We did the rest...

"Gosh! What's that, Dad?"
"That? Ah that, son, is a Kodak Instamatic!"
"Huh?"...
"It was a type of camera, son. Used to be made by a big company that could supply your every need as a photographer. Film, papers, chemicals and yes, even the cameras themselves."
"Wow, Dad. Can I get one? Can I? Can I?.."
"No, son, 'fraid not! They've just gone out of business. Imagine, big company like that, based entirely in the world of photography. Bust! Gone! Ko - Dodo..."
"Tut! Gee! So, what happened, Dad?"
"Digital happened, my boy. Digital...."
"Digital? Digital? How'd that kill 'em off?"..
"Well, son, it's like this. They used to have this catch-phrase, see.
'You press the button, we do the rest'"
"Yeah? And?..."
"And, well .. 'the rest' doesn't happen anymore, son. These modern folk, they just click and click and click and all those images ... sniff ... well, they never, ever become real photographs."
"No??..."
"No, son, they just stay on cards, sticks, hard-drives and discs until them peeps just lose 'em on a bus! Cryin' shame!"
"It is, Dad! It is! Good job that Martin O'Neill kept so many old negatives, eh?"...

©Martin O'Neill 2012

50 T-shirts...

Now, I'd be the first to admit that I'm a bit of a hoarder - I can't seem to throw anything away - but even I was surprised when I came across a 'collection' of 50 of my old T-shirts, unworn for years and taking up an entire shelf in my designer walk-in wardrobe! Their discovery gave me an idea for a project, and I finally got round to shooting them as a Flickr set yesterday afternoon. Well, what fun! What larks! What a trip down memory lane! I found a B-52's t-shirt from the early 80's (I actually have a photograph of the 21-year-old-ish me wearing it) I have a t-shirt from the Asda Festival of Food and Farming (Trendy!) in Hyde Park in 1989 (I covered this for Asda, meaning I was the only person allowed to photograph the Queen when she opened the event!) I have a Tubes t-shirt from a gig at the Free Trade Hall in 1981 when I got the entire band's autographs afterwards, and I have a British Airways 'Jet Club 16-24' shirt from when I went to America for the first time in '82! (I'm going to get in a State, it says! Ho ho!) I actually remember wearing this 'Hilda Ogden' t-shirt to an event attended by the actress Jean Alexander, and she refused to be photographed with me wearing it! Bloody temperamental artistes! Anyway, that's that! They're all photographed for posterity, and up online for everyone to view. Thing is, now I've found 'em, I can't bear to throw 'em away!

The price ain't right! ..

Pricing! Here are two stories from yesterday...

Story One

Ring, ring!
"Hello, StudioFiveFour"
"Hi, you do Weddings from £599?"
"Depending on the package, yes.."
"Hmmm! Will you take two hundred?" ....!!!

Story Two

Lesley really needs to get petrol, and decides to stop to get some on the way home from work. That involves joining the end of a panic-buying queue in Wilmslow, meaning it takes her 20 minutes to get onto a forecourt that's advertising petrol at 140.9p per litre. By the time she gets to the pump, the price has gone up to 148.9p per litre!! That petrol station is Total, on Styal Road near Manchester Airport.
They are a complete rip-off!

What is going on? When did the price become 'not the price'? Why couldn't Lesley offer the petrol station 134.9p per litre, as that's all she felt she wanted to pay? Oh, I forgot, it doesn't work like that, does it? The recession has got us by the short and curlies and there's sweet Fanny Adams we can do about it.
Keep calm and carry on?
Get real!

The Generation Game..

Blimey, you turn your back and they're all growed up without you noticing! I'm delighted to tell you that the first of my nephews and nieces has proposed to his lovely girlfriend - in Paris, the romantic dog! - and the lady, she say YES! Congratulations, guys, I'm so pleased for you! Hey, booked a Wedding Photographer yet?

Gosh, time flies, doesn't it?  It only seems 5 minutes since I was posing for this picture on our dining room table (Yes, it is me!) when in fact it's almost forty years ago now (Ahem, ahem!) I'm not going anywhere with this blog, I'm just sitting back with me pipe and slippers, dissing Top of the Pops and slowly turning into my Dad! What do you mean, Top of the Pops isn't on any more?
Man, I gotta get down wit de kids!..

On reflection..

Listen! Next time I spout off about how busy I am .. knee me in the wotsits! You won't believe this but I've had three new PR jobs come in this week, only for all three of them to be suddenly cancelled! My diary is just a mass of scribbly pages! And, not only that, but a contract I was invited to quote for has gone to another photographer so, all in all, not the best week I've ever had in the wonderful world of work!!

However, the show goes on and it's just as well I wasn't out shooting those jobs because I've had a really good chance to 'attack' my office and website, gaining new shelf space in the room and reclaiming a ton of memory on my site. It's also meant I've been around to handle .. wait for it .. my first Wedding booking for 2014 !!

So, on reflection .. not such a bad week after all!

Oh, ok then ...

The customer is always right! Well, you and I know that's not always true but, in this current economic climate, I guess the person with cash in their hands does have a certain amount of sway when it comes to saying what they want. So....  I've jazzed up a few of my Wedding photographs in Photoshop! This shot here, for example, is from Salmesbury Hall, near Preston. I've listened to what people have been saying, especially about one or two of my recent blogs, and am starting to drip some 'tweaked' shots onto Facebook and my website to try to look more 'contemporary' and current! I won't go bananas here, I'm just going to titivate the odd shot or two from each Wedding, and see how that goes with all the brides out there.

However, at the moment I'm shooting everything but Weddings! It's 'Spice of Life' time again, with a fantastic range of subjects to photograph over the next two days. I have a business portrait first thing tomorrow morning, a commercial shoot on a science park, a PR shoot involving motorbikes in Manchester .. and some cover shots for a new band's CD! Oooh, I hope they get famous! (Remind me to tell you about the first time I photographed Take That! I still cringe ..!)

Jeez, I love my job, I just love it ....

Nice things ..

I've had my PR head on all for work all week, but things are hotting up nicely in the Wedding World. I had this image ordered as a reprint this week, and it fair warmed the cockles of my heart, so it did! It's really nice when a 'different' photograph is chosen from a Wedding, as I so love to shoot the 'surroundings' of a Wedding Day .. the stuff the bride and groom don't see! The request came hot on the heels of an e-mail from a Poynton-based florist, who dressed a Christmas Wedding I shot last year. She's asked if she can use my images in a gallery on her website, so I'll add the link to my blog once the shots are up and running. I've just got my hands on a lovely new sample Wedding album, too, and I can't wait to show it off to 'my brides'! In other news, as they say, also kicking off this week is a series of magazine adverts for my newly-designed one-to-one photography lessons - just £50 for a two-hour 'Hands-On-Camera, Get-To-Grips-With-That-Exposure-Dial, Learn-Just-What-Those-Numbers-Mean' sessions! Just gotta work on the name now! I know .. Shoot 'n Tutor!  That's a bit more snappy!..

Look on the bright side...

Ok, enough of the excitement from the weekend .. let's get back to basics. I thought I'd provide a public service to my readers in the south of England by showing them what a lot of water looks like! It must be so long since they've seen a sight like this, what with their drought and all that! Funnily enough I had an engagement shoot to do on Saturday and the bride-to-be, Laura, called me first thing in the morning to suggest we postponed it as it was pouring down. I told her that, if Saturday had actually been her Wedding Day, we'd have had no choice but to carry on and get the shots done, so she relented and we went ahead with the shoot. On the drive down to the hotel, however, I was gritting my teeth as, not only it had stopped raining but the sun was now shining absolutely blindingly. I needn't have worried! As soon as I got to the venue the rain began again, and can actually be seen in all my shots! Still, I had to look on the bright side .. at least it wasn't sunny! ..

PS: This shot won me the runner-up prize in the Cheshire County Newspapers annual Snappers' competition in 1981!

Cold Turkey!...

Ten days!!! That's how long I've been without Photoshop, and I'm going bananas! Ever since my Mac went to iHeaven I've not been able to do any work on any of my images, short of a little bit of tweaking in my newly acquired Lightroom software.

I need a red-eye fix! I need a line of lasso! A Gaussian mask to unsharpen my brain! I need to dodge! I need to burn! Gimme some hue, baby! Gimme some saturation! I gotta fix my levels, man! Aaaagh! Ahem, sorry! Oh, but please hurry up, Mr Postman. Lay some CS on me, dude! I'm gonna go crazy!

Oh, you are NOT going to believe this! He's just knocked on the door and handed me a lovely new CS5.
Kindly mother, father disregard this letter......

(PS! That backside? Belongs to Brian Connolly, the late, great lead-singer with The Sweet! Let's just say I think he'd been enjoying some tasty sampling, too, when I went to his house for this shoot....!)

©Martin O'Neill 2012

This is the modern world...

Whoa..look at the boy go! A big thank you to my girlfriend Lesley, who snapped 'the artist at work' during Saturday's Bradford Wedding. I just knew you'd want to see it!!...

Ho hum! Ok, today is a big day... oh, and Valentine's day, too! Actually, on that note, if someone proposes to you today, my advice is to say "YES" immediately, then rush to my website to get me booked for your Photography. I know, I'm just too romantic!

The other big thing? Why, it's officially 'Martin gets his new Mac' day, celebrated far and wide across the land - well, at least as far as John Lewis, who have relieved me of £1,399 for the privilege of owning the beast! Can't wait to pick it up this afternoon, and here's hoping that its super-duper speed will actually give me some of my life back! It's about time my cutting-edge cameras were paired with something other than a computer that still eats coal....

Look at me, look at me!..

This is a bit long-winded, but stick with it! I shot a Wedding last summer, and the bride's dad owned the Roll-Royce that she arrived in. Turns out he's got a sweet little collection of sexy motors and was looking to get into the Wedding market, so he and I have kinda teamed up and now I link to his website from mine. Anyway, he asked me if I could make him an exhibition banner like the ones I use at Wedding Fayres and, to that end, he dropped off a memory stick and CD of images he'd taken of his wheels at Weddings. To cut a long story (finally) short, I found this shot in his collection - a picture he'd taken of me, up my ladder, taking pictures at his daughter's Wedding. Love it! How cool! Look at me! Not one, not two, but three cameras on the go! What a guy! What a champ! I'm not even holding on! (Hey, it's my blog, I can blow my own trumpet if I like!) Anyway, it made me wonder how many times I must appear in 'other' people's photographs. I know it'll be quite a number because I often spot people taking shots of the nutty snapper up a ladder! But they're shots I'll never see or even know about, because they'll never, ever be printed. There's the next casualty of the digital age .. Prints! So I'm lounging unbeknownst on who-knows-how-many memory cards and computers, along with shots of current buildings, car styles, fashions, hair do's, street scenes .. all important indicators of passing history that won't be available to future generations, because they're never, ever shown! Mind you, in this case that mind be a good thing! Check out the spooky twins at the bottom of the shot!
Oi! You two! Look at me!...

And Action!..

It didn't take me long to choose my first blog shot of the year. Well, it is a Leap Year, after all! I want my image of a stage-dive to symbolize my approach to 2012 .. head on, hopeful, full of life and fearless! (I know other interpretations are available, but let's not go there today, eh?) No, I'm thinking optimism, ambition, excitement and joie de vivre! Less reminiscing, more forward thinking and a fresh new stance on my work. Better choices for my Wedding couples, pricing that reflects the economy, and a more open mind to other peoples' requirements. That, and some bloody good music in the next twelve months!
Happy New Year, everybody!

That's that...

Hello! I've got a hangover! How are you?

So, it was straight home from yesterday's Wedding with Laura and Ali at Willington Hall and headlong into a boozy night with friends, but the show goes on and I've just finished editing the shots from yesterday. Check 'em out...

So that's that! My last Wedding of 2011, and every one of them has been a blast! Congratulations to all my couples! Now then, two Anadin, please...

Once more, with feeling...

One last Christmas Wedding photograph for you, and then it's full-steam ahead for the New Year. This shot's from Peckforton Castle in Cheshire where, in May, I will actually be a guest at a Wedding! A GUEST! How the hell do you 'be' a guest? I've not done that for years! I know one thing for sure - I'll be a guest with a camera, just so that I don't feel too weird! Anyway, today I'm back in my comfort zone as the photographer at a Wedding, over at my old fave Willington Hall. I won't mention the gale-force winds or the hail hammering against the windows, and just hope it clears a little before this afternoon! Please!! Catch you later...

Give it some welly...

Not your normal shot from a Wedding, but all the more fun for that... and now I really must move on from the fact that it was snowing on Saturday!!

I had my office Christmas party last night which, as a self-employed photographer, is a little more tricky than it sounds! It involves trying to tie up with as many other freelance snappers as possible and heading into town for a booze-up. But have you ever tried to get a gang of freelance photographers together in the same room? It's a bloody nightmare! There's always someone who'll get a job coming in and have to miss the 'do', and even as late as 3pm yesterday one photographer pulled out, saying he was too busy! Mind you, in these straitened times, if it's a choice between working and drinking, it's obvious the booze'll get the boot!

A little social-networking...

Enjoyed a nice little get-together last night, 'social-networking' with local business people as varied as a mortgage advisor, a private health provider, the owner of an industrial estate and a South African guy who used to farm chickens and now renovates houses! What a mish-mash! Had a great chat with a lady about music, too. She was raving about my Joy Division photography, and I was in awe of her living in Georgia and drinking coffee at Michael Stipe's bar, but the best thing to come out of it - for me - was the fact that I might be in line to stage a new exhibition of my work! The owner of the deli where we all met - Corvino's, in Culcheth - said she's seen my work online and would love to show it on her walls. Exciting stuff, and I'll obviously keep you informed as to how I get on. Hey, I'll even invite you to the opening. You can network with me .. socially!

Copy that...?

Putting pen to paper is my preferred way of making a record of anything, so imagine how freaked out I was when my computer suddenly couldn't read any of my back-up discs yesterday! A heart-stopping moment, you'd call it, if it was a movie review! I mean, it's less than a fortnight since I cleared as much as I could off my hard-drive and actually put it on those externals! Turns out the fuse had gone in the plug! That was all! Heart starts again.. phew!

Does make you wonder, though, doesn't it! For example, as I write I'm surrounded by boxes and boxes of negatives, and shelves groaning with transparencies. Solid, real photographs! Palpable, tactile work!

Ah, but what if..? Hmmm...I really must get them all scanned and backed-up on the computer!
Ah, but what if.. ? 
Oh, sod it!

Ditch the Bentley?...

Here's one for you if you're getting married at Knutsford's Belle Epoque Restaurant any time soon. It's a montage I made a year or two back, and I've just found it again whilst I was searching for another image. It brought back some great memories - the Belle Epoque's a really funky place to get married. Anyway, I was looking for images because I'm trying to design a new promotional postcard to leave at hotel receptions and so on. But, Man! How on earth do you edit all my years' Wedding photography down to five or six images? It's like - I've got to have a picture of a bride getting ready, but then I need a shot of a couple in a church - or should I use a shot of them in a field, and I've always liked this shot of this bride shedding a tear, and look at this shot of the groom spilling his champagne, but that would mean I'd lose the shot of the Bentley and, and....etc., etc., etc....

I'm really happy with the front of the card, but the rear of it's driving me crazy! I fear I shan't get much else done today!...

Nice one, my son...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now, I'm not one to boast but I've just had the third amazing testimonial in a week! Out of the blue I got this sent to me on Facebook yesterday morning.. "10 yrs ago today you shot our Wedding at Statham Lodge Hotel - the best wedding pictures I've ever seen and you captured our day perfectly!. Thank You from Keith and Jen Harris"  Isn't that amazing? Ten years after their Big Day and they were still nice enough to take time out to think about me! I'm so flattered! It reminds me of the time I was invited to the 25th Wedding Anniversary of a couple whose Wedding I'd photographed. They were now grandparents, for goodness sake! It was an amazing evening, and it brought home just how much a part of a couple's Big Day I actually am. It's a responsibility and an honour that I carry with pride!

Hm! Maybe I am one to boast.. but who cares? I don't do photography.. I am a photographer! Here's to the next twenty five years!..

That's handy...

Oh, good Lord, it's happening again! Dead people? No, I see gloves! Single gloves, all over the place! Lost, trampled, soggy wet gloves! They just won't leave me alone! Ahem! Calm down, Martin! Well, it's that time again - The cold weather's coming and the gloves are out once more, which means I've started seeing 'em on the floor all over again. I've just added another five pictures to my Flickr set 'On the one hand'  .. which is now over 200 images strong! Do you think I've got a syndrome? :-)


Anyway, just popped another 250 image Wedding CD in the post, and I'm almost up to speed as far as couples picking their images is concerned. I actually need to get into the garden today, and clean up the beds if I'm ever going to shoot any new Florescence pix next year!


Just hope I don't find any gloves!