Thunderbirds are gone...

And just like that, all my Space Heroes are gone! In 2012 we've already lost Neil Armstrong and Patrick Moore and now - just yesterday - Gerry Anderson. If you're one of my overseas readers I think this blog might not mean much and I apologise but, if you grew up in England in the 60s, there was no doubt that you got your first introduction to space and adventure through his work. I never got to meet the first man on the moon - although I did photograph one of his suits once - and I never got to meet the 'mad professor' Moore who made it such fun to learn about space - although I have got his autograph in the front of a book about the universe - but I did photograph Gerry Anderson - and the real 12 inch Captain Scarlet - when they visited a Manchester Sci-fi convention back in the early 90s. It's because of Gerry Anderson that we all grew up wanting to be astronauts - although, for me, poor eyesight and being sh*t scared of sitting in a capsule on top of a 356 foot bomb put paid to that - and it's because of Gerry Anderson that I got two of my earliest nicknames - viz: Joe 90 and Brains!
Erm, I think you can see why....
FAB Gerry Anderson, FAB.....

T'was the night before Christmas...

Christmas Eve and I can hear spuds being peeled across the country, so here's a rather appropriate shot for everyone who's going to be stuck in the kitchen over Christmas! It's also - surprise surprise - one of the 981 shots from my new archive, and I've chosen it as the introductory shot in a new section of my StudioFiveFour website. It's called Twelve for '13 and it's how I'm going to display my work over the forthcoming year. As my gift to the photographic world I'm going to put up around 80 of the photographs on the first of each month, displaying them for just that month until the whole series has been viewed. (Twelve for 2013, see? Aha!!...) Anyway, I hope you might pass on the link to your mates, and when I'm famous I'll bless you, one and all.

Ah, sod it! It's Christmas! God bless us now.... (Heaven knows, we need it!)

Have a cracker, everybody! Merry Christmas.....

When I were a lad...

I've done it! I've bloody done it! After months of searching through thousands of negatives, scanning hundreds of strips of film and cleaning up the scratches and dust of 35 years in a box .. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you .. MY ARCHIVE!

At last! It's finished! Over 900 photographs from my early photographic years! Man, I can't tell you how good that feels! And it looks amazing! I can't believe (he said modestly) that I was taking photographs like these when I was just 17 and 18 years old. They're fantastic! And they work on two levels (I think!) They work as pure and simple 'documents' of the 1970s and early 80s, recording the styles, fashions and environments of the time, but they also work (I like to think!) as interesting, amusing, eye-catching photographs in their own right. And they're so descriptive of my small-town upbringing as a teenager. (Never went to restaurants! Never travelled abroad! Aw...) They show Eccles market (a lot), they show the estate on which I grew up - and the people I grew up with - they show Barton Air Show, they show the bus rides I took as a lad, the shop-fronts, the power station, the old Morisson's supermarket, the chip shops, the Army Cadets, the clubs I began to go to, the cars, the flares .. and the all-prevalent smoking, and it's sad to think that so many, many of the people and places in the pictures are now all long gone! It's been a real trip back for me, and I have such a sense of pride that I've finally managed to finish the project. Of course, the important thing now is getting it seen, so it's over to Flickr and the hope that you all might let your pals know about my body of work. I've decided to release 80 images on the first day of each month of the coming year and all, of course, will be available for licensing or for purchase as prints. There'll be a small exhibition in Eccles in January, too - finalised details to come!

Man, I am so pleased I joined St Pat's camera club when I was thirteen...

Call me...

This is a blog that I'm going to Tweet and put on Facebook about an email I sent to a chap on Linked- In because, for the first time ever, networking on the 'Social Meeja' has worked! After days, weeks, months and probably a couple of years now, I've finally got a PR job directly from t'internet! My name has been sent round an office after I 'linked' with the MD of a PR company and, at last, an account handler has picked up on it and booked me to shoot a job this morning. The irony is, the job's for a company I worked for for years but, as with all these things, contact was lost as staff moved on. All it would have taken, in 'the old days', was a quick phone call and a trip into their Manchester office with a great big smile and a little book of cuttings. You know the sort of thing ... this is me, that's my work, what do you think?

Of course, you can't beat 'word of mouth', and that's how I got a Wedding enquiry from a bride who's getting married next August. A snapper pal of mine put her on to me after she rang his studio. That man he don't do Weddings, you see! Thing is, a full week after her initial email, I still hadn't heard back from this girl, so I thanked my friend but sadly had to tell him that his recommendation had come to naught. "But you're already booked on that date, aren't you?" he asked. No, I said, I wasn't. Apparently she'd told him she thought I was booked, as she hadn't heard anything from me since her initial email. Turns out all my emails to her had gone straight into her Junk folder, and she hadn't bothered to follow up her enquiry and has now booked a different photographer.
 Oh, for the days of phone calls....

Livin' off the wall...

Oh, I do love a good project, and there's plenty to keep me busy over the coming winter months! First of all I am so, so close to finishing off my archive! Man, it's taken months, but it's looking fantastic and I'm managing to get it all done just in time for my next undertaking - a solo exhibition in Eccles in January. Alongside that, and very excitingly, I've been invited to be one of the 'core participants' in a new creative undertaking at a gallery in Altrincham!

So, the details...

Well, my archive is looking like it'll be at least 875 pictures strong, including this one of the frozen shadow of an old Ford Cortina in about 1980. Topical, eh? I'm gearing up to hopefully make a new book, or get an exhibition together of some of the best of the shots, though I've been working on it so long that I almost feel sad I'm nearing the end of this part of the project! However, the next assignment calls, and that will be a month-long exhibition at Eccles Community Art Gallery from mid-January. The gallery's based in an old shop in the precinct and I'm being given the whole place to myself. I'm going to show a large number of shots of 'old' Eccles, similar to the exhibition I had for the library's 100th anniversary a few years back, and I'm hoping to run workshops on Saturday mornings, too, so watch this space! There'll be a local writer getting involved, too, and maybe even a couple of actors! Ooooh....

Thirdly, as I said, I'm going to be taking part in a forthcoming shoot and exhibition at a gallery called Local Creation, in Altrincham. We're all getting together next week to mash out the plans over a glass or two of mulled wine, and I'll let you know how that goes once it's all sorted.

Wow! Exciting! Life ain't so bad at all, if you live it off the wall...

Over the moon...

Caught some sport over the weekend. Took me right back to the time we used to huddle round the 'box' at four o'clock of a Saturday afternoon. You know that sport where grown men drop to the floor, writhing in pain? The one go where they go flying through the air, the more artistically the better? The one where shouting at the ref's as much a part of the game as tackling one another?

No, not tag-team wrestling .. football!

I caught some of the Manchester derby on Saturday although, as Withnail and I might say, it was by accident! I didn't mean to start watching Match of the Day and although at first I thought I'd gone back on my vow not to deliberately watch a game this season, I was actually glad I saw some of the match, as it made me realise I am not missing a thing! These days a football game to me seems like 90 minutes of cheating, fakery and fawning, pathetic idol-worship.
Oh, and coin-throwing!
Nice!

Fancy a brew?..

Slogging through the compilation of not one, but three Wedding CDs today, so I reckon I've earned a nice cuppa and a couple of minutes' breather! Appropriately enough, here's one of the photographs I've just added from a Wedding last September. Gosh, that seems so long ago! Remarkably, though, most of this year's brides have been pretty much 'on-the-ball' when it comes to deciding on their selections of images from their Big Days. I actually only have two couples who haven't yet got their choices finalised, which reminds me of a chat I had recently with the parent of a child I'd just photographed. I'd joked that some parents have been known to take two years to choose which photographs they wanted from a shoot. "You're joking.." she said "How can it take them so long?" That was 18 months ago and she's only just sent me her choice!
Two sugars, please!

Standards!

I swear the country's going to the dogs! The hotel we stayed at in London the other day was .. what's the word I'm looking for? Awful! Yes, it was awful. The smallest room on the planet, with a freezing wind howling through windows that didn't shut, and a mattress that looked like it had been a prop in 'It's a Knockout' in 1977! When we checked out my girlfriend asked to see the manager to make a complaint. 'Oh.." said the receptionist "Just put it on Trip Advisor!"

Huh? Let everyone know your hotel stinks? Oh, ok, we will! So, folks, on the instruction of the receptionist, I can officially say that the Eden Plaza Hotel in Kensington is the pits! Now, where was I going with this? Ah, yes! Standards! A bride sent me an e-mail the other day. She wanted me to quote for photography "at the ceramony and at the after do" .. and this hot on the heels of a Linked-In message from someone who described her job as being a "Wedding Coordinater." I mean, hey, nobody's perfect, but I'm afraid I must put a winner's medal for 'Crap Standards' straight round the neck of a GWAC in Somerset. (GWAC? Girl/Guy with a camera, as opposed to photographer!) She starts off by saying she hopes you "like what I have advertise", lets you know that "personlised memory boxes come's with the wedding" and offers, amongst many things, photographs as "Cnvuas Frames" ...  I couldn't resist emailing her to ask what a cnvuas frame was and, gawd bless 'er, she replied saying she wasn't quite sure how to describe it, but she had a page on her website that would explain! 

Is it just me? Am I being too pedantic, or is the younger generation really as ignorant as it seems? Ah, fcuk it, hoo caers?..

There is hope...

I'll drink to that! A smile has been spotted at the National Portrait Gallery! Yes, folks! They're showing a photograph of a smiley person in their heavy, heavy Annual Portrait Photography exhibition! You see, every year I go down to London to put myself through the torture of viewing wall after wall of dour, serious, "important" portraiture, and every year I come away depressed. They just don't like smiles in their pictures! No smiling in our show! But .. what's this? They've let one slip through! And not only that, they've thought it so unusual and striking that .. they've put it on the front cover of their catalogue! I got so excited that I gave 'em fifteen quid of my hard-earned dosh just to own it! Hurrah! There is hope, after all. I'll drink to that! Glühwein! Get me a hot toddy, pronto!..

The next part of this blog was supposed to be about the Hyde Park Christmas market but, er .. I can't remember anything about that!...

Oh, and the photograph's another from my ever-expanding archive! Just loving what I'm finding..

Ye Gods!...

 Jeez, I know times are hard, but f*cking hell! I had a stall in my local shopping centre on Saturday, selling a range of items from my Florescence range of Flower Photography. I took £5! A fiver! A paltry, pathetic fiver and  .. I won't mince my words .. it was an absolute soul-destroying pisser! And I get to do it all again next week! Brilliant!

Off to London today. It's time for my annual moan at the Taylor Wessing Portrait Photography exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. Something tells me that, after Saturday, I might not be in quite the right mood to view the images fairly! I'd love to think my shot of this poor little fella would stand a chance in the contest but I'd be wrong. He's actually showing some emotion, and we can't have that in public...