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I've been in Photography heaven lately (Am I ever out of it?) ..

BBC Four has been running a 'Photography' series, with a particularly good night last night featuring a fantastic look back at some of the Beeb's programmes about famous photographers. (It's on catch-up if you fancy it). I've met quite a few famous snappers in my time, including Elliott Erwitt, David Bailey and Mary Ellen Mark, but one of my most enjoyable encounters was with the late, great André Kertesz, who I met on the occasion of his 90th birthday. He was an absolute delight, and I look back with warmth at the autograph he gave me after I'd taken his photograph. It's so fantastic to meet the people who actually took some of your favourite photographs. Tomorrow I'm off to hear a talk by Albert Watson. Hopefully he'll add his scribble to my ever-growing autograph book ..

In person ..

Red, forty-three! Hut! Hut!...

And so it is, with delight, that I tell you I've managed to get tickets to see the Dallas Cowboys against the Jacksonville Jaguars at Wembley next November! Phew, that's a weight off my mind! I've been a fan of 'Gridiron' since it started on Channel 4 back in the 80s, so I'm thrilled to be able to finally see one of the 'star' teams in action. Of course, I've photographed the game in the past, but watching the Manchester Allstars play American Football at the Willows Rugby Ground in Salford wasn't quite the same thing, bless 'em!..

I'm having a 'day of domesticity' today. Well, I'm supposed to be! I'd planned to start building some new units for the kitchen but I'd only managed to get some bits out of boxes before I was distracted by other things! I have quite a collection of signed photography books, and somehow I started rearranging them all and putting them into polythene bags to keep them clean. Of course, that then entailed actually looking at them and so, before you know it, half the morning'd gone! I've got some cracking autographs, though! André Kertesz, Mary Ellen Mark, Don McCullin .. even David Hockney, if you count his collages - and why wouldn't you? These are are people I've met, by the way! They're not just books I've bought, pre-signed! That's the equivalent of watching The Allstars when you really wanted to see The Cowboys ..

PS: David Hockney's autograph? You'd swear to God he's written 'Gary Lowry' ..!

Wot? No?...

Bloody hell! It's gone five on Friday afternoon and I've not had chance to blog. What's the world coming to, eh? No blog on a Friday? Jeepers! How will the world survive?

I dug these negs out of my 'big box of negs' the other day, and if you're not into photography then this is gonna be boring as hell! Sorry! These shots were taken at Bradford's Media Museum, as it's now called, when one of my photographer heroes, Andre Kertesz, had an exhibition to mark his, erm, 90th, I think, birthday. I took some shots of him with a birthday cake that'd been made for him and then .. double whammy .. in comes Guardian photography legend Denis Thorpe, and the two of 'em set up a 'duel' with cameras at fifty paces (Ok, three!) for Denis's newspaper shots for the next day's paper. Click, snap, thank you very much, I said to myself, as I shot the two of them 'at play'.

So, no blog on a Friday? Never mind that! These days there's no Kertesz, and Denis has retired and, guess what, they're talking about closing the print version of the Guardian. Mummy, take me home!....

Too busy to blog...

Far too busy to blog today, so here's a quick hello before I shoot out again this afternoon! Can you believe I've just found a set of negatives that show the late, great Andre Kertesz actually taking photographs! They were shot in Bradford on his 90th birthday in 1984! Man, that box of old negatives is proving to be a real positive! I can't wait to get more stuff scanned in for you!

Oh, phone's ringing... gotta go!

What an honour!...

Being a photographer, like wot I am, I'm often asked if I've ever met anybody famous! Er! Yes!!!! Kinda comes with the territory, especially if you work for the press! I was once, actually, the official photographer to HM Our Liz, when I got the gig as the only photographer to cover the Queen at an event in Hyde Park. (Back in the days of film, too, so I must be good Ho hum!) Anyway, yes, of course I've had the privilege of meeting many a famous face, like George Best, Maggie Thatcher and Muhammad Ali, all of whose autographs I asked for, and got, but the person I most get a kick out of being able to say I've met is this chap here....

Andre Kertesz!

Answers on a postcard?  He's one of my most favourite photographers of all time! Now he was a great photographer, and it would have been his birthday today if he were still alive. Happy Birthday, Mr Kertesz!  I remember looking at his work when I started to get interested in photography, way back in the mid-seventies, and couldn't believe the day he was actually sitting in front of me, smiling for my shot! (This was on his 90th birthday, by the way, hence the cake! The 'photograph' in icing on top is a copy of a self-portrait he shot in 1927!) He was in Bradford, at the Museum of Photography, to launch a collection of his work, and Henri Cartier-Bresson, when asked to select a favourite picture of Andre's for the accompanying book said "I choose the next picture coming out of his camera"

Well, obviously, those pictures have stopped coming, but if you don't know of him, I urge you to take some time to discover the ones that did come out of his camera! You will come away feeling relaxed, peaceful and happy that someone with such an sweet eye ever existed!