Gone in twenty seconds ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 The lady from the band smiled sweetly. "Hi," she said. "Quick question. Have you ever photographed any musicians?" My gulp was audible, the grimace on my face a picture to behold. "Er, hello .. " I gasped. "Joy Division, The Smiths, Siouxsie Sue?" (Etc., etc., etc ... ) "Why do you ask?" I enquired. "Well, we wanted some new shots of the group," she said, (still smiling sweetly) "but, judging from your Instagram posts, we thought you only photographed flowers!!" It was like having my entire career wiped out in one twenty-second conversation .. 

Anyway, here are some more flowers for you. (Oh, and a musician) ..

 

 

Mama Mamiya ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's a Bank Holiday weekend in the UK, the last break before that long, slow slog to Christmas. The date means something else to me now because, six years ago this weekend, I photographed the last wedding I would ever shoot before I moved to France. It began at a church in Altrincham and moved to a reception in Manchester city centre, and I remember sitting at a roof-top bar whilst I waited for the meal to finish, reflecting that I would probably never do anything like that again ..

The thing is, I thought I'd miss it like hell. After all, I'd concentrated on wedding photography for seventeen years up to that date. But the surprising thing is, I didn't. Once I'd got into the swing of life in France, I never gave wedding photography a second thought. (In fact, I've even turned down the offer of shooting a couple over here). Those days have gone. I'm a different 'me' now. A retired 'me', a more relaxed 'me', a 'me' that doesn't have to work all the hours God gives me just to maintain a presence in a completely flooded and clichéd market. So never again will you see me at Peckforton Castle, up a ladder with a Mamiya RZ67 Pro strapped to the top, shooting a mere twelve frames before I had to change the film ..

Come to think of it, they were bloody great, those days ..   

David Bailey? Who's he ..?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What to do when it's so goddam hot outside? Knuckle down and finish the next edition of your photo-book collection, that's what. So now Book Six is done and dusted, and I can't wait to see what it looks like when it comes back from the printers ..

It's entitled 'Who d'ya think you are, David Bailey ..?' - which will only mean anything if you're old enough to remember the Olympus camera ads he made in the late 70s - and is a bumper collection of 91 images from my archive. The photos were all taken in the late 70s and early 80s, around my old stomping grounds of Eccles, Salford and Manchester, and the good news is that, even after six books of photographs, I still have over a hundred pictures left to show you, so there'll definitely be a Book Seven at some stage. After that, I'm going to start on my colour photography, as I've got thousands of Kodachrome slides from my travels around the world ..

A review in Amateur Photographer magazine said my work was "a flick through history in a well-observed, light-hearted trip down memory lane." You can start your own collection here .. and, by the way, they're only a tenner each!

Up the wall ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have a new exhibition in our local library. Sounds grand but, in truth, it's only because of a last-minute, stop-gap request from the lady who runs the place, who'd happened to see my some of my Florescence flower photography. "Can you put some up for the summer?" she asked. "Happily," I replied. "Just try and stop me." (I didn't really say that. I don't know how to say it in French, but you get the idea!) It was lovely to be asked though, and so here they are, for the whole month of August, in a little library in our quiet corner of France. The good news is they've asked me to exhibit again in October .. a 'proper' exhibition this time, with a vernissage - or opening night - and invited guests. I'll be showing my 70s/80s black and white documentary work from Manchester, and I hope you can make to one or both of the shows .. 

(One for the anoraks .. all the flowers in my collection were photographed on a Mamiya 645 medium format camera using Fuji Provia 100 transparency film.)