... Turns out that when you achieve what you aimed at, you soon revert to your normal state of unhappiness.

Well, I guess that's why I'm always so deliriously joyful. I'm always looking backwards!...

Back to the 'good old days' when everything was rosy and Adele hadn't even been born! Back to HP5, and vinyl and news that came on sheets of paper! Back to 3 TV channels - ok, four - and access to bands and famous people without having to sign your life away! Back to a time you could trip over a wire and not make money by blaming someone else! Back to the days when a good photographer could make a decent living without being undercut by a numpty with a 'good' camera. Yes, folks, I like it in here. Those days were the Best...

The devil's in the detail...

I do like to get to a Wedding nice and early! That way I get to spend time soaking up the detail of a venue before all the 'madness' kicks off. Saturday's Wedding was especially good for that, because it was at a venue that was new to me - Eleven Didsbury Park. It was full of little nooks and crannies, and a lovely lemony cake, all crying out to be photographed. The shots build up to make a lovely memory of the couple's Wedding Day, so it's important they're topical to that day. That barometer? - set fair to 'Very Dry' - that shows for sure that I shot it on Saturday, in that brief window of decent weather that we had (You can click on the photo to see it in more detail!) Now though, as the rain hammers against my windows again, it's just teasing me! I think I'll have the shot enlarged and put into a frame for my hall! It's a little devil of a detail!...

About bloody time!..

Ooh, that confetti gets everywhere! Hey, what an amazing day I had on Saturday at the Wedding of Sharon and Malcolm in Didsbury. It had the lot! Fun, love, intimacy, champagne, good weather AND .. a swearing vicar! There was a lovely moment during his sermon when he said he was about to voice something he knew everyone else was thinking and, to much laughter - straight from the altar - he exclaimed "About bloody time!.." Turns out these guys have been together twenty-seven years, so I think the vicar got it just about spot on! About bloody time, guys, and I'm so pleased you chose me to capture the momentous event!

So, from an entire Wedding party of 24 people I now turn to next weekend, when I'm shooting a Wedding with only seven people at it! I'll be able to sell my wide-angle at this rate! Yeah, seven people, including the bride and groom, who are good pals of mine and have already told me they want "something different". Oh boy, are they going to get it!

So, yes.. I did say good weather earlier! Unbelievably, the rain cleared away on Saturday and I actually had the problem of too much sunshine at the Wedding. About bloody time, that's what I say...

Get ahead, get a hat..

Right, it's time to hit the road! After three weekends of Shoot 'n Tutor, family portraits and an air show, it's time to roll up my sleeves and shoot another Wedding today. This time I'm off to the bijou hotel 'Eleven Didsbury Park' - a venue I've not worked at before - so I'm really keen to see what new shots will come my way. I won't mention the weather just in case I jinx it but, as I write this, there are hints of blue sky and a warm breeze coming in off the gas works!
Here's hoping...

Send in the army ..

So, let me get this straight..

The task in hand is pretty important but, to save money, you sack the professional and get a part-timer in, someone who does the work as a hobby at the weekends. Right? Well that sounds a recipe for disaster if ever I heard one! And what if they get killed? It doesn't bear..

Oh, sorry! No, I'm not talking about Wedding Photographers here (As if I'd complain about people booking cheap amateur 'photographers' - ie: camera-owners - to cover their Weddings! As if...) No, I'm talking about the Army, which is to lay off 20,000 troops and replace them with part-time TA soldiers. I mean, I've got nothing against the TA - I'm sure they strive hard to achieve the standards of the regulars - but there goes another layer of professionalism down the pan as we yet again we hear the cry of "That'll do!"

Actually, "that'll do" should be printed on the mast-head of the Manchester Evening News. It was bad enough when it layed off the last of its staff photographers (Hi Mark!) but now it's decided it's not even going to employ freelance photographers, and will make do with shots supplied by its coterie of weekly newspaper shooters and erm .. the public! Recently there was a fire in South Manchester and the MEN tweeted "Anyone got any photographs of it?" "Why.." I replied "don't you send in a photographer?"

Dust me down...

Just cleaning all my camera gear in readiness for this weekend's Wedding, and wondering how much I should charge for the process! No, seriously! Well, serious in the mind of one photographer I've just read about, who's put out an open letter trying to justify his rather large fee by saying that, amongst other things, he has to spend time before the Big Day .. "cleaning his cameras" !! Well, 'scuse me, but doesn't that come with the territory? I mean, who the hell would want to shoot a Bride with dusty sensors and lenses? But to charge her for the privilege?? God, I'm doing this all wrong! Mind you, he does go on to say that he spends 10 to 30 minutes editing every photograph .. so maybe I am doing something right, after all!

50 T-shirts...

Now, I'd be the first to admit that I'm a bit of a hoarder - I can't seem to throw anything away - but even I was surprised when I came across a 'collection' of 50 of my old T-shirts, unworn for years and taking up an entire shelf in my designer walk-in wardrobe! Their discovery gave me an idea for a project, and I finally got round to shooting them as a Flickr set yesterday afternoon. Well, what fun! What larks! What a trip down memory lane! I found a B-52's t-shirt from the early 80's (I actually have a photograph of the 21-year-old-ish me wearing it) I have a t-shirt from the Asda Festival of Food and Farming (Trendy!) in Hyde Park in 1989 (I covered this for Asda, meaning I was the only person allowed to photograph the Queen when she opened the event!) I have a Tubes t-shirt from a gig at the Free Trade Hall in 1981 when I got the entire band's autographs afterwards, and I have a British Airways 'Jet Club 16-24' shirt from when I went to America for the first time in '82! (I'm going to get in a State, it says! Ho ho!) I actually remember wearing this 'Hilda Ogden' t-shirt to an event attended by the actress Jean Alexander, and she refused to be photographed with me wearing it! Bloody temperamental artistes! Anyway, that's that! They're all photographed for posterity, and up online for everyone to view. Thing is, now I've found 'em, I can't bear to throw 'em away!

Time flies..

Three hundredths of a second! Now, you might know I'm not really into the Olympiczzz, but I'm hearing that a Blake beat a Bolt by . 03 of a second in a running race, and I reckon that's the time difference between these two photographs. Well, three hundredths of a second .. and thirty-one years! The shot on the left is from 'Don't Miss This', one of my Olympus XA photographs from  - I reckon - 1981. It was taken at the Barton Air Show, which was held every year at the aerodrome at the end of our estate (Always handy for sneaking in over the fields!) The shot on the right was taken on Saturday, at RAF Waddington's annual air show (No sneaking in possible. Much bigger fences - and soldiers!)
Just think .. the boy on the right could be the son of the boy on the left! How time flies! I say this after meeting with another lovely Bride and Groom, who have booked me for their Wedding next August. It turns out that I'm older than both sets of their parents! And by a lot more than three hundredths of a second, too!..

Oooh, nearly! ..

Another air show, and I'm getting ever closer to replicating my award-winning 1981 shot of the Red Arrows at Barton Aerodrome! (Ok, these were the Saudi Hawks but, hey, who's checking?) I had a fantastic day at RAF Waddington over the weekend and came away with almost 400 shots .. and a sunburn! Yep, I look like a bloody panda this morning but I'm wearing my colour with pride. The weather was really changeable all day long, but the sun obviously managed to peep through the clouds enough to sizzle my noodle! The way this summer's going though, that'll be the last sunshine I'll see for another bloomin' month! (Aaagh! I wrote about the weather .. again!) Anyway, 400 shots .. and here are de bestest! ...

From Waddington to Weddington again now, with my next Summer Wedding coming up this Saturday. It's in a church that I've shot at before, but with a reception in a bijou swanky hotel that I've not worked at, so I'm really looking forward to getting some fab, relaxed images - and the odd spring roll, to boot!
(The couple have invited me to join them at their buffet-style meal! Yum!)

So, from boot to football, and a great climax to Euro 2012 last night. Just the Olympiczzz to come now, though I've changed my mind about going to the opening ceremony!...