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...