The power of the press ..

Well, that all took off rather quickly! I mentioned yesterday that I'd been called by a reporter from the Manchester Evening News. They wanted to do an article about the Joy Division gig I shot .. 35 years ago! They rang at 9.30 .. and the article was online by 3.30 (I think it's going in the 'paper today!) Well, my website went bananas! The home page received over 800 hits and is still ticking over nicely this morning, with the actual Joy Division page heading for the 800 mark as well. Anyway, you can read the article here! Funny, as much as I think everybody must have seen the shots by now it's great to still get emails coming in telling me how much new viewers like them. Thank you ..

Music is definitely in the air today, as I'm off to shoot a rather-renowned bass guitar player this afternoon. I recently had one of those 'Aren't you the guy off the telly?' moments - dribbling lightly from the corner of my mouth - when I saw this cool looking dude at a party I was at. Cut a long story short, turns out he was 'the guy off the telly', so I asked if we could get together for some portraits and .. well, now you're up to speed. No doubt an image will grace this blog on the morrow! ..

Rock on ..





 

Double whammy ..

I've just come back from a meeting about a possible exhibition of my Freshies photographs, and I've come away scoring a rather tasty double-whammy! I want an exhibition of my photographs of Chris Sievey and his band to tie in with the opening of the 'Being Frank' film, but that looks like it's at least a year off yet so, to tide me over, the gallery I've been to has offered me space to show a selection of my other music photography - the director there was enthusing over my shots of Toyah! - so I've come home all excited about which shots to pick! Toyah? Siouxsie Sue? Henry Rollins? Ah, sod it .. one of everything! Why not?...

My shots today show The Freshies on the same stage at Bowdon Vale Youth Club, two weeks prior to the Joy Division gig. Makes me wonder now why I asked Chris and his cohorts to come out for a shoot rather than Ian Curtis and his gang! Damn!...

#culchethstudio
www.studiofivefour.com

The Hook Line ..

And so the mystery is solved! I was back working with Hooky yesterday evening - that's Peter Hook of Joy Division fame to the two of you out there that haven't heard of him - and I took along my copy of his book to get it signed. I'd bought it as soon as it came out and hoped I might be mentioned as I feel my little set of pictures of the band do have their place in the history of the group. Well, I am mentioned in the book, but I'm mentioned as - get this - "a very young Martin Ocomin" .. !! Ocomin? Oh, come on! Where the hell did Ocomin come from? Well, I asked him last night. "Eh?" .. he said "Who? What?..." Turns out .. it's a typo! Plain and simple as that! Seems there's apparently at least one line of text missing from the O at the beginning of my surname to where Hooky goes on about "kicking me up the arse and telling me to piss off!!" (One of my claims to fame but answers on a postcard, please, as to what that line might say!) So, anyway, there we are. He emailed the publishers there and then and says they'll have it corrected for the next print run.

After that, he signed the book and then there was nothing left to do but pally up and have a picture taken!..

Oh, he signed it "Thanks for the tip" ..

#culchethstudio
www.studiofivefour.com