My Books ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was more than a little surprised to realise I've now self-published twenty-one books. Thirteen are photo-books, four form a children's self-illustrated space-adventure series, one is a stand-alone story for kids and three are adult fiction. Well, I didn't know I had it in me! 

I've loved the creative process that's brought each of these publications to life. I've probably been able to produce each of the photo-books in a matter of months, but the written work has taken years. The promotion of them all is a different matter though. I have spent so much time searching for literary agents and interested photographic parties to take up my work, but all to no avail. It's bloody hard work to get noticed out there. Still, that's not going to stop the fun I'm having while I create them. I have three others in the pipeline!!

Ps: The titles are :-

Photo-Books

Book One. Photography? There's no money in that, son ..

Book Two. Snaps? I'm an artist!

Book Three. So what do you do in the week?

Book Four. My Uncle's got a good camera.

Book Five. Shot anyone famous?

Book Six. Who d'ya think you are, David Bailey ..?

Book Seven. Cheese!

 Portrait Photography

69 Portraits

77 More ..

Joy Division

Bowdon Vale Youth Club (French & English versions)

Travel/Documentary Photography

Continental '82 (A road-trip around America .. by air!)

Riding the Dirty Dog (Across America on a Greyhound Bus .. in a week!)

Children's Space Adventure Series

Swapsies

Meet the Neighbours

Friend to the Stars

Don't go near the Black Hole, Sunshine

Children's Fiction

The Boy who missed Next Year

Adult Fiction

Page 99, by Joe Bancroft

SNAPS

Tofalofalos

 

Click the image to enlarge it, and click here to find out how to part with your hard-earned dosh!

 

I'll be in touch ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The astronauts on Artemis went around the back of the Moon last night and were out of touch with the Earth for a whole forty minutes. Can you imagine being 'out of touch' with anybody for that long anymore? It just wouldn't happen, would it? Not in a time when almost everybody on the planet has a mobile 'phone. By chance, I photographed this yellow marker in a field the other day (I'm not sure what it's actually marking, but never mind ..) and it reminded me of a time before mobiles, a time when different companies were battling to get a slice of that new, emergent market. In the 90s I used to do a bit of PR photography, you see, for a company called Rabbit, whose idea was a new portable telephone system that required you to be within range of one of their transmitters. (Didn't work out, for obvious reasons!) I'd get various famous* people to pose with a hand-set .. and a rabbit .. and the shots would be sent out to local press. Nowadays, of course, we're completely absorbed by 'phones. Mesmerized, hypnotised, totally contr .. oh sorry, my 'phone's ringing. Gotta go!

* It's Mike Harding, if you were struggling!

 

New heights

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was 'mad' on Space when I was a kid. Had all the Airfix models, loved James Burke and always asked for Space annuals for Christmas. I can even remember making a papier-mâché moon surface on which to plonk my Lunar Module when I was about ten. What exciting times they were, and yet how quickly it all fizzled out again after Apollo 17. So how wonderful it was to watch the Artemis 2 rocket blast off last night, even if it was equally astonishing to think that I haven't watched a 'Moon shot' launch like that for an unbelievable fifty-four years ..

We bought a Laburnum the other day, a tree which, according to the label, will reach its full height in fifteen years. In fifteen years I'll be eighty years old. I just hope the time doesn't fly as quickly as it has since 1972 ..

 

Have you heard?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fame came a' calling last week when I went back to Manchester to be interviewed by Tony Flynn of Salford Media. We had a quick run-through of my career and then Tony, God bless 'im, gave me an opportunity to promote my photo-books. As of yesterday, the broadcast had had 15, 000 views, so I await the mad rush of orders! If you'd like to see my part of the programme it's here ..  

The Somme

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A week ago today I went to The Somme and, to my surprise, saw all I wanted to see within a day. I hadn't realised everything was so close together. Thiepval, The Ulster Tower, Beaumont-Hamel, Pozières. War graves, memorials, The Somme museum. All within a few short miles of each other. And yet think how much death there was in that tiny area of France. My mind can't comprehend it, and I still don't know how I feel about it all. To walk in real trenches and try to imagine what went on right there. Right where I was standing. My heart can't take it all in ..

There was one particular name engraved on a memorial. O'Neill, MJ. My name, my initials. Rest in peace, you poor sod. It made me feel so bloody lucky that I was born when I was. No conscription for me. No world at war, no hardship. No early death. And yet ..

My picture shows the Thiepval Memorial to The Missing of The Somme. Seventy-three thousand men that just disappeared into the mud and blood of the battlefield. How can we take all that in in our soft, modern times? Perhaps if I asked the soldiers of Ukraine, because here we are, one hundred and ten years on, still physically battering each other to death with shells and bullets and hate ..

I know how I feel now. 

 

 

Continental '82

 

 

 

 

 

 I do like a project for the winter. In the past I've concentrated on fiction-writing and my photo-books, but this year I'm using the time to sort out a box of negatives I've had since 1982. That was the year I spent five weeks criss-crossing America on a Continental Airlines Visit USA air-pass, which allowed me unlimited flight all over the continent. I think it cost £200, and I went over with just £200 in my pocket, travelling from New York and New Hampshire to Seattle, Houston to San Francisco and Boston to Denver, dossing in airports or with pen-friends or friends of friends, as well as a second-uncle of my Dad's and even a very kind Californian lady whose photograph I took when she visited Warrington to campaign against proposed nuclear weapon storage at the former RAF Burtonwood (I think!)

I travelled light, carrying only my trusty Olympus XA camera, and I shot Ilford HP5 and Kodak Tri-X to produce well over 500 black and white negatives, all of which have just been sitting in this box for the last 43 years. Now I've started scanning them to digital, transporting myself back to when I was just 22 with untold adventure ahead of me. (Although, I must admit, I've already seen some things I can't even remember anymore. There's a shot of me with a vast grassy canyon behind. Turns out it's Cannon Mountain in upstate New Hampshire. Not a single memory of it! Would never even have known I'd been there without that photographic evidence!!) I see the work as my own personal Stephen Shore road-trip, or a Robert Frank tribute, and I'll produce a book of course, to go (unsold) with all the others I've produced. But, hey ho, it's worth it for the creative satisfaction I'm getting. Continental '82 is what it'll be called. Available in no good book shops ..

The shots above show a 'cowboy' on a vast, empty DC-10, and a skinny oik with pretensions to photographic grandeur on the deck of a Staten Island ferry. Ah, the joys of youth ..

 

Bless you ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I've just had a quick two-day flit to Manchester, bringing back memories of the days I used to go plane-spotting at the airport there in the 1970s. Back then, the roof terraces were open to spectators and you'd literally be above the jets and passengers as they got on or off their flights. Such freedom has long gone, of course, which is a shame but I can obviously see why. Also long gone are jets like these, the Boeing 727 and the Vickers VC-10, not to mention the entire Pan-Am airline, which went out of business many years ago. Anyway, a good time was had by all and I came back with duty-free gin, Cadbury's chocolate, a couple of new books and .. a stinking cold! 

Bless you, Manchester! 

Music to my ears ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

I've had another of those lovely unexpected messages, when a person not known to me recognises themselves in one of my photographs. In this case it's the charming little baby in the pram, who's now a 40 year old lady living in London. (And still charming, I'm sure!) She wrote to tell me she'd seen herself and her dad in my Café Royal photo-book and cried when she saw it. "My dad," she said, "was 30 in this picture and he's now 70! Not doing too well health wise and this is such a special shot, it really moved me." 

Well, that moved me too, and I was so pleased she got in touch. I love it when history comes to life again. When my random wanderings capture something that brings joy to someone's life. I mean, think about it. For forty years this lady didn't know this photograph existed, and now here she is, enthralled once again by her dad's tooting on a toy trumpet! 

Music to my ears!

F16

 

 

 

 

 

The world is going down the toilet. As Israel bombs whichever the fuck country it wants to, Russia continues its brutal destruction of Ukraine and Poland's had to launch F16s to shoot down Putin's drones. On top of that, and literally as we speak, France is going nuts at tyre-burning blockades around the country because a Prime Minister had the temerity to tell them they're up shit creek without a paddle ..

What's wrong with this picture? Yes, exactly .. this is two people TALKING to each other, back in the days before tweeting and texting and thinking the worst of your fellow man (woman!) because they didn't agree with your social media stance. I wish our leaders were like this, meeting over the divide to communicate and hammer things out. Maybe even reaching out a considerate arm to better facilitate their dialogue ..

I pine for simpler days, when F16 was a camera aperture and tweeting was left to the sparrows and the blue tits. I realise they were only simpler because I was young and gormless and ignorant of the world about me, but it would be nice to go back there for a while, wouldn't it!

Balls ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Today's blog isn't a blog, because I was going to blog about all the pretensions that surround a lot of photography but, having just watched the 'I am Martin Parr' documentary, I can leave it to Grayson Perry, who sums it all up nicely, thank you very much. In the film he talks about the 'wafts of philosophical waffle' that often pervade the art of photography. It's a load of balls, in other words! Ooh look, a picture with a ball in it .. deep! (I can't explain why I like this photo so much. As a kid, 'training' myself to be a press photographer in the 1970s, I used to photograph the Sunday League footballers who played on the field behind our house. It used to amuse me that, just like us, these 'grown-ups' would often lose their ball too, and have to send someone off into the undergrowth to retrieve it!)
 

End of non-blog!

    

Backs against the wall ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm hearing a lot about the British flag appearing all over the UK, and how that's not going down so well in some quarters. Here in France the tricolour flies everywhere, a welcome sign of civic and national pride. If only that was the reason a lot of the Union Jacks are being displayed in the UK. Anyway, I'm not getting into politics, I just wanted an excuse to show you one of my old photographs, a picture taken on Jane Street in Salford during the celebrations for the Queen's 1977 Silver Jubilee. Jane Street has long gone, a chap takes his life in his hands when he attempts street photography of kids these days, and the simple meaning behind the good ol' red, white and blue has gone out of the window .. Sigh!

I'm in love with the girl on the ...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In photography, some things just work. A young couple hug in Eccles precinct, the lad's arms wrapped tightly around his girlfriend with a dangling 'sign' that says 'Virgin'! But I think this photograph is made so much better by the fact that the kid has spotted my camera. It's like we've caught him 'at it' .. we know what his plan might be now with this young lady, who almost seems embarrassed to have been discovered with him .. or am I reading too much into it? On another level, remember when everyone went around with LPs (they were never albums back then) in plastic bags from record shops? And, of course, this all ties in nicely with my Chris Sievey blog, as his band The Freshies did that famous track 'I'm In Love With The Girl On The Manchester Virgin Megastore Checkout Desk'. Hey, maybe that's her!

In me 'ead!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chris Sievey would have been 70 years old yesterday. Shocking to think he didn't make it past 54, the poor bugger, and even harder to realise he's already been dead for 15 years. Chris was Frank Sidebottom, if you see what I mean. It was his head inside Frank's, the only way he ever gained any real taste of fame after his band The Freshies failed to make it big. I was lucky enough to photograph a gig by the group in 1979, and shot them again a couple of days later during a fun day out in Sale. Years after that, I photographed 'Frank' at some launch event after I'd cheekily encouraged him to creep up behind Sophie, the Duchess of Edinburgh. (She wasn't best pleased after she spotted him, I can tell you!!) So this is for you, Chris. I just want you to know you're inside my 'ead, too!

65, eh? ..

 

 

 

 

 

Bloody hell, I've reached the grand old age of 65. Happy Birthday to me! Until recently*, hitting that milestone used to mean retirement after 50 years of hard graft and probably death within a fortnight! Sixty-five meant you were an old-aged pensioner, put out into the long grass to concentrate on your hobbies and contemplate the approaching end. It meant an awkward little soirée with your work-mates and a speech from the boss, two cans of Watney's, a gold clock and a bouquet for the missus. Until I was eighteen I worked at the Gardner Diesel factory in Eccles, where there were retirement parties like those in the offices and on the shop floor on a regular basis. I used them to 'practice' press photography, honing my skills until the day I could quit my shitty job and start working full-time on a newspaper. Here are pictures from two such events, the lucky new pensioners gripping hands with their gaffers and staring their demise in the face. How I feel for the chap that received an electric razor ..

*If I were still working, I would now face another two years at the coal-face before my time was 'up'. The retirement age was raised to 67, which makes me feel all the better (smug alert) for retiring a full ten years early. Anyone for frisbee?

Modest men, lovely men ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As a follow-on from my 'Read this' post, here's a photograph I took of André Kertész with a cake that was made for his 90th birthday. It was July 1984 and he was at the Museum of Photography, Film and Television in Bradford for the opening of a wonderful exhibition of his work. (It was there that I first came across the word 'festschrift' - a collection of works published in honour of an artist - because I bought a copy and still have it, signed by the great man himself .. )

I believe Salford artist Harold Riley had a lot to do with bringing this exhibition to life. I lived down the road from him and photographed him often. "I'm a painter," he modestly told a lady at an event one time. "Oh yes?" she replied. "Can you give me a quote to emulsion our front room!" ..

Modest men, lovely men. I hope they're chattering together excitedly in heaven ..

Ps: This is from an original print, on RC paper, with my hand-written caption up the side! 

Read this ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I've splashed out £35 on David Hurn's new book 'On Reading', an homage to a 1984 book of the same name by the great André Kertész. That first book cost all of £2.50 (Technically $5.95, as I bought it in New York!) but I don't begrudge the higher price of David's book because - don't tell anybody - I think it's better than André's. His eye for a quirky moment conquers André's quietly contemplative photography, meaning there's so much more to see in the modern photographs ..

I own autographed books by both 'masters'. I got André's in person when I was lucky enough to meet him on his 90th birthday. Just got to wangle a meet with Mr Hurn now .. 

 

Gwapple me gwapenuts!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well I guess I know what I was doing thirty-seven years ago today. I was reading the British Journal of Photography, which I bought religiously every week for the grand sum of 60p. On this particular cover, the famous TV botanist David Bellamy peered out from behind a leafy bush in a pose I can only imagine he adopted every time he encountered a photographer. (I shot him exactly like that myself!)

 

Inside, there are articles on 'Stills video' for the press and news agencies (I remember the Manchester Evening News buying in just such a system) and the Canon EOS 620. There's a review of an exhibition at The Barbican - a 20th century collection of French photography entitled 'Art or nature', and there are adverts for the Mamiya 645 and the Bronica GS-1. The thing that surprised me most was the 'Classified' pages at the back of the magazine. There are .. wait for it .. EIGHT pages of jobs within photography, ranging from Slide Technicians on £8000 a year, Photography Lecturers on eight to fifteen thousand, Cruise Ship snappers, Black-and-white printers, E6 technicians and even Senior Photographers with the Ministry of Defence with a requirement of City and Guilds qualifications and at least an A,B or C pass in English Language, Mathematics and one Science subject ..

As David Bellamy (Or at least Lenny Henry) would say .. "Gwapple me gwapenuts!!!" 

(And if you don't understand that then you are TOO YOUNG!)

 

Happy Hockney

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I went to Paris recently to see the fantastic new David Hockney exhibition, then discovered yesterday that he and my Dad share the same birthday. (Two great men, two warm summer days in the 1930s!) I was lucky enough to photograph the artist back in December 1996, when he had a show at Manchester Art Gallery, but the work on display in the capital blew that exhibition away. Staged at the magnificent Foundation Louis Vuitton, it features 400 works of art over several floors and, although I found some of it rather childish, there's no denying the vibrancy of his paintings. And to walk into a room and see a picture that's fifty feet across .. wow! Highly recommended, and open until the end of August if you happen to be en Paris ..

PS: Having finished my photographs, I shook the great man's hand and asked for his autograph. I still have it to this day. You'd swear he's written 'Gary Lowry' .. ! 

PPS: Don't you just love the holes in his cardigan!!

 

Dad ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's sixteen years since Dad died, but July 9th is still a poignant day for me .. Happy Birthday, you old fart!

Lucky Angela Trimble

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In 1978, just like every other red-blooded teenage boy with his hormones a'ragin', I used to have a poster of Debbie Harry on my wall. So it came as quite a shock this morning to find out that her real name is Angela Trimble! "I love you, Miss Trimble" hasn't quite got the same punk punch to it, has it? Nevertheless, she still holds a special place in my heart and I'll be forever jealous of Chris Stein for, er  .. er .. let's skip that bit!

And so, happy birthday, Angela! Just turned 80 and looking fantastic. "How did I get so old?" she asked of herself. "I guess I just got lucky .."