It's the norm...

This is the pre-Wedding photograph that'll be used as the Signing Board at the Wedding today of Kerry and Norm, and I'm so pleased they picked it as their choice! It just goes to show that romance isn't dead! Even though Norm's a big, butch plasterer it's lovely to see he doesn't mind showing his softer side, and I wouldn't bet against him shedding a little tear when he says his vows this afternoon. That's what I love about Wedding Photography. It's all out there in the open. The nerves, the love and the giggles, all wrapped up in some of swankiest togs the couple will ever wear! It's one reason I shy away from the 'modern' Wedding look - the yellow tints, the blurry edges, the corny, unsmiling poses. Reality is so much better! Now where did I put my lens vaseline and brandy glass?...

We did the rest...

"Gosh! What's that, Dad?"
"That? Ah that, son, is a Kodak Instamatic!"
"Huh?"...
"It was a type of camera, son. Used to be made by a big company that could supply your every need as a photographer. Film, papers, chemicals and yes, even the cameras themselves."
"Wow, Dad. Can I get one? Can I? Can I?.."
"No, son, 'fraid not! They've just gone out of business. Imagine, big company like that, based entirely in the world of photography. Bust! Gone! Ko - Dodo..."
"Tut! Gee! So, what happened, Dad?"
"Digital happened, my boy. Digital...."
"Digital? Digital? How'd that kill 'em off?"..
"Well, son, it's like this. They used to have this catch-phrase, see.
'You press the button, we do the rest'"
"Yeah? And?..."
"And, well .. 'the rest' doesn't happen anymore, son. These modern folk, they just click and click and click and all those images ... sniff ... well, they never, ever become real photographs."
"No??..."
"No, son, they just stay on cards, sticks, hard-drives and discs until them peeps just lose 'em on a bus! Cryin' shame!"
"It is, Dad! It is! Good job that Martin O'Neill kept so many old negatives, eh?"...

©Martin O'Neill 2012

A load of old flannel...

Just towelling down after yet another typical British Bank Holiday, and I can only hope we're in a for a belter of an India Summer after the wash-out! Sadly, it spoilt the chance to kick-off my 'Presently.." project when a Fun Day I was due to attend yesterday got cancelled 'cos of the rain. I had 100 gladioli, alliums and anenomes all ready to go, but at least I won't have to water them until my next event!

Off to The Village Hotel in Warrington for this week's Wedding, and really looking forward to spending the whole of a fab, fun day with Kerry and Norm! Not often you shoot a groom called Norm, is it?!

I've managed to bust one of my Fuji X10 cameras .. :-(
For some reason the shutter doesn't fire fast enough anymore to catch the shot I wanted it to, so it's off for a quick wash and brush up at the repairers and I'll hopefully be cooking on gas again before you can say "Who stole the summer?"...

One Last Giant Leap...

A quick word to mention the passing of Neil Armstrong, the one true hero of my childhood years.

I was mad on space travel, and spent every hour I could either reading about it, drawing pictures of rockets, building papier mache 'lunar surfaces' to land my Airfix Lunar Module on or watching Peter Fairley explain in detail how LOS happened once the Command Module was round the back of the moon. (That's Loss of Signal, but you knew that, right?) I never got to meet the man, though I did get to photograph his Space Suit, which came to visit Manchester once (I know, amazing, aren't they?) and I had it put into a red phone box on King Street in Manchester with the caption 'Armstrong calling' (Or something like that!)...

So there we go! Another of the 'greats' has gone to the Sea of Tranquility! RIP Neil, and here's a shot to give us all a wee smile on a sad day. It's me old 'model' mate Moanin' Minnie, who accompanied me on a six month trip around the world.  My one 'orbit' of our planet...

Bliss!

Do you remember when I followed you from our house to Worsley .. up the train tracks?! Do you remember the time we went to see Gary Glitter and he walked off the stage half-way through the gig? Do you remember...

Oh, my goodness, this going-back-in-time stuff's getting ever more interesting! I've had a picture library express interest in my archive, and they're going to have a good look through my Flickr stuff next month, and last night I had a drink with a friend I haven't seen in 17 years! We grew up together on Foxhill Road in Eccles, the road seen in this photograph, and the memories of that time just came flooding back. He can remember stuff about me that I'd forgotten all about. I could remember stuff about him that he'd forgotten all about! We listed the people that have died since we last met including, sadly, his mother and brother and my dad. We laughed about the fact that all we ever seemed to eat was chips .. cooked in lard, and we shook our heads as we thought about how awful this street is these days.

This photograph is one of the earliest I ever took, probably around '74. It's shot on a Kodak Instamatic - you can see the square 126 format - and it shows my sisters and some of the kids on the street with the Rag and Bone man and his horse! And look, not a car in sight! That van in the background is the bread van - a sort of mobile grocer's shop, and other its visits we were free to run up and down the street all day, playing football and 'Tag' and marbles in the holes in the road!
In fact - apart from Mott The Hoople on the 'wireless' - it was bliss!

Jobs a good 'un..

I'm not usually one for trite 'isms' but one that seems to hold fast is 'Be true to yourself'. I'll come clean and tell you that a quote from that Steve Jobs speech is pinned to my wall, with good ol' Jobbsy staring at me with a challenging frown.

"Have the courage.." he implores me "To follow your heart and intuition"

So why mention this? Well, after a dry spell for enquiries, it's suddenly been a good week for Wedding bookings this week, with three in already by last evening. The thing is - and I've asked them - every one of those couples has gone with me because they like my no-nonsense style. They like the relaxed, informal, genuine approach I offer them, with none of the current sickly style for turning everyone's Wedding into a hammily-staged, time-consuming, purple and yellow, sun-flared, backlit, unsmiling, serious fashion shoot!

However, I'm like everyone else. I keep a close watch on trends, styles and subtle changes in the Wedding Photography market, and every now and again I'll get a little niggle in my head. Should I shoot for the Vintage 'trend'? Should I 'photoshop' every picture to within an inch of its life. Should I seperate the bride and groom from their whole Wedding for an hour's heavy-duty posing? And then it comes back to me. No, I shouldn't! I'm basically a Press Photographer! I shoot reality. I've shot reality since I first took up photography in 1973, so reality is what I'll stick with. Like these punks, who got 'volunteered' to hold my reflector when they were sitting drinking lager under the tree I wanted to use for my pictures, I'll be true to my own values and 'my' market will come to me!

So Cheers Jobbsy, Cheers punks, Cheers you lovely, lovely couples ..

Come on now, join in...

Hey, daddio! Can you image getting to 52 years old and saying to your grandkids ..  "Ah yes, children, I used to love slightly swaying my head in a depressed fashion whilst slitting my wrists to yet another durge from Adele!"

I'll thank God for ever and ever that I grew up when music was ACE - ie: when punk was in its heyday! The energy, the excitement, the thrill! And don't you dare say it was just meaningless noise! Why, to this day I can still be heard walking down the street whistling 'Too drunk to f*ck' by The Dead Kennedys, or merrily humming 'Blown to bits' by The Exploited! Ah, class!

The shot, now you ask, is yet another from this wonder-box of negatives that I found. I've popped a goodly number of the images onto Flickr. Why don't you pogo over there and have a look?...

Too busy to blog...

Far too busy to blog today, so here's a quick hello before I shoot out again this afternoon! Can you believe I've just found a set of negatives that show the late, great Andre Kertesz actually taking photographs! They were shot in Bradford on his 90th birthday in 1984! Man, that box of old negatives is proving to be a real positive! I can't wait to get more stuff scanned in for you!

Oh, phone's ringing... gotta go!

Hand in Glove..

Just back from a great weekend in North Wales - with exhilirating walks in Anglesey, fine dining near Caernarvon .. and gloves on the beaches and the verges! Yep, looks like the seasons are changing again, and I'll soon be inundated with abandoned gloves, stopping me in my tracks as I go through the autumn and the winter! Oh, Gawd!!...

It's flowers that will be keeping me busy this week, as I get together my 'Presently..' range of Flowers and Greetings Cards, ready for their 'debut' on Bank Holiday Monday. Feedback has been favourable, and the signs are very encouraging so far. Just got to get M&S interested now, ha ha! (Actually, not ha ha .. but I can dream, can't I?)

I am now the proud owner of TWO Fuji X10 cameras, both of which I took to Wales at the weekend.
I just love, love using them! Their quality is amazing, and now that I'm au fait with using them they'll definitely be making an appearance at the next Wedding I shoot. F2 at 28mm is just heaven for those shots of the bride coming up the aisle. You could say they go 'Hand in Glove' with Wedding Photography...

Woof, cough ..

You'd swear this little pooch was smiling, wouldn't you? And I do like to work with subjects that use the camera to their best effect! To that end I was out in the park last night for another of my 'Pre-Wedding' Photo-Shoots, giving a bride and groom the chance to get to 'know' the camera and pick up a few clues about posing on their Wedding Day. I've used a small selection of their shots to freshen up my 'Engagement' page on the website. Check it out...

Well, I'm still only half-way through the box of old negatives that I found, but I'm absolutely loving the pictures I've discovered. I can't believe we all used to go 'clubbing' in pullovers, or that every old man wore a flat cap and  .. Ugh! .. the amount of smoking that went on indoors! Some things weren't better in the 'old days' after all...

Can I borrow your van, Percy ? ..

Hello, my name is Martin O'Neill and I live in a world of a fair day's pay for a fair day's work. Or .. I used to! Now I live in a world where one man .. ONE man .. is worth paying TWENTY FOUR MILLION POUNDS for !!! Oh, my flippin' God! I'm talking, of course, about Van Persie and his sale to Manchester United! Well folks, that's it for me! I've had enough! I hearby announce my complete disgust in the world of professional football, and therefore proclaim that I will have no interest in the forthcoming season and will never again spend Sunday afternoons in my local, drinking outrageously priced Guinness and screaming at overpaid, lug-eared wazzocks when they fail to kick a tiny bag of wind into a massive big white net. I'll do useful stuff instead, like taking Lesley and my camera out on long, lazy drives through our lovely countryside. Can I borrow your van, Percy? ...

Oh, the shot's one of the many I'm scanning in from that box of magical old negatives. Check out some more shots here...

Pull over, sir!...

Fashion-crime of the century here, folks! I put this photo of my favourite jumper onto my website yesterday, and it picture proved amusingly popular when I popped it onto Facebook too, but if image is everything then God knows what I thought I must have looked like when I was 21! Eeeh, those were the days! I was having a chat last night that was going a bit retro, too. A pal of mine went Darn Sarf for some of that Olympicsy stuff and was raving about some of the photographs he'd taken. "Thing is .. " he said "I left the digi at home and bought a couple of them disposable film cameras. No messing, no looking at my own reflection on the back of the camera, just lifted it to me eye and clicked!" Very interesting! So is film going to make a comeback? Will people once more collect photographs in easily-viewable albums, passing them around as they enjoy a social - in person! - get-together? We can only hope! Hey, I could wear my jumper...

So here's my idea ..

I'm going to be honest with you! My Florescence range of Flower and Plant Photography hasn't quite taken off the way I'd hoped it would! Oh, for sure, people love the pictures, and if I could dine out on compliments alone I'd weigh forty-five stone but, in these straitened times, folks are reluctant to put their hands in their pockets for photography.

So .. I've decided to give 'em the flowers as well! I make no apology for re-blogging it, but I've designed a range called "Presently.." as a way to push the photography by selling something people percieve as more 'value for money' .. the plants! People who buy from the range will also receive a free blank greetings card with a photograph on it of the actual kind of flower that will 'presently' appear from their pot! See what I did there? Bloody plantastic idea, I'm sure you'll agree!

Now I know timing is everything, and it is a little late in the season to be selling this sort of thing, but at least the plants all come from bulbs, which will over-winter with no problem and be ready to go come next May. So there ya go! My new idea! Eat yer 'eart out, Titchmarsh!...

As the sun sets..

Bloody hell! What do we do now? That's it! That's the Olympics done and dusted and yes, I'll hold my hands up, I really enjoyed a lot of the events, but what next? Ah! Christmas, that's what's next! Yep! Christmas! Time to chuck your sandals in the wardrobe and get back to some serious materialism! It's depressing to think that Autumn's on the horizon, with the switch-on of the Blackpool illuminations in less than a fortnight, but I couldn't believe it when I walked into the supermarket the other day to be greeted by a wall of Quality Street and Roses chocolates! I mean, the poor kids have had their new school uniforms on display in there since about two weeks before they broke up, so now at least they can put the shock of the new school year to the back of their minds and think ahead to the Christmas hols. Me? I think I've only worn my shorts about three times this year so sod it! I'm with the athletes! I'm thinking four years ahead! For me Mike Nesmith's had the right idea. "It's only a whimsical notion, To fly down to Rio tonight, And I probably won't fly down to Rio,
But then again, I just might...."

Hic, hic, hooray...

Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me....
 Right, that's that out of the way, and now I'm off to Croxteth Hall for today's fantastic Wedding!
The picture? No, of course it's not me! It's me old Dad! I'll be sharing a metaphorical pint with him, later. Cheers!...

Getting high...

It's a mess of a neg but remember I was telling you about climbing up the outside of a 300 foot chimney, with no safety harness or hard hat?  Well, I dug out this shot from that box of old negatives I found recently. One of the workmen, hamming it up on the rim of the chimney with nothing between him and the ground but 300 feet of fresh air! Ah, simpler times!

Off to Croxteth Hall for tomorrow's Wedding, and really looking forward to revisiting a venue I've not worked at for absolutely ages. What's fun about it is that it's in the middle of a park, so on a sunny day it'll be full of people out enjoying themselves. Don't bet on me ending up with 30 more folk than I should have in the big group shot!

Anyway, back to the scanner. I just can't keep my hands off these old negatives. What a buzz....

When I were a lad...

Eyeballs boggled, scanner in melt-down .. and scores of negatives still to go! Big tidy-up in the office the other day, and I found a box of negs from years ago. Well, I say found .. I didn't actually know I'd lost them but, oh boy, what a treasure trove of memories from my past! So, I've been hard at the Epson getting a start on scanning in the beauts, though I can see this'll be more a job for those dark winter afternoons when every man just has to have a project! I couldn't wait to see 'em, though. I mean, look at the shot in today's blog. It looks like something out of Bert Hardy's 1930s work .. bleak, desolate, drab .. yet this was Salford just over 30 years ago, with one of the last buildings on Salford Docks coming down in the background. (Actually .. still bleak, desolate and drab! Only joking!) If you follow me on Facebook - and if not, then why not?? .. you'll have seen quite a few shots go up over the last couple of days, and it's been great to read the comments from people, many of whom I don't even know. One of the most popular shots has been of this petrol station on Patricroft Bridge, in Eccles. The petrol's up at 37.2p per litre and the baby in the pram'll be in his early thirties!

As I've said before though, that's the wonderful thing about photography. I didn't set out that day to make a picture showing how much petrol cost, but with the lens' all-seeing eye it's there for the record, just as are blasts from the past like Rumbelow's, Woolworth's and poor old Jane Street in Salford, which isn't even on the map anymore! Eh, it's all changed since I were a lad...

Planting an idea...

I'm working on a really exciting new development of my Florescence Flower Photography series. It's quite a departure, and I'm really buzzing with the excitement of it all. It boils down to this ... I'm not just going to be selling my Flower Photography on its own, I'm going to be able to start supplying the actual plants as well! Cool, eh? So you buy a plant, such as an anemone or a gladiolus, and it comes in a funky coloured pot with a free greetings card showing a genuine photographic print of the actual flower your plant will produce! Brilliant! It's called my 'Presently .. ' range, which is the play on words of present, as in gift, and presently, as in what your plant will eventually look like! (I was up all night thinking that one up!) So, what do you think? Would it be of interest to you? The prices are great, and the photography - he said, modestly - is brilliant!

Feedback appreciated....

Jamaica?...

No, she went of her own accord! Oh, boy, who said the old jokes were the best? Anyway, that Usain Bolt did alright, didn't he, so let's get it out in the open. Yes, I have enjoyed this weekend's Olympics! Team GB has been fantastic, and the tears have welled with pride in this old cynic's eyes! There, I said it! Now let's move on....

I had a great Wedding at the weekend, at a venue I've never covered before, over near Sheffield. It was a sort of 'posh pub' with a nice function room and some b+b rooms upstairs. Not having shot there before I went over nice and early to have a bit of a look round. I was so early that the place was still locked up but, as I turned to leave, a bedroom window opened upstairs and there was the groom, all dishevelled in his jim jams! He let me in to the venue, and showed me the function room where his Wedding would take place later that afternoon. "Bit rough!" he croaked, and I smiled. "You should see some of the venues I've worked in.." I said. "No.." he said "Me! I'm a bit rough. Didn't get to bed 'til three.." 

Oops!

The picture? It's from my 1977 series 'Don't Miss That'
I just thought it looked like the finish of a race! See what I did there?...

Bored...

I'm sorry, I can't help it .. I'm bored! It's not my fault! I'm just not that into sport, and I am trying to get caught up in the excitement, spectacle and physical perfection of the event, but after an initial flutter I'm afraid it is, for me, turning back into the Olympiczzzz!.. The only glimmer of hope was watching the England footy match last night, when we got back to a proper bit of spitting, effin' and jeffin' and arguing with the ref! Normality restored! I'll leave it at that..

Hmmm... Just been asked if I can supply Wedding images for His 'n Hers' ipads. Hell, why not? Just don't lose 'em, guys!

You know how I was talking about my music photography the other day? About the fact that my pictures have been picked up by three different galleries and companies at the same time? Well now it's happened with my Flower Photography! Both the doctors' surgeries in the village have said they want to promote the work on their walls, and I'm having a meeting with one of the managers this month to discuss how we can sell the work on site!

Anyway, from Olympiczzz.. to Olympus, and today's photograph is another from my 'Don't Miss This' Olympus XA series. Mmmm! Photography! Now there's something I never get bored with....

Feelin' hot, hot, not....

August, and this damned heat is driving me crazy .. I really should step away from the radiator! Ok, I haven't quite put the central heating on, but I am sitting here in a fleece on the first of August, and I'm right fed up about it! My birthday's in August and I always seem to remember it as one long, six week, hot, sunny holiday. Ah, those were the days! The awful weather's meant I had to re-think a family portrait I shot last night. Out went the idea of everybody strolling in the park on a balmy summer's evening, and in came the frantic rearranging of their living room so we could fit all seven of 'em into the corner! Still, job done and the final image has already been selected by the family (They want the print for Friday! They forgot to tell me that bit!) Speaking of portraits, off to titivate me hair now, as the Warrington Guardian's coming round to take a piccy of me for an article!
Better take me jumper off!...