Boring ..

I'm running another of my 'Photo for a Fiver' sessions at the studio tomorrow, with eight families booked in for a shoot. Here's a shot of two brothers from last week's Charity event. They're really quick-fire affairs, with a maximum of ten minutes allowed between shoots. That's one of the reasons they're so exciting to do, which was the answer I gave to a pal who asked me this week if I found them boring. Boring? Sorry mate, they're never going to be boring - what with so many personalities, moods and hey, even size differences to contend with!..

By coincidence I had an email from an old friend, who'd been bored - she confessed - at work and had started to have a deeper dig into my website. She'd come across my 'Boardom' series, and sent off an effusive missive telling me the work "should be in a gallery"! Well I agree, of course, but have failed miserably to get anyone interested in the work. Click on the link and have a look for yourself. See why the word's spelt like it is. I promise, you won't be bored ..

Mild or bitter?...

I gave a talk last night to Salford Photographic Group, and took the opportunity to 'try out' some of my old photographs in front of a new audience. I showed them the 12 photographs in my project 'Boardom', which were all shot on the morning of Valentine's Day, 1993. I'll leave it to you to learn more about them by clicking here if you're intrigued, but it's interesting to see how, 20 years on, so much has changed .. and so much has stayed the same. The theme was recession, closure, downturn .. ring any bells? .. but, as always with a camera, its inescapable ability to capture everything that's in front of it is so much to the fore. There is nothing in this photograph that exists anymore. The pub, The Rovers Return, is long gone, the newspaper in the shot (Ah, you'll have to read the blurb now!) is no longer published .. and even the brewery has closed down! One thing hasn't changed, though. I've yet to get anyone interested in showing this work!

A day off ... like, yeah!

Another corny play on the word 'Spring' for ya today, but I don't care!
It's SPRING, everybody! Hurrah!

So, I've actually got a bit of a quiet day today. I finished another Wedding album yesterday, and I'm just waiting for one of December's brides to give me her choice of images so that I can start on the next one but, until then, I do believe I have the day off! Well, I say 'Day Off' .. I need to spot the rest of my 'Boardom' set of images, scan about 50 more 35mm negs from my old XA days, cut down the buddleia in the garden, wash the car, nip up to Preston for a meeting, go to the lab to collect a test roll of 120 that I just put through my old Yashicamat .. and do a mail-shot for all the brides on my data-base to remind them about the 'One-Off' Wedding Fayre. God, I can't wait to get back to work!

Oh, by the way, the bungee jump shot was taken in Oz when I was travelling... It's a cool Flickr site! Oh, that reminds me .. I need to upload some new shots to Flickr, too!!

Mum, I'm Board!...

My new scanner was on course for melt-down yesterday after I spent the whole of Tuesday scanning a set of 120 negatives. In 1993 the country was in a recession, and the sad sight of scores of shut-up shops, offices, night-clubs, hospitals and pubs got me out onto the streets one Sunday morning to document the mess! I came up with a project called 'Boardom' - the mis-spelling is deliberate - which featured photographs of 12 boarded-up buildings, each with a copy of a Sunday newspaper pinned to them! To make it even more of a challenge to myself I shot only one frame of each subject on my old Yashicamat, and still have the uncut roll of film in my archive.

So, now we can look back 19 years. We eventually came out of the recession, and whilst some of the buildings got brand new leases of life others were demolished, never to be seen again. Hey, even some of the newspapers don't exist any more! News and Echo anyone? Hell, News of the World, for goodness sake!

Anyway, with the country yet again full of empty buildings, I thought now would be a good time to get these images out into the world, probably with a new set of 12 images from the current recession. I want somewhere to host this mini-exhibition, so if any of you have any suggestions I'd really love to hear them. Cheers!