Hic! Burp...

I think I'll try having a go at that 'Dry January'!

Oh, too late!..

Especially as I awoke this morning to hear of the death of Sir Terry Wogan, so it's off to the pub and a hearty Guinness to toast the life of a fellow Irishman (Well, I'm half Irish...)

Cheers, everybody!..

Ps: Image of drunk courtesy of my archive!

Martin O'Neill ..

Well I suppose I had to come clean sometime ..

You see, the photography's not going so well these days, so I've had to set up as .. a painter and decorator! Naaaah! 'Course not! I'm a photographer 'til the end but hey, how funny is this? There's a young lad in the village who does work as a painter and decorator and I spotted his cards next to mine in the shopping mall card rack yesterday! Maybe we should team up. He makes the rooms look good and I shoot 'em! We'd only need that footy bloke to join us and we'd have the set!..

Mash it up ..

I'm doing this all wrong! I'm approaching this photography mullarkey from completely the wrong angle. Weddings? Portraits? PR? Naaaah .. I should be photographing spuds! Spuds! That's what I should be photographing! I say this following a piece in the paper about a photographer who's just sold a photograph of a potato for one million euros! £750,00 for a picture of a potato!
OMG! Talk about Spud-U-Like ...

Ps: You can have my shot for a tenner!

Smoke gets in your eyes ..

You know I hate smoking, and I've had quite some cause for dismay at some of the Weddings I've photographed lately when I've seen the number of young people smoking outside the venues. I remember one guy who sat in his car whilst I was shooting group shots outside a church, and he smoked four cigarettes in that time, helpfully throwing the butts out of his car window so that I could count them! At another recent Wedding I had to move a group of smokers from a covered area I needed for a photograph, and had to wait until the cloud of smoke dispersed so that I could use the space. The stink they left behind was disgusting. I, for one, will never figure out why people do this to themselves. Anyway, to the point..

At one recent Wedding I was arranging a group of the bride's friends, and there was one young lady in it who was smoking a joint! Right there, in the middle of the Wedding! The funny thing was, she just wouldn't stop smoking it .. not even for the photograph, and she almost bit the Best Man's head off when he offered to hold it for her! "That.." I said, shaking my head "Is getting blogged one day!.."
And so it was ..

Time flies! Oh, yes!..

I love this shot from Saturday's Wedding - the guests all lined up with their smartphones, waiting to video the arrival of the bride - waiting to catch that one special moment in time. There were a number of things I wanted to blog about this Monday, but that idea of time passing kinda ties in with something that happened to me this very morning...

I just went down to the studio to open up, and bumped into a young lady whose son I photographed on his first birthday. "Hi Jane .. " I said "Haven't seen you for a while. How's your little 'un doing?" "He's great.." she said, a wry smile crossing her lips "He'll be thirteen next month!.."

Man, talk about time flies!!!...

Something old, something new ..

Phwoar! Look at this for class! Now I have to admit I'm no petrolhead, so - for me, I'm afraid - a car is usually a car is a car .. but just look at this! Not only did yesterday's bride have a lovely vintage family Daimler to take her to the Wedding, but the driver - her brother - was shooting on this gorgeous old Leica camera! Both belonged to their Dad and it was lovely that, now he's no longer around, he could still have such a presence at his daughter's Wedding..

If they were the 'old' then the 'new' was my first Wedding of 2016! It was a superb day all round, too. We were at The Lymm Hotel in Cheshire where the couple had such fun at the centre of the swirl that was their family and friends. The weather held until the evening, when it started to absolutely pour down although, as you can see, I was still able to take advantage of the downpour! It's amazing too that, just one month on from my last Wedding of 2015, we're already squeezing another hour out of the light before the sun goes down. I just hope the bride's brother remembered how to adjust the settings for that on the Leica!  Only kidding, Jonathan!..

Many congratulations to Karen and Jim..

Me! It's me ...

Well, here's a first! My ugly mug's actually going to be in a Wedding album! Hannah and Dave asked to have a shot taken with me just before they sat down for their Wedding Breakfast last August, and have picked it for the album I've just designed for them. Which I thought that was very nice! Now they'll be able to scare their grandkids in years to come. Actually, it reminds me of the time I was photographing a Wedding at Tatton Hall, near Knutsford. The hall's right under the flight path of Manchester Airport and, as the guests came outside after the ceremony, the massive Emirates A380 Airbus took off right over out heads. I instinctively raised the camera and got off a couple of shots of its huge belly. The couple picked one of those images for their album!..

Anyway, time to charge the old batteries for this Saturday's Wedding, and it's great that I'm piling into a new Wedding season so early in the year. Another lovely laid-back couple, too. I'll just have to ease off on the plane-spotting and all selfies.. 

Not quite Spring ..

I nipped out to put the rubbish in the recycling bin this morning - I have to do it in the dark because of the embarrassing number of empty gin bottles - and I tripped over a hedgehog! Hello, I thought, what you doing out so early? It ain't Spring yet, Mr Hog!..

I got the same vibe when I did a recce yesterday for this Saturday's Wedding. The Lymm Hotel is a venue I've shot at relatively often over the years, and it has a part of the Trans-Pennine Way just across the road - an ideal place for shots of the Bride and Groom together. At this time of year, however, the path is just a grey, grim muddy river and I only needed one look at it to know I won't be shooting Wedding photographs there any time soon! Hello, I thought, what am I doing here so early in the year? It ain't Spring yet, Mr Snapper ..

Smashing ..

Jeez, I think I'd keep my head down right now if I were a musician. What a car-crash of a start to 2016! ( Cue image from archive! ) Man, the stars are dropping like flies! Unfortunately, so are the mere mortals. Lesley is at the funeral of one of her young colleagues today and, last night, I was told of the death of my Dad's old .. er, girlfriend. Rest in peace, ladies..

The cycle of life goes on, of course, and that, for me, meant the booking of two Weddings and a baby portrait session yesterday. Always look on the bright side, and all that ..

Passing out ..

I covered a groovy PR job last week, the Passing-Out Parade for the first new recruits to Greater Manchester Fire Brigade in seven years. What a great day it was! Great for the trainees, obviously, but great for me from the point of view of all the fab shots there were to be had. It hammered with rain all through the night before, then cleared to dazzling - and cold! - sunshine all through the parade! I just had to take advantage of it!..

Thing is, for the past week I've had the worst cold I've had in a long time. Just can't shift the bugger, and I know I sound like a drama queen but, honestly darlings, I thought I was the one who was going to be passing out ..

Lucky 13 ..

It was all down to the local Scout Hut yesterday to photograph this fun family of 13! They'd all come together for the shoot in Culcheth from as far afield as Huddersfield and Telford in Shropshire. But, did you say Scout hut, Martin? Well, I simply didn't have space for them all in my bijou little studio, did I? And as for shooting outside ...

The idea worked well, though, and it took but a few minutes to transfer all my gear across from The Mall. I'll certainly be promoting the capability in the future. Or now!..

Space ..

Really looking forward to Tim Peake's space-walk on Friday, coinciding nicely as it does with BBC2's 'Stargazing Live' programme on TV all this week and, of course, the constant playing of David Bowie's 'Starman' at the moment! What a Spacetastic time it is, and the perfect excuse to show you this archive photograph of my cousin Neil, shot around 1978..

I've got a couple of big jobs in the next few days. Tomorrow I have a full day's PR photography, shooting the first Passing Out parade that Greater Manchester Fire Service has held in seven years, and on Saturday I'm shooting a family portrait group that's so large we've had to 'borrow' the nearby Scout hut to fit everyone in! Talk about needing space! ..

Bowie ..

I have a stinking cold! I have a stinking cold, yet I feel fantastic! I feel full of life and full of enthusiasm for the future! I feel excited, I feel lucky, I feel confident..and it's all 'cos of Bowie! I feel his death has switched on my 'Go' button and I can't wait to grab life by the proverbials and live it for all it's worth. Like he did, right until the end. I'm inspired, I'm cheerful, I'm happy! Atishoo! Bless you ..

Magical Lives ..

I was already in a philosophical frame of mind before I'd even heard of the death of David Bowie this morning. The thing is, I was working on the restoration of an old photograph for a lady who came into the studio last week. A simple shot - just two guys standing together in a field in their 1940s demob suits, smoking fags, brylcreemed hair, smiling (So obviously not these two! This shot's from my archive!) - but it was when she began to tell me a little about them that it started to hit home. I mean, I always look at the people in old pictures that I'm working on and try to imagine the lives they led, but the two chaps in this particular photograph turned out to be brothers, both of whom served in the Second World War. One of them was in the Navy, and managed to break his ankle whilst playing football on the deck of his ship. He was put into port for treatment in India, after which his ship sailed off .. and was torpedoed! The other brother was in the RAF and rescued a pilot who'd crash-landed in a plane that was still carrying a bomb. He got the pilot out, and the bomb went off. Both guys were flung 50 feet across the airfield!..

Magical lives! Bowie had one, God less 'im .. but so do we all. Now do you see how important your photographs are?..   

Golden hour ..

Friday morning has started like this. This is going to be my view of the world today. Golden! Nothing will get me down today! Not Syria, not crashing stock markets, not flooding .. not even the news that any drinking is bad for you! Pah ...

Stop Press: I was right be be upbeat .. look what I was rewarded with as the sun went down ..

Would you like to see my holiday snaps?..

It's rained a hell of a lot lately but no, this isn't a shot of me in my back-garden! It's the Great Barrier Reef in 1991, 'cos I spent most of yesterday thinking back a whole twenty five years - 25 years!! - to January 6th of that year, the day I set off on a 6 month round-the-world backpacking trip. My Epiphany, if you like! From that day until the middle of July I had complete and utter freedom to travel where and when I wanted, and it was heaven! My only fear was that, as a freelance and away for six months, I'd lose some of the clients I'd built up over the previous nine years. That didn't happen. Work was so plentiful and diverse then that, as far as I can remember, I picked up the phone and was shooting a PR job the very next day. Those were the days ..

The working week ..

I finally edited last week's Wedding down to 874 shots .. and now I need a drink! Here's a screen grab from my website - click to see it larger!..

The more mundane side of photography is kicking back in again this week. I have a passport to shoot and a photo-restoration to start on and then I'm off to check out two venues - one for a Wedding in February and another for a PR shoot I have coming up next week. I'm also acting as a 24 hour dial-up Nikon camera manual, as a pal of mine has bought the same camera as I use and keeps phoning me up to ask me questions about it! And all this as Tim Peake prepares for his first space-walk next week!..

Time ..

And so to my rant!..

A young chap rang me a few weeks ago, asking if I had any need of an apprentice at my studio. He was 18, he said, and really keen on getting into a career in photography. Well, that question is one I'm asked quite often but, for some reason - probably that cheery Christmas spirit of mine - I decided I'd invite him in and have a look at his portfolio. You never know, I thought to myself, he could be really handy as a second snapper at a Wedding. We arranged a date between Christmas and New Year and I duly went over to the studio to open up for his 10am appointment. He didn't turn up! Now I'm a stickler for punctuality so, to be honest, the fact that he wasn't there at 10 meant he'd already blown it, but by quarter to 11 I'd had enough, and rang him up to ask his whereabouts. I had to wait on the phone whilst his sister got him out of bed!..

So there you go! That's my rant! What is it with kids today? Ok, not all of them! Ok, just him! I just can't believe he blew a chance like that. By 18 I was already working on a newspaper because I was so bloody crazy about photography, and I'd have jumped at an opportunity like his. In fact, when I used to work at a factory as a spotty 17 year old I would always find out when a retirement party was being held, because it meant a photographer from the Eccles Journal would be coming along to take a picture for the paper, and I'd get a chance to grill him on the ins and outs of press photography!..

Anyway, I thought this shot from last week's Wedding illustrated my point perfectly. The bride had listed my arrival on her hand-written itinerary. It was rather important that I arrived on time! I can only hope that's a lesson this young chap might learn ..

Normality ..

Back to normality at last and that, for me, means another whole Wedding to edit and a new Wedding album to design before I buzz off to shoot my next Wedding in less than three weeks time. Something that wasn't so normal was a phone call I had yesterday from a young bride-to-be who wanted to talk about Wedding photography. She was ringing from Norway!..

On the Joy Division front I'm quite excited too, as it looks like I'm going to be part of a new exhibition later on this Spring in Macclesfield. Off for a meeting about that this Saturday..

Actually, I said we're back to normality and that often means me having a grumble on the old blog! Well, who'd want to start a New Year by complaining? Certainly not me! I'll leave that for tomorrow's blog ..

Bring it on, '16 ..

New Year, and I've already been reminded of a little lesson in photography, courtesy of my midnight attempt to capture the moon seen through our local firework fizzfest! Sometimes - despite your best efforts - that fantastic shot you're after will elude you! The shot you have in your mind's eye will just not come together. Last night the fireworks, seen from my camera position, were just too far over to the left to give me that perfect shot with the moon. Still, the thrill of trying to get the shot is what photography's all about for me and - ooooh, goody - I now have another whole year of trying to come! Bring it on, '16...