Boobs ..

I've had three rather amusing little 'Hey - look at that' - moments in the past couple of days and, by sheer coincidence, they all involve the letter B! The first occurred as I was walking through the newly refurbished Birchwood shopping precinct, near my home. Somebody has come up with a nifty new slogan for the redesign, and stuck it up with a logo around the place. Be at Birchwood, it says .. which I instantly read as 'Beat Birchwood' .. a challenge which, I'm sure, will be happily taken up by the centre's nearby neighbours!

The second 'moment' came yesterday when a prospective Labour Parliamentary candidate emailed me about some photographs I'd sent him from a recent PR shoot. His name's Nick Bent. In my email InBox he's listed as Bent Nick .. but it's probably best if I don't tell you about that one!

The third 'B' .. bizarrely .. happened on Monday when I popped round to my friend's house to meet up with a young lady who has expressed an interest in a career in Wedding co-ordination. David has a stable of beautiful vintage cars, you see, and - like me - is part of The Culcheth Collection. Without going into detail about the meeting or, indeed, the young lady in question, she suddenly stood up in my friend's kitchen, whacked out one of her boobs and, without so much as a 'by your leave' or a 'do you mind?', began to breast-feed her very young and obviously thirsty new-born baby!! Now, David's 65 and I'm on the greyer side of 50. We had to stare into each other's eyes for what felt like a bloody fortnight! As far as we were concerned that was just one boob too many!... 

By the way, the T shirt's from one of my Flickr sets. I got bored one day and shot my entire collection in one go! Blimey...

 

Yesterday ..

Ring, ring ..

"StudioFiveFour! Can I help you?"

"Yes, I'd like a portrait taken of my daughter. She had some done at school but they're not very good. They don't even look like my daughter. How much for a shoot and four prints?"

"Sixty-five pounds madam!"

"Oh, er .. let me have a think about that"

"What do you need to think about, may I ask?"

"Well, that's considerably more than the school photographs cost"

"Well, the photographs will be considerably better than the school photographs, madam! Goodbye ..."

Party like it's nearly the end of 2013 at last ..

Yeah, I know! Catchy title, not .. but it kinda gets across today's message which is - say it in hushed tones - that I think I can see a glimmer of hope for the economy. Well, my economy, at least! Last year I pooh-pooed the idea of couples not booking their Wedding for this year because it had a thirteen in it, but I think it's proved true for me and lot of 'Wedding' people I know. However, next year seems to be off the mark already and I've just taken two bookings in as many days when I'd have said we're too near to Christmas to even get any Wedding enquiries! PR seems to be on the up, as well - always a good sign when companies feel confident in promoting their news - and StudioFiveFour is ticking along with a steady flow of bookings and enquiries.

Of course, the fact that we're nearing the end of 2013 also means there's only one more installment of my Twelve for '13 project to come. Today's shot is from it, as you might have guessed, and December 1st will see a bumper upload of the last remaining images. After that .. well, you'll have to wait until January 2015 when I have an exhibition of the work opening at the Peoples' History Museum in Manchester.

So roll on 2014, and I'll have a can of Fosters, thank you very much ..

Put your back into it ..

I went to Birmingham this weekend to cover, once again, the annual NEC 'Motorcycle Live' show for one of my PR clients. Usual brief, and a very busy day as always. In fact, a new pedometer I've just downloaded onto my phone says I'd taken 12,600 steps up to 5pm on Saturday! Is that a lot? Sure sounds it! Definitely felt like it! I know I put my back into it ..

Four cough ..

Ok .. Queens of the Stone Age. Dateline 20 November 2013. It was good to see them again. At least, I think I saw them! It was hard to tell through all the cigarette smoke!..

What did you say, Martin? Cigarette smoke? But surely the MEN Arena - or whatever it's called now - is a No-Smoking venue! Well yes it is .. of course! .. but you don't think that's going to stop those crazy, hard-rock, rebel music fans from doing what they want, do you? No chance! Ha ha ha ....

Man, it was disgusting! Sorry to sound like my Dad - again - but the second the lights went down the arena filled with the sound of a zillion Zippos sparking up, and within minutes the place was a fug of spliff smoke and ciggy stink! One clever tw*t even thought it would be fun to smoke whilst sitting on the shoulders of his mate and then flick the butt forward into the audience.

Crazy, hard-rock rebels? Selfish, moronic d*ckheads, I call 'em! Thank God the smoking ban came in 'cos it wasn't so long back that any venue would have been this foul and unhealthy! Perhaps it was good to be reminded what it was like .. back in the stone-age!  

Heads or tails? ..

I have a couple of things I wanted to talk about today, so it's going to have to be a toss-up as to what I actually blog. The choices are Queens of The Stone Age and, er .. broken flash equipment! Ok, here we go. Heads! It's Heads! Heads is broken flash equipment! Sorry .. exciting, eh?

So, yesterday I went on a PR shoot to Blackburn. A company's new offices and a portrait shoot with all the directors, including one who'd flown in from the Isle of Man for the morning. Arrived nice and early, chose my locations, set my lights up and .. nothing happened! Without boring you to death (Am I too late?) a piece of gear I use - the deliciously named Nikon SU-800 Master Commander - had suddenly become decidely unmasterful and definitely demoted from Commander. Basically, it was supposed to fire all my remote flash guns and .. it didn't. Now this is where the weather comes in. Oh, I forgot to mention the blog was about the weather, too! If you remember, yesterday morning was hell! Wind, rain, hail .. the works and, as I drove up to Blackburn, I thought there was no way in heaven I'd be able to shoot the outdoor photos that were required. However, by the time I got to Blackburn the storm was passed and the sun ..well, the sun was absolutely blazing down - fierce, low and bright. Too bright to get the group shots I needed! I had to yank everybody into the shade of a nearby building in order to stop them burning their retinas out! Thing was, now that the sun was doing its thing, the stairwell of the new office was aglow with soft, bounced light .. so that's where I shot the portraits! I'm sure the client was wondering what sort of photographer they'd booked but hey, I got the shots and everybody's happy. Well, almost everybody. A new SU-800 Master Commander costs £300! ..

Tomorrow .. Queens of the Stone Age! Bet you can't wait ...

Jump you twat ..

Hard to believe there's only one installment left of my Twelve for '13 project - a Flickr exhibition of my archive from the mid-seventies and early eighties and .. I'm going to hold my hands up .. it's not had as much interest as I'd wanted! I should be world-famous by now!! Ok, only joking, but I do wish more people had seen the work, so it makes me feel all the better that the pictures will be physically 'up on walls' again in January of 2015. That's what it's about, isn't it! Seeing 'the real thing'! Digital is wonderful but look how, more and more, we're hearing of people who have lost their entire collections of photographs because their mobile phone was stolen or dropped down the loo! There was even a Wedding Photographer on TV last night who 'cried for three weeks' because thieves stole her computer and back-up drives. What? You didn't make CDs? Physical copies of your work? Are you crazy??...

So, photographs made of paper for me although I hope, when my show is up at The Peoples' History Museum in Manchester, that they don't atract as much interaction as this poster. It's still some of the funniest graffiti I've ever seen...

Splats 'n shit ..

3, 974! That's how many frames I shot making yesterday's Time-Lapse pr 'film' of two young graffiti artists at work, and today my chest's telling me I've breathed in enough aerosol fumes to last me the rest of my life! Cough, cough ..

What a great day, though! From a blank office wall at 10am to a fully finished 'muriel' of a hip 'n happening Union Jack and company logo, I captured the entire creation of the guys' work over a  period of six hours and .. d'ya know what? .. I watched them make the whole thing, and still haven't any idea how they did it! My fave quote of the day came from one of the lads who realised there might be a blank area towards one corner of the room. "Oh.." he said "We'll just fill that with some splats and shit!" Sorted, man ...

#prphotography

Bangin' on ..

I know I'm always banging on about the variety in my job (Yes, you are, Martin...) but it's gone bonkers recently with the amount of different work I'm getting. In the space of ten days I'll have shot Remembrance Sunday for a local magazine, a series of portraits of new apprentices for a company web-site, a brochure shoot for a new restaurant .. and its opening night for a magazine .. a portrait shoot for a new Golf Captain, a PR shoot promoting a campaign against violence towards shop-workers and I'll have done a morning at an Insurance company's new HQ. I'm also off to Brum next Saturday for the annual Motorcycle Live show. Oh, and then I had a call at 7 this morning to ask if I could shoot a time-lapse film of some graffiti artists painting a 'muriel' on an office wall... today! With variety like that I'll never look like Tom here, who I photographed at his desk in 1977! Reasons to be cheerful ..

Don't Say Cheese ..

Oh, Gawd! The Taylor Wessing Portrait Photography awards have been announced for 2013 and, from what I've seen, they've been true to form and avoided smiling like the plague! Why don't they consider a smile as suitable for a portrait? Do they feel a happy face isn't a true representation of a person? Well, it's too deep for me but then I never was one for "analyzing" photographs. All I know is that walking round the pictures at the National Portrait Gallery makes for a really depressing experience so, here .. have my contender for this year's winner. My Mum, beaming like a Cheshire Cat as she waited to board Concorde for a pleasure flight back when .. well, when it was flying! I think the image speaks volumes about my Mum's personality so Ya Boo Sucks Taylor Wessing and I for one won't be zipping down 'the smoke' for a gander at this year's misery fest!

#TaylorWessing
#culchethstudio
#portraitphotography

Garlic? Bread? ..

You can imagine the confusion of Peter Kay's Dad if you'd told him they were making phones with cameras in 'em! Phone? Camera?... and now we're getting cameras with 'wire facilities' in them just to add to the technological mix. Well, I couldn't resist mocking up this shot the other day! Phones with cameras in them? I had one years ago! Ho hum ..

Anyway, it seems I'm still not getting this blogging malarkey right! I've been told I have to embed my keywords in my text, rather than just adding the tags to the bottom of the piece. Bit like the old days when they subliminally - "COCA-COLA" - flashed up images of fizzy drinks during films. I'm not sure if that - "WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHY" - would work but it might be worth a - "GIFT VOUCHERS FOR CHRISTMAS" - try! Think that -"PR PHOTOGRAPHY" - got the message across? Good! Phone me or .. take a picture!..

#weddingphotography
#prphotography
#culchethstudio

Where it's @ ..

I've taken to tweeting, with a vengeance! I'll admit I've not given Twitter the attention it's needed in the past, bogged down as I am with SEO and Flickr, Tumblr and Pinterest (..and to think, I used to be a photographer!) but now I'm hitting the keyboards hard and 'following' as many relevant people as I can find! Unfortunately, that means I'm also now being 'followed' by quite a few irrelevant people, too .. many of whom seem to need me to know from their profiles how many cats/kids/snowboards they've got, and one who urges me to "Close my eyes and see.."! (Doesn't work for me, that one!)

So, for the first time ever I've had new business cards made with my Twitter details on, and now no longer can I sit and watch tv or eat a meal in peace! Oh no, now I'm constantly, feverishly, checking my phone as it bleeps and twinkles and oinks at me when I get new followers or retweets. I can only hope - as many people tell me - that it does actually work as a way to increase business or her indoors'll have me out on my ear at this rate!

PS: Sorry about the seagull picture! Not being a bird-spotter I don't exactly have many images of our feathery friends, so that'll have to do! Jeez, seagulls don't even tweet! Unlike me, ho ho ..

#weddingphotography

©Martin O'Neill 2013

Coming soon .. ish! ..

Big News!..

I've been selected to have an exhibition in Manchester! I'm going to have a four month show at the Peoples' History Museum on the Left Bank in Spinningfields. A collection of my archive photography is going up to show working-class life in the 1970s - in other words,  my way of growing up as a teenager! I'm really pleased, as you might guess, but take your coat off and sit down again! Don't be rushing out the door just yet, 'cos the exhibition doesn't open until January 2015. These guys plan ahead! Gives me time to get a nice set of prints done, though!..

#peopleshistorymuseum
#documentaryphotography
#culchethstudio

Foopball ..

So, off I go to the Republic of Ireland! With Roy Keane! Ok, not the me Martin O'Neill, the football manager Martin O'Neill and it's ironic I'll .. I mean he'll .. be working with Roy Keane, as I go back long enough to have actually photographed Keane's signing for Man U when I was a press photographer! The MEN got an exclusive, so it was just me and him at, I think, The Cliff, in Salford. Cripes, that was 20 years ago! I remember shaking his hand and wishing him good luck! I think it worked for him .. ho ho!

Anyway, I can't show you that photograph, as it went the way of all negatives at the Manchester Evening News, and will never be seen again! And, seeing as I'm not the mostly footbally photographer in the world, I have very little to offer in the way of other footy photos, so you'll have to make do with this picture of Alex Stepney, shot when he signed for .. Altrincham! .. towards the end of his career. I just missed him giving me the 'V's as I'd just shouted at him during the game! Sorry, Alex!..

Oh, Foopball? If you've ever read Molesworth then any fule kno that's how he phonetically spells the word. Try it! It works ..

Ha! Stop Press: http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/2000-ebay-bidding-starts-roy-6281073

#pressphotography, #prphotography, #ManchesterUnited  

New for old ..

A Wedding photographer at work, circa 1977, and he's probably using an old Mamiya or Rollei TLR - or two and a quarter - or 6x6 if you're modern! I've got a box full of old cameras like that now .. the most expensive ornaments in the house, as I call them .. and now Nikon have brought out a DSLR that's based on the old FM2 camera. Retro feel, as they call it! Phwoar! What is it about 'old' gear? Why does it just feel 'right'? I mean, as much as I love my D300s I get such a buzz out of holding and using 'old' cameras! You can't beat grabbing an FE2 and giving that wind-on lever a good ol' yank! (Oh, heck .. where am I going with this?) Anyway, let's put it this way - £2,750 says I won't be getting a new 'old' Nikon any time soon. Funnily enough though, I'm starting to use the camera on my phone a lot more! I used to get in a blind panic if I found myself without a camera. "Have you got your phone with you?.." Lesley would ask .. and I'm suddenly calm again! Damn it, they're good! The only thing we need to sort now is the names of cameras. In the good old days we had SLRs, and then we called digital cameras DSLRs to differentiate. Digital cameras are now, surely, the 'norm' so why can't we just start calling them SLRs and call film cameras FSLRs? Just asking ..

#weddingphotography

©Martin O'Neill 2013

Merry Christmas!..

Well, in these days of forward marketing it seems only natural, on Bonfire Night, to show you a photograph from a Christmas 'promo' shoot I did yesterday! Had a lovely family into the studio and, after we'd shot a set of 'normal' photographs I asked them if they'd 'ham it up' and pose for my Christmas 'advert'. I didn't expect young Jack to ham it up as much as he did, of course, but it makes for a great photograph and that's what I've gone for on my new Christmas website page.

It reminded me of the time I did a magazine shoot for, I think it was Woman's Own, of one of the first ever lottery winners - so we're talking probably 25 years ago at least! The angle of the story was that they could now have the best Christmas they'd ever had. Trouble was, they won the lottery in September, and I had to dress their house to make it look like Christmas. Lord knows how I winged that one! Their tree was pathetic, the shops - unlike these days - weren't already stocking crackers or decorations or the like, and we had a devil of a job to source a turkey from Liverpudlian shops that were still stocking summer foods. I'll always remember asking the winner what he'd do with 1.5 million pounds. "Well.." he said "We're going to spend the million .. and put the point five in the bank!"

 Merry Christmas!!...

©Martin O'Neill 2013

Oooh baby, baby...

I went to my second ever Baby Shower on Sunday afternoon  .. though not as a guest, obviously! They're another American import, I suppose, but a great excuse for a nosh-up and some party games and, unlike another Yankie 'celebration' nobody has to pretend they're a zombie or walk round with fake blood all over their clothes! (Sigh...) Naturally, I came home and immediately added 'Baby Shower' photographer to my website, much as I did when I was asked if I shot Internet Dating portraits! I'm just wondering what the next new 'thing' will be and, er .. hope I can shoot it!

Portraits and PR this week, and only a couple of weeks before my annual jaunt to Birmingham's NEC for the Motorcycle Show! The exciting thing on the Wedding front is that the first sets of business cards have been printed for The Culcheth Collection. Each member of the 'collective' has their own little card and the whole set of cards is presented to each new bride, who will then receive a discount or an 'added extra' if she books a minimum of just one more of the suppliers! Imagine the advantages for a couple planning their Wedding. They could walk away with TEN free gifts or discounts for their Wedding. Just a matter of planning the Baby Shower then ...      

Dude: {n} American slang ..

These cool dudes are my introduction to the penultimate installment of my Twelve for '13 project! I reckon the shot's from about 1978. The lads used to loiter under the motorway bridge in Winton, near the flat I shared with my dad, scaring the life out me every time I walked past 'em with their tough guy image and under-aged smoking until, one day, I simply asked if I could take their photographs! They instantly changed into the nicest, chirpiest happy young boys, and gave me a range of 'Fonz' type poses there and then! Lesson number one : Never judge a book by its cover! I'd like to think I've stuck to that work ethic ever since.

Any road up, click on the link and have a look for yourselves ..