Oh, yes...

I was chillin' and having some 'me' time last evening - you know the kind of thing - gin in glass, Smiths on turntable .. and a copy of a Japanese Photography magazine in my hands. It's called Camera Life, and I bought it when I went over to Tokyo for my Joy Division exhibition. Trouble is, it being in Japanese and all that, I haven't the foggiest idea what it's actually going on about! However, it comes with a strap-line - in English (Well, almost!) - across the front page, and I wanted to share it with you. It says ..

"Camera Life proposes happiness to your camera and photograph life"

Isn't that great? Wouldn't you just want that as a photographer?

Guess what! I've got it!...

Well spotted..

Is it a plane, is it a blog .. or is it a blatant plug for my new photo-restoration service? Correct! It's Number 3 .. go to the top of the class! Since I joined the Community Page of Eccles Born and Bred I've seen more old, ripped, faded, tatty, yellow photographs than I think I've ever seen, so I've decided to offer the members (And, indeed, anyone else!) a way to pop a bit of life back into their memories. I'm going to personally collect, scan, spot and correct any prints that members might have before hand-delivering them back with either a spanking new digital copy or a brand-new print. And from just £15 a photo! Copy that? Fifteen squids! Bargain...

Green shoots..

I'm delighted that a lady's just ordered some of my place mats featuring a Florescence shot I've never used in a set before - this Agapanthus! It looks fab and, I imagine, fits in really well with a lot of people's colour schemes. This photograph, and a whole lot more, are featured in the current exhibition at Eccles Community Art Gallery though, it's fair to say, it's not proving as popular as 'Salford - Down the line'. It was always going to be so, though. That set of pictures was far more relevant to the people of Eccles than a lot of pretty pictures of flowers and I'm already missing the banter and chat that the exhibition generated. I'm hoping the pictures will reappear at a larger gallery sometime in the future but it's rather worrying when you hear that places like Salford Art Gallery - one of the places at which I'd love to exhibit - is now facing more staff cuts as the council seeks to save (even) more money. Cripes, what tough times we're in! I hope we start to see those mystical green shoots soon...

Wood you look at that..

"I'll give you half a mill for it.." I jokingly said, as I left the house in which I'd been shooting on Friday! "Ho ho.." said the caretaker, patting the funny snapper on the head "That'd just about cover the furniture!.."

I can believe him, as well! It was absolutely stunning. You know you're talking money when you have trouble actually picking the chairs up! But lift 'em up I did, as I had to squish myself into all sorts of positions to shoot shots like these for the carpenters who made all the .. er, wooden stuff! I did it all in two hours too, so I was doubly pleased with myself and treated our kitchen to a new Ikea plate rack on the way home! Ah, how the other half lives though, personally, I think four bathroms is just one too many. I'm saving a fortune in Cif living the way I do...

Unmissable..

I was over in Leeds last night for the launch of two new exhibitions, and had my copy of one of the photographers' books signed whilst I was there. All the talk of books yesterday got me really excited again about mine, and I put a new page online to try to promote them. If you've not heard of them - really? - they're called Don't Miss This and Don't Miss That! THIS is a collection of shots taken in the early 1980s with an Olympus XA, a camera I fell in love with as soon as I saw it advertised in Amateur Photographer, and THAT is very much related to my recent exhibition 'Salford - Down the line' in that it's a set of images taken before I became a professional photographer, so some of the photographs go back to about 1975. THIS has a foreword by Gallery owner and curator Laura Noble, and was actually taken up by the Photographers Gallery and sold in their bookshop in London. I guess I'll never make a fortune from either book, but they've been a real labour of love and it would be great if more people added them to their collections.

Buzzin'..

Brrr! Just when we thought Spring was on the horizon ..
Never mind, here's a sunny summer picture to get you through another nippy day. It's good to know that the seeds from these lupins are all doing well in their shivery cold frame, and it won't seem two minutes before they're flowering around the garden like their parents. As for the bees .. stay warm dudes!

I'm off to Leeds tonight for the opening of another photography exhibition, and I'm looking forward to congratulating me old mucker Peter Dench, who's just been named as a finalist in the 'Best Photo Book' awards. Maybe I should put my book 'Don't Miss This' into the fray next year?

Oh, I've added a little bit of razzamatazz to my website - studiofivefour.com - Would you be good enough to check it out and give me your opinions, please?

And now, despite every effort to avoid a cliché, I must buzz off and get some work done ..

Sofa So Good...

Pull up a seat whilst I tell you what's been going on around here this morning. Well, there's been no sitting around doing nothing, I can tell you! I've just been offered a commission from a furniture company down south. A day long shoot for their new website and they're going to ship all the furniture up here for me to photograph. How's about that? Must have been divan intervention! Ouch! (I think it was the Chairman that rang! Groan!) It is funny, though, that that's the second furniture shoot I've been offered in a week. I'm actually photographing for a carpentry company on Friday. Perhaps my photography's hit a new benchmark?

Oh, and today's shot's from my studiofivefour.com archive!

500th, f8, M6...

Apologies if you've already seen this shot on Facebook, but I thought it was worth getting out to all (both) the people that read the blog! It's a shot from Thelwall Viaduct a few days ago - Fiddlers Ferry Power Station at sunset. It was taken through the window of a car doing 80mph - and no, I wasn't the driver! -  and I only got two frames off before Squishy Sue or one of them other soppily named Eddie Stobart wagons blocked the view! When you look closer, though, you can see an incredible flock of birds zooming across the image. You can click on the picture for a better view. I'm not sure that the 'blow-up' does the picture justice but, trust me, it looks fab! The quality is amazing. It just brought to mind that old photographers' saying  .. "Buy the best glass you can afford"

Glass? Someone mention glass? Ah, good, 'cos I'm off to Eccles Art Gallery again now to show off my delightful range of heat-resistant Florescence glass place mats! Buy one, get none free! End of commercial break..

Must fly!

Cancer sticks ..

Yes, folks .. it's another Then and Now from Eccles .. the 'now' being shot on Saturday evening as I left the gallery to go home, and the 'then' from about about '78! Well, some things never change, and I don't mean the blocks of flats or the old cinema building. I mean the smoking! Man, you could die of passive smoking in Eccles! EVERYBODY smokes! Ok, don't pick me up on the accuracy of that statement, but it bloody well feels like it, I can tell you! Kids smoke, grannies smoke .. even the guy selling the fresh farm eggs at Saturday's Farmer's Market smoked! And because I live in a world where no-one smokes - and, these days, don't have to endure pubs full of smokers - the stench and sight of the hunched, grey-faced huddles, ludicrously and desperately sucking on rolled-up, burning tobacco leaves is made all the worse. I bring this up because I've been approached by a (non-smoking) chap from some sort of a Salford NHS working party, who wants to use some of my archive 'Salford - Down the line' shots in a new 'Look after yourself' kinda health campaign - something along the lines of 'Look after yourself and you'll still be here in 30 years time!'

It doesn't stand a chance!..

Alright, petal..

Spring is in the air, and what better way to welcome the new season than with my lovely Florescence flower photography, on now at Eccles Community Art Gallery. God, I sound like the NW Tourist Board. Ah, come on down, anyway. The sun is out, the shops are full of Easter eggs and my photographs would make great presents for Mother's Day. Bloomin' fantastic...

At the double..

We had twins arrive in the family last night! 1.15am! Olivia and Ellie, the brand new daughters of Daniel and Nicky. All's well, everyone's delighted. Major congrats, guys! Go get some sleep! (Now I wonder if I've got a photo in my archive that'll go with that news.. Oh, yes, I have! Well, one can't miss out on a chance to plug one's work, can one!)

Yes, it's back to the gallery today to finish off hanging my work, then it's opening day on the morrow and a chance for you to get hold of some of my Florescence photography. Lovely to be invited back to display this stuff so soon after my Salford show and it's funny, isn't it - you wait for one thing to come along, then two arrive at the same time...

That's just a straight plug..

Happy Valentine's Day! I hope you're gettin' all loved up and squidgy! Oh, that reminds me, I shoot Weddings! Yeah, thought I'd better mention it, as all this exhibition mullarkey seems to have hogged my blog! It's actually four weeks until I shoot my next one, but I've just taken another fantastic booking for Peckforton Castle this Christmas, so things is rollin' along nicely...

Oh, I shoot Child Portraits, too! Might as well get a plug in for that whilst I'm at it! This Sunday I'm off back to Willington Hall because a couple whose Wedding I photographed there two Christmases ago have a new arrival, and she's about to make her debut in front of my lens! Have a look at my new 'Dimples' web page ..

Oh, and PR .. don't forget my PR photography! I'm quite good at that, too! Shoots this year have already included a brochure for a Management Consultany firm, and a feature on the state of the UK's high streets.

And flowers! Well, you know I shoot flowers, 'cos that's the theme of my next appearance at the Eccles Art Gallery, innit? Oh, I've mentioned that, have I?...

Signs are ..

So now I know who I'm sharing 'my' gallery with from Saturday. Mostly it's the Salford Artists' Workshop, or SAW, which sounds awfully similar to my Flickr project 'Seen', to which these two photographs have just been added. It's a sign! Actually, it was so cool that I saw these two flower photographs within yards of the gallery this week - just as my exhibition changed from my black and white reportage to my Florescence colour flower photography! It's a sign .. again! (Well, the one on the right is, definitely!) And it's great to see that there's been a fantastic take-up of viewers to Twelve for '13, my year-long 'Eccles' documentary project. The page has had over 1, 200 hits in the six weeks since it began. One of the shots that'll come up over the year is this one below.. It's a sign!..

Pretty flowers..

And so it's off to the gallery again, this time to hang images from my Florescence series of flowers and leaves. No time to be a diva for this one, though, as I'm just one part of a group showing. I'll be interested to see what other work will be gracing the walls around mine. Don't worry, darlings, I'm not going to get all precious on them and demand a five foot 'barrier' of white wall between my work and theirs, or insist that their pictures all face the back wall! Although, actually that sounds ..      no, maybe not!

I'll report back on my fellow exhibitors once I've seen the work, and then you'll get your chance when the exhibition opens on Saturday.

Catch ya later, flower...

And relax ..

Have a break? Are you kidding me? I've got an exhibition to organise! Yep, one down/one up, and no sooner do I finish 'Salford - Down the line' than I prepare for tomorrow, when I hang my section of a new exhibition at the Community Art Gallery in Eccles! After an absolutely amazing run - 1,141 people through the door in just nine actual days of opening - I'm delighted to say I've been invited to take part in the next group show at the venue. (Mega thanks to everyone who came down, by the way! You were all brilliant, with your memories, recollections and stories!) Anyway, this time I'm showing images from my Florescence series - a set, as I'm sure you know - of amazingly coloured flower and leaf photography, shown as framed photographic prints, greetings cards, table mats and coasters. I'm having a bet with myself to see how long it takes before someone asks me what I did to tweak the colours in Photoshop. NOTHING! It was shot on what we oldies call 'film' - in this case 645 transparency! That sharpness and saturation? That's what you got when you shot with good film! Gimme a break!...

It's only bloody Martin Buchan, innit!..

Martin - they ask - what was it like on your first day as a Press Photographer? And I tell them how, on my first ever day on the Sale and Altrincham Messenger, I got to photograph The Captain of Manchester United! Martin Buchan, in the flesh, posing for my camera! Oh boy, I said to myself, you have made the Big Time! You've arrived! You are, at last, a professional press photographer.

He was opening a paint and decorating shop in Altrincham!

Still, ya gotta start somewhere (Me, not him!) but, the thing is, I've only gone and found one of the shots from that day, haven't I? And how chuffed does he look, the skipper of Man U stuck amidst a pile of paint tins with a mop-top nipper and a plastic football in his lap! I met him years later and told him the story. He was then a rep for Puma trainers! I'm still a photographer! God, I'm so glad I can't kick a ball to save my life...

Mark what? ..

Forgive me basking in the glow of my exhibition, but it's been so successful and I've only got 'til Saturday to enjoy it and then it's over! Get this for a quote that came in yesterday .. "Shame it has to end. Nothing can rekindle the past like looking at old photographs. Something like Martin's collection should be on permanent exhibition at somewhere like Salford Art Gallery or the Lowry Centre" Wow! Have I stopped blushing? That's fantastic!..

Buying a Nikon doesn't make you a photographer, it makes you a Nikon owner! That was another of those Facebook quotes that came floating through the air the other day, just after I'd been chatting about some of my framed flower photographs (They're about to come down from the walls of a doctors' surgery near my home) A young lad overheard me talking. "I'm a photographer.." he informed me "I do lifestyle portraits and bands!.." "Nice.." I said but, before I could get another word in, he said "What camera did you use? I'm getting a Canon P Mark 6F" .. (Or something!) Ah! It's the camera that takes the photographs, is it? I do keep forgetting that! Silly me...

On yer bike..

Getty have picked another set of my images to add to their archive, and I'm delighted that they went for this one .. a chap holding a brolly as he cycled past the flats in Salford! Like a lot of the things in my shots, it's just not something you see anymore, is it? You don't see shops advertising 'Colour' televisions, or kids with holes in their trousers, or women in rollers getting on a bus! Trouble is, these days you'd be scared to shoot them if you saw 'em. There's such a scary, suspicious mood on the streets now, and it's sad! Ah, the modern world. It can get lost! I'm staying in the 70s .. I like it here!

Back a bit more...

And so we go into the last Tuesday of 'Salford - Down the line', and the mood's definitely getting frisky! I had two lovely moments yesterday .. Firstly, I was asked if I'd give a talk to a camera club in Salford. Me? Talk? About Photography? Just try and stop me! Ha!..

Secondly .. drum roll .. another gallery is interested in showing my work! Hurrah! And this is a proper photographic gallery, too! Hip hip! And they're not even in Manchester! Woo Hoo! They said "This looks like a great project and it is a really lovely series of images. We would definitely be interested in showing these at the gallery" Halle - bloody - lujah!!! What a break-through! I feel so happy! And it's only taken 36 years! Actually, it's even longer than that. I was working on a few 'new' old images yesterday when it dawned on me that some images, for example these from my days in the Army Cadets, are from even further back than '77. I left the cadets in '76, so this shot, and the others I took at the unit, are from when I was actually 15 years old - so from perhaps even 1975! Yoiks! That's almost back to the invention of photography!..

Time is of the essence..

Gobsmacked! Yep, that's about the best word for it! I'm gobsmacked! We had over another 150 people to the gallery on Saturday, including Joan and Mark, who feature in today's blog .. twice! See the little boy in that pram, being fed a chip by his Grandma? That's Mark, 36 this year, the strapping fella seen here in Saturday's photograph with Joan, now a sprightly - ahem, ahem - years old! It made my day that they turned up to see my work and, what's more exciting, as we go into the last week of the show it's looking like we'll hit 1, 000 visitors to the gallery! Now that's pretty good going considering we only open on a Saturday and a Tuesday and, to mark that momentuous occasion, I'm going to offer a half-price family portrait voucher to the lucky 1, 000th visitor. Will it be you?

The comments book is making pretty interesting reading. One couple added a note to a photograph to say that a bus shelter featured in one of my shots was where they had their first kiss .. and they're celebrating their 30th Wedding anniversary in May! And another entry in the book simply read "Oh! I've smiled all the way round .."

I can't wait to see how it goes on our last two opening days. If you've not seen the show then I urge you to get along. Tuesday and Saturday are the last days it'll be open and then ..

Actually, then I'll be taking part in the gallery's next exhibition! I've been invited to show a selection of my Florescence flower photography from February 16th.

Gobsmacked!

Shake yo ass...

One of the very few colour shots in my exhibition 'Salford - Down the line', and one of the very few days you have left to go and see the show! We're open today and next Tuesday and then the 9th will be the closing day of the whole shebang! The visitor numbers have been absolutely fantastic and, as soon as I've had a shower, I'm off there again for my Saturday shift. Let you know later how many we get through the door today.

Anyway yesterday, right on schedule, the second instalment of Twelve for '13 hit the inter-web-net-thing, and another 80-ish images are now on view for the discerning fan of photography. Me? I highly recommend it .. but then I would, wouldn't I?