It's a sign ..

Not so much a blog today as a screaming great advert for my latest exhibition! A new set of work called 'It's a Sign' has gone up at the Eccles Community Art Gallery after they were let down by an artist and sent out a 'Mayday' for somebody to fill the space! The work is a collection of travel photographs rendered to look abstract in Photoshop - the very software I normally vow to use only to 'tidy up' an image - Oops! It's looking good, though, and will be on display every Saturday and Tuesday until the middle of May..

Actually, now that I think about it, I'm going to design a page on my website for the images..

Laters..

Bits, bobs, moustaches..

Time for a little light relief after all that doom and gloom of Thatcher/North Korea/Benefit Cuts/Man U losing in the Derby (The Man U bit was a joke! I really couldn't give a monkeys!) Here, have a picture of Laura with a moustache! You'd swear I'd set the shot up, but it really was just a little trouble with the wind! Gave us a laugh as we fired off the last couple of 'formal' portraits before Saturday's Wedding Breakfast, and I know (Hope!) Laura will forgive me for showing it to you all!

My Music Photography exhibition ends this Saturday and that really - no, really! - will be the last stuff I show at the gallery for the time being. What started out as a four week show to launch my Twelve for '13 project turned into a four month 'residency' as I ended up featuring in the next two group shows with my Florescence and Music photography. Anyway, get down to Eccles Community Art Gallery this Saturday if you want to catch me!

Remember that exciting news I spoke about? The 'stuff in the pipeline' .. ? Well, it's still in the bloody pipe and I can't get anyone to shake it out! Aaaagh! I really hope it comes off! I'm dying to tell you...

Must dash! ..

Alright, petal..

Spring is in the air, and what better way to welcome the new season than with my lovely Florescence flower photography, on now at Eccles Community Art Gallery. God, I sound like the NW Tourist Board. Ah, come on down, anyway. The sun is out, the shops are full of Easter eggs and my photographs would make great presents for Mother's Day. Bloomin' fantastic...

Pretty flowers..

And so it's off to the gallery again, this time to hang images from my Florescence series of flowers and leaves. No time to be a diva for this one, though, as I'm just one part of a group showing. I'll be interested to see what other work will be gracing the walls around mine. Don't worry, darlings, I'm not going to get all precious on them and demand a five foot 'barrier' of white wall between my work and theirs, or insist that their pictures all face the back wall! Although, actually that sounds ..      no, maybe not!

I'll report back on my fellow exhibitors once I've seen the work, and then you'll get your chance when the exhibition opens on Saturday.

Catch ya later, flower...

And relax ..

Have a break? Are you kidding me? I've got an exhibition to organise! Yep, one down/one up, and no sooner do I finish 'Salford - Down the line' than I prepare for tomorrow, when I hang my section of a new exhibition at the Community Art Gallery in Eccles! After an absolutely amazing run - 1,141 people through the door in just nine actual days of opening - I'm delighted to say I've been invited to take part in the next group show at the venue. (Mega thanks to everyone who came down, by the way! You were all brilliant, with your memories, recollections and stories!) Anyway, this time I'm showing images from my Florescence series - a set, as I'm sure you know - of amazingly coloured flower and leaf photography, shown as framed photographic prints, greetings cards, table mats and coasters. I'm having a bet with myself to see how long it takes before someone asks me what I did to tweak the colours in Photoshop. NOTHING! It was shot on what we oldies call 'film' - in this case 645 transparency! That sharpness and saturation? That's what you got when you shot with good film! Gimme a break!...

Time is of the essence..

Gobsmacked! Yep, that's about the best word for it! I'm gobsmacked! We had over another 150 people to the gallery on Saturday, including Joan and Mark, who feature in today's blog .. twice! See the little boy in that pram, being fed a chip by his Grandma? That's Mark, 36 this year, the strapping fella seen here in Saturday's photograph with Joan, now a sprightly - ahem, ahem - years old! It made my day that they turned up to see my work and, what's more exciting, as we go into the last week of the show it's looking like we'll hit 1, 000 visitors to the gallery! Now that's pretty good going considering we only open on a Saturday and a Tuesday and, to mark that momentuous occasion, I'm going to offer a half-price family portrait voucher to the lucky 1, 000th visitor. Will it be you?

The comments book is making pretty interesting reading. One couple added a note to a photograph to say that a bus shelter featured in one of my shots was where they had their first kiss .. and they're celebrating their 30th Wedding anniversary in May! And another entry in the book simply read "Oh! I've smiled all the way round .."

I can't wait to see how it goes on our last two opening days. If you've not seen the show then I urge you to get along. Tuesday and Saturday are the last days it'll be open and then ..

Actually, then I'll be taking part in the gallery's next exhibition! I've been invited to show a selection of my Florescence flower photography from February 16th.

Gobsmacked!

She's behind you...

252!!! That's how many people we had through the door of the gallery on Saturday! Two hundred and fifty bloody two! In six hours! I'm absolutely amazed! That means that almost 500 visitors have seen my photographs already, and we've only opened to the public three times! How good, as they say, is that? I spent the whole day chatting and listening to fantastic stories about 'the old days'. People really are engaging in the project and it's so exciting!

A couple of visitors were trying to identify where today's photograph was taken. It's actually in front of the Co-op funeral parlour on Liverpool Road. Glamorous, eh? Anyway, speaking of glamorous, I was telling them that the shot is actually labelled in my negative file as 'Fit Birds'! Hey, I was only 17! "Be careful.." I heard a voice say "You never know who might hear that!" I turned around and there was .. the 'fit bird' on the right! "Good job you didn't call it anything else!" she laughed!
Phew! Good job...

Glamorous cameras, clickety click!..

This photograph brought a little amusement to a chilly week when I posted it on Facebook and asked people if they could identify the cameras. (Hey, why don't you click the link and join my group whilst you're at it!) These are the actual bodies I used to shoot a lot of my Twelve for '13 archive and they all still work, apart from the Olympus XA at the front (Oops, gave that one away there!) Well, it's still chilly but I don't think that's going to put people off from coming down for the second of my Saturdays at Eccles Community Art Gallery. So many people have expressed an interest, and I know they're going to love it when they visit. The Gallery are saying on their website that it's the most popular exhibition they've ever had, and it's only been on a week! Wow! Anyway, just before I head down there, the other cameras are a Zentih EM and a Yashica 124G. So now you know, but let's see if anyone knows where today's Blog title comes from...

Unsure...

Well, they say every cloud has a silver lining, and I'm afraid that the troubles of Jessops and HMV have earnt me a few bob, as I got booked to shoot the 'state of the high street' for a client yesterday. Managed to line up the two 'dinosaurs' in one shot with this angle in Manchester. What a shame, though! I used to love a 'yack' with the Jessops lads in days gone by, and I have a nephew who's waiting with baited breath to hear if his job's safe at HMV. He'll be alright.. won't he?

Now I'm not superstitious, but I was having a chat with a hotel owner during a Wedding last year, and he said he feared his bookings for 2013 would be down. The reason? The year has the number 13 in it! I laughed .. but now I'm not so sure. All my enquiries seem to be for 2014! Surely my whole Wedding career isn't set to skip a year.. is it?

Oh, by the way, an internet whizz-kid saddo told me that I need to be adding specific words to my blogs so that I can link them to my web-site. So, at the risk of being incredibly boring (Hey, there has to be a first time!) I'm going to mention studiofivefour.com - the home of Martin O'Neill photography.
Yeah, that's boring.. isn't it!

Back to Eccles tomorrow for another stint at my exhibition. Really looking forward to meeting more new people and watching their reactions when they find themselves in my photographs. That first pause, the squinty close-up peer, then the laugh and the gasp and the shake of the head. That's not me.. is it?

Something old, something new..

Yep, they're all dead! That's what a chap called Dave said when he saw a picture of himself and his old colleagues on the wall of my new exhibition! Yes, it's finally opened and wow, what a brilliant day it was! I broke the record for the number of visitors to the gallery on a single day, and it was incredible to eavesdrop on a few of the conversations going on around the room. People were catching sight of a long-lost grandad, or an old flame, or a neighbour they used to play with in the street and Dave, as I said, saw a photograph of work-mates he last saw 36 years ago. He's pictured as a curly-haired, flare-wearing youngster standing by an old Commer van outside the Dispatch Department of Gardner's Diesels in Eccles. One young lady even managed to identify her old school hall .. by the curtains .. and, although it's inevitable, it was sad to hear of those who aren''t around any more. Me poor old dad included! Still, I couldn't have been more happy with the way the exhibition was received, and I really enjoyed kicking off the side-project of re-photographing people who were in original shots. Dave and Arthur here were two of my first 'models'! We even had the first of our 'live' theatrical performances, with actors Elaine and Dave (Another one!) giving us a really funny rendition of how a conversation about the seventies might go! So, we're off! We're up and running and you've got a month to come down and see what it's all about!

It's called Salford, down the line! and it's at Eccles Community Art Gallery every Tuesday and Saturday until February 9th. I've also started a Facebook Group for people who want to see more of the shots! My project Twelve for '13 will showcase about 80 shots a month on Flickr, and the page will help me get the word out to anyone who's keen on documentary photography.

Tunnel vision..

So, another big name on the 'high street' bites the dust! Jessops went into administration yesterday and all I can say is that, from personal experience, I'm not surprised in the slightest! They're the people who told me not to bother buying from their shop, but to go home and make my purchase online! I went there in the early summer to check out the Fuji X10 camera - I liked the look of it and the specs sounded fab, but I needed to literally 'get to grips' with one to see what it felt like in my hands. The Warrington store had just one in stock, so I shot down there pronto to have a nosey. Well, as you know, I fell in love with the little beauty, and I've been using it since that first Wedding try-out in May. The thing is, the model in the shop was much dearer than anywhere I'd seen it online, so the chap in the shop went onto his computer, logged onto Jessops online, and told me I could buy it there for £50 less than the shop price. Fifty pounds less! From the same company! Jeez! Shoot yourselves in the foot, why don't ya! That's a case of tunnel-vision if ever I saw one!..

(And yes, that was another naff link to my exhibition, and this picture is yet another from my archive. The show opens on Saturday at Eccles Community Art Gallery!)

Through the round window..

A few self-portraits inevitably turned up whilst I was going through my box of 'archive' negatives, and I thought it was rather amusing that I seemed to be drawn to circles when I did 'em! So - looking though the round window - I can't tell what camera I'm using for the shot on the left but I can see my old Yashica FR1 in the centre shot, and my tried and trusted Zenith E in the shot on the right. That and a really dodgy hair-do! You can click on the image to get a really good look!! Hey, speaking of dodgy, the creatives at Eccles Community Art Gallery have decided to surround my exhibition photographs with 70s memorabilia, and have put a shout out for help in finding naff old clothes, games and other items from the decade. Think Space-hoppers, Choppers, tank-tops, clackers, platforms, David Cassidy posters and the like. Can you help? Far out, man...

Oooh...

Oooh, things are beginning to happen! My new exhibition is getting closer, and the wheels on the mighty publicity juggernaut have begun to roll. Eccles Community Art Gallery has begun a twelve day 'teaser', adding a new photograph from my show to their website every day until the opening on January 12th. There's a practical point to the exercise. We're hoping that people might recognise themselves, or people they know, in the shots so that I can shoot a 'then and now' to compliment the 1970s photos.

And it gets better! A writer called Elaine McCann is putting together a few 3-5 minute long plays, based on some of her favourites from my photographs, and these will be 'acted out' each Saturday by two professional actors. I'm dying to see what Elaine comes up with as, apparently, one of her faves is my shot of a box of cornflakes! Oooh...