Cheesy Portraits ..

More PR shots at the Cheese Factory this morning, but today we're concentrating on the cheeses themselves rather than the production processes. Basically, portraits of the cheese! I won't go on about it. I'm probably driving you crackers ...

The Cheshire (Cheese) set ..

The first trip to the Cheese Factory went well yesterday, although all my gear now has a light dusting of Cheddar and will need a good scrub this morning if I don't want to be followed by mice all day! The cameras took a bit of stick on the temperature front, too - working in refrigerated departments one minute, covered in condensation alongside machines steaming away at 84 degrees the next! I'll be back at the factory next week to carry on the pr shoot and have made a mental note to pack polar gear and a pair of trunks!

Portraits in the studio again today and tomorrow, and then I'm going to spend all day Sunday drinking v. strong coffee in an effort to stay awake for the Superbowl! Come on, Denver!

Have a great weekend, folks .. 

Oh, the picture? The cheese counter at Morrison's in Eccles circa 1984. It's from my book 'Don't Miss This' ..

Fayre enough ..

I had a great time at the Statham Lodge Wedding Fayre yesterday, and not just because one of the other photographers at the event said I was his favourite photographer!! (Honestly! And he was sober, too!) No, the whole thing just had a lovely vibe to it. Great visitors all day long, a lovely sunny day, free sandwiches and - pretty importantly - no Fashion Catwalk shows to take the brides away from all our other stands! I've already had a message from one of the brides I met, so I'm hopeful that good things will come of the day and I've booked my stand at their next fayre in September on the strength of all this good feeling!

Future policy ..

Time to renew my car insurance, and my current insurer has quoted me a renewal rate of £339 and very kindly told me that I don't need to do a thing to carry on being insured, as they'll take my money out of my bank account all by their clever little selves and send me a new certificate on the due date. Now nowbody these days just allows an insurance company to roll over its policy - do you? - so, of course, the first thing I did was to get online and get some comparison prices. Cheapest equivalent?  £207 !! I rang my company and told them. "Oh .." they said "Did we say £339? Sorry, we meant £240 !!.." Cheeky little ratbags! Chucking a hundred quid onto my policy and hoping I just didn't notice! Nice! Anyway, couldn't resist showing you this picture from my archive! Drama on the high streets of Birmingham when this learner driver reversed into me in 1979! I think the insurers have paid up!.. 

I'm off to Sandbach today to shoot some baby portraits. This will probably be the last time I shoot an individual's portrait on location. After this they can come to me at my new studio! That's my future policy!..

A walk in the park..

Just walked the 'scenic' route home from the post office, and flipped my gorgeous Fuji X10 to square format for a change. Knocked these off in the 15 minutes it took to get home! Click on the pic to see it larger. Anyway, enough of the arty farty stuff .. let's get back to business!

Ah! Hmmmm... business! Well, news not just in .. business is tough! I've had four Wedding enquiries in a week, and not one of the couples has decided to book me. The reason? The cost! Even though I offer a great package at just £599. I'm going to be honest with you .. that hurts! It hurts so much that I've decided to bite the bullet and put forward a new concept in Wedding Photography billing. I'm inviting couples to 'make me an offer' for their photography, and if the figure works for me then that's the price they'll pay for coverage of their Big Day. Radical and, I hope, successful! And I don't mean just from a financial point of view. I'm a photographer. I need to be taking photographs! I have to be shooting stuff for people! It's what I've done for nearly 35 years and, although I can see now it won't be any old walk in the park, I want to be doing it for the next 35, too!

Call me....

The phone rang yesterday morning.

That's it! That's the whole blog for today! Why are you still here?

Ok, sorry! A word of explanation. My phone rang yesterday, during office hours, and it was such an unusual occurence I thought I'd share it with you today, that's all. It just came from nowhere - a loud, tribbling bleep - so strange a sound at 'work' that it made me drop my copy of the morning's TV schedules. (I quite fancied yesterday's episode of 'Moving to the country after being told where the nice houses are 'cos we're too stupid to find our own') Anyway, off it went - trill trill, trill trill - and the whole of our wunnerful Social Meeja world went flying out the window. Facebook Messaging? Email, Twitter, Texts, Blogs (Oops!)..? Naaah, I thought, this is it! I'm actually going to talk to someone! On the phone! Almost in person! How good is that?

It was a tele-sales geezer from Virgin Wine. I put the phone down...

Reasons to be cheerful ...

There ya go! 34 years done! Bring on the rest!...

Pretty sure I've blogged this picture before but what the heck!...
This is the letter - dated 11th October 1978 - that changed my life!
It was the letter that said I'd got the job as Junior Photographer with Messenger Group Newspapers. Starting salary £45 a week! And Junior? You betcha! I'd only just turned 18, but within a week of this letter I was photographing the captain of Manchester United, the Lord Mayor of Manchester and Princess Anne! I was a Press Photographer! My ambition was fulfilled and it felt fantastic! 34 years on and it still feels fantastic. Only the other day I was at a networking event and I can't tell you the pride it gave me to tell people that I was a photographer! Ok, I kinda get sympathetic looks these days but hey, it's too late to change now!...

But, man, the changes I've seen in those years! Newspapers have come and gone, many photographers have come and gone, camera shops have come and gone, cameras have come and gone, film's definitely gone .. but I'm still here, making a living by taking photographs!

I don't work as a photographer, I am a photographer! I live photography, breathe it, think about it all the time. I am so lucky to be 'living' my dream! Reasons to be cheerful, one, two, three...

She falls into frame with a professional pout...

No apologies for a blatant plug of a blog today, but I've just had a range of music T-shirts launched .. and I'm dead excited!! A 'Photographers Project' has picked up on my work and designed a range of shirts featuring everyone from Joy Division to Siouxsie Sue and even Devo, The Meteors and .. Martha and the Muffins! They look great too, and I'm just waiting for a tasty box of samples to land on my doorstep at any moment!

One of my favourite Siouxsie and the Banshees tracks is the 1980 song 'Red Light', appropriately named after the safe lights in darkrooms - God! Red lights! Darkrooms! The opening line of the song is 'She falls into frame with a professional pout', accompanied by the sound of a motordrive zipping film through a camera in time to the music - God! Motor Drives! Film! The song's a veritable history of analogue photography! Hey, it even mentions Polaroids and Kodak, and there's one line that I can use with 'Shoot 'n Tutor' when Siouxsie sings 'The aperture shuts, too much exposure!" I'll use that in my next workshop.
Just don't expect me to sing it...

Plane simple..

I've had a brilliant idea! This'll solve the housing shortage problem in one fell swoop. See that nearside lane on the motorways? Why don't we build on it? Get a long line of apartments put up along the whole length of the entire UK motorway system, and get those homeless people in 'em, pronto! Well, I mean, it's not as if the lane's used by motorists, is it? Not these days. No-one wants to be seen dead in the inside lane these days - no pun intended in view of my photograph today, which I'll get onto in a minute! Come to think of it, nobody even wants to be seen dead in the middle lane anymore. That's just used by moronic lorry drivers who've managed to get their wagons moving ONE mile an hour faster than the truck in front, so feel they can pull out and slow the traffic down for bleedin' miles! Has anyone else noticed this seemingly new trend of hogging the outside lane on the motorway? I drove to a PR shoot in Coventry yesterday and must have undertaken hundreds of cars, all stuck behind each other doing 65 mph in the outside lane whilst I whizzed past at 70 - on the dot! - in the nearside lane. Is it something to do with a vast influx of continental drivers or something, thinking they're all on the inside lane but forgetting which country they're in? Or is it that same old macho bullsh*t that kicks in when people get into their lovely, lovely cars? Look at me, look at my shiny brum-brum. Aren't I great! The lovely shiny white Audi brum-brum that was ahead of me yesterday was great. Was! 'Til it went straight into the VW in front and became a teeny weeny squished Audi, and made us all very annoyed as we queued up behind it! Yes folks, driving winds me up. Actually, no, it doesn't. The improper, selfish use of motorways winds me up! Now, crashing an old plane onto the cars on the M62 might be a bit drastic, but I really feel something needs to be done to educate a lot of the drivers in the UK!

PS: This plane crashed in '88, straight onto a 2CV. Oops! I got this shot used in the MEN after simply walking onto the hard-shoulder and taking my pix! Betcha can't do that these days!

Clean slate..

So there you have it! My friend closes his pet shop today after umpteen years in business, and walks away with only his sanity intact. So that's at least another four people out of work as from 5pm today and means I'll have to join the masses and start shopping at Pets at Home! Sorry to begin a Friday so negatively, but you can imagine it's pretty upsetting!

Anyway, speaking of starting over, I really need to speed up my Mac. The poor thing's got steam coming out of it and I'm running out of coal to keep it going. Short of a spare £1500, I decided I'd drop all my Weddings and PR work onto the back-up of my back-up system (If you see what I mean) and then I could securely delete all the files and regain some memory. Cripes! What have I started? The flippin' thing has now been deleting for over 24 hours, and still hasn't got rid of all my files! I'm gonna have so much memory I won't know what to do with it! Oh, I know.. I'll be a Photographer, and fill it full of photographs!

Guys, I don't want to sound too twee here, but after 33 years I really do thank God I'm still managing to make a living out of what I love...

Turn on, tune in, drop out....

What's the best thing on the radio these days? The OFF switch! Hahahahaha.....
Honestly, I've had enough! I can't stand it anymore! I've had it up to here with Adele and Lady Antebellum, and DJs that just have to tell us they "Really like that song.." and Davina Bleedin' McCall buying shampoo that's been tested on "British hair".. (What??!!) ... and Scottish people telling me that the Co-op is "Gerd with Ferd" and, and....Aaaaagh!!!!  So yeah, the off-switch is on as far as the radio is concerned, and I'm back to playing cassettes of old John Peel shows from the 80's... Ah, that's better!

Sorry, folks! This has all come about because I emailed one of my PR shots of Johnny Mathis to great old Manchester DJ Phil Wood the other day (That's him on the right!) Now HE was good! (Phil, not Johnny! Sorry Johnny!) He was funny, informative, entertaining and, more to the point, he worked in an era when the bloody music was worth listening to! Like wise James H Reeve, Phil Sayer et al.....

These days the DJs, the ads, the music.. it all just plops off the end of the corporate drip pipe and washes down the gutter of "modern" entertainment! Well, they've lost a listener here, folks, and erm.. I actually do like Johnny Mathis! Now where did I put my pipe and slippers?

Dancin' Queen

Working on a new Jorgensen album today and, much to my delight, here's one of the shots that the bride has chosen to  go in it. I just love the fun and joy in it - Christine and her bridesmaid bopping to their ipod in the hotel room as Mum has her hair done before the Wedding. This shindig was in May, which seems so long ago now that we're already in November. Where on earth is the year going? Well, I know where I'm going on Friday. I'm going to the re-opening of the Open Eye Photography Gallery in Liverpool. I'll be turning into a photo-groupie again as I'll get to meet another favourite snapper of mine, the American Mitch Epstein. Autograph-hunter head on, Martin!

Nice falsies...

Well, we've certainly had the flip side of the hot weather haven't we!
Golf ball sized hail, for goodness sake?
Actually, it was lashing down when I drove away from this shoot yesterday (See what I did, there?) when I photographed this young student manicurist as part of a College Open Day.
Couldn't resist her falsies, as we say in the trade!
Lots of PR and Commercial work this week, including a 750-cover dinner/awards evening for the building trade, the start of a sponsored run at an insurance conference, and the installation of a flood control system for, er, the people that make them!
It is vital that a professional photographer gets plenty of variety in his diet!

Water, water....

Ah, rain! I've been walking around like a madman in the desert, praying for rain as my garden dried up around me! Now, the heavens have opened, and the feeling of freshness is unbelieveable. Simple pleasures! No Wedding today! Childrens' location portraits, instead. Oh no, it's raining!

The writing's on the ..floor!

Bloody Nora! Give me a break! How low are standard's slipping in this country?
Yes, I am one of those pedantic type's that hates apostrophe's in the wrong place's on sign's,  but this spelling mistake took the biscuit yesterday! I wanted to drive through, just so that I could argue that it doesn't say No Entry! (Although, being pedantic, I guess that's what the signs mean by the side!)

Anyway, only a week now until I can tell you some exciting news about one of my photographs! Let's just say it involves The Smiths, and a large London venue!
Or should that be The Smith's ?

New Shoots...

Normality returns, and I feel great after the break!
I've shot hundreds of images this weekend,  mostly at our Village Community Day, for a local magazine, though I enjoyed a lot of walking through our nearby parks and fields, watching the buds and leaves practically pop open in front of me! The feelgood factor of the Royal Wedding seemed to carry on through the whole break, and as long as I don't mention the Manchester United score, I can safely say that it was a perfect Bank Holiday weekend!

So, back to work and the first thing I have to do is finish a couple of recent Wedding Albums, then it'll be back to shooting portraits of youngsters. I'm doing a new shoot of a young lady I photographed as a baby. She's six now, and she has a new baby sister, so it's time to change those pictures on her Mum's wall!

Kate's Wedding...

Now, wasn't that fantastic? Good old England came up with the goods the only way it can, and put on a show to die for! Hope you all enjoyed it! Made me rush to my computer and dig out one of my shots of Kate's Wedding. No, not that Kate, though her Big Day was just as fantastic, all the same!
This was Kate and Tony, at Statham Lodge, in Lymm. Gorgeous!
So, now we wait for the 'official' group photographs, shot in the palace by Hugo Burnand.
Cool gig, Hugo!

Nice day for a White Wedding...

I thought a lot about the definitive photograph for today's blog - it being Royal Wedding Day and all that - when lo and behold, this appeared in my seed tray yesterday!

                               A little heart!

It says everything, really, so all I need to add is my best wishes for the happy couple, and let's crack open the bubbly!

Time flies...

Well, that went quickly, didn't it? And now normality has returned..for three days, at least! Enjoyed a very relaxing weekend though, very unusually for me, I didn't have an Easter Wedding this year. That didn't mean I put the camera down, of course, and here's my favourite shot of the Bank Holiday, with a dandelion seed just flying from the 'clock'!
The urgency of Spring always reminds me of shooting a Wedding! You wait and wait, then all hell lets loose for the 90 minutes you get to shoot the Big Day! No wonder I'm always watching the clock!
 

Do you take this woman...?

One week to go until a certain famous Wedding, and the excitement mounts.
Great programme about Weddings on TV last night, though, with the rather worrying statistic that we are now at the lowest level of Weddings since 1895!!
They used the great phrase 'Competitive Wedding Syndrome', too..the one-upmanship involved in having a 'better' Wedding than your friends.
Hey, chuck some Gerbera in a gold-painted jam-jar, profess your love, and the job's done!
Enjoy the break, everybody!