The tide is high, and so are the stats ..

Bloody Nora! I hadn't realised you could actually monitor your 'stats' on Flickr, but I happened to fall upon the page yesterday afternoon and was absolutely gobsmacked! I'd just uploaded over 700 of my Wedding photographs to the site - I figure they might as well be visible on there as just stuck on my computer - and I was twiddling with the pages when I found this 'stats' page. As I say, it absolutely blew me away! On Thursday alone - before I'd even put the Wedding shots up - I'd had a staggering 1, 932 views of my photographs, and that shot up to 5, 745 after the new work was added. Now that, it goes without saying, is rather pleasing! So now, hopefully, a lot more brides, grooms and 'Franks' .. (You have to watch Father of the bride if you want to get that joke!) will be able to see my work. Form an orderly queue, ladies and gentlemen. Bookings taken on a first come, first served basis...

Oh, this shot is one of those images that's available to view. Not a bride in sight but, as it says on my website, I shoot Weddings, portraits, pr and ... other stuff!..

Have a great weekend ..

Boston ..

By a bizarre quirk of fate I had already planned to show you this photograph on my blog today, as it's one of the latest additions to my 'Seen..' project on Flickr. After last night's bombings in Boston I wavered a little over my choice, but I've decided to leave it in as a mark of respect to those poor people whose beautiful lives were so tragically cut short. One of the reasons I was going to show the shot was because I wanted to wax lyrical about the wonders of Spring and how, despite everything, it's so amazing to be in the middle of all this burgeoning new life. It's all we can do to honour those murdered by terrorism - in whatever country - to try to hold in our minds that it is, it really is, a wonderful world we live in!

Perspective..

This is one of my favourite shots from the book 'Don't Miss This', and it kinda puts the whole world of art and self-promotion into persepective. It's getting harder and harder to get one's photographs seen, overwhelmed as they are by the kertrillions of images that get shoved up online every single day (Guilty, m'lud!) So, with that in mind, it was fantastic last week to be 'discovered' by a chap from 'darn sarf' who had been told about my Joy Division photographs and is now planning to design and market a whole range of T-shirts based on the shots. "How come they've not been seen by a wider audience?" he asked, amazed. Well, it's not for want of trying, I can tell you!

As you can tell by the extreme heat and drought, high summer is upon us, which means my Flickr 'Glove' project has more or less juddered to a halt. However (to my sad delight!) I came across one on Sunday, which I thought I'd treat you to today.

Oh, Gawd! That's a kertrillion and one photographs uploaded today! Anyway, I went into the chemist yesterday to get some cough medicine. My man-flu is persisting, probably getting worse, definitely not getting better! The lady in front of me put five prescriptions on the counter and I thought 'Cripes, I'm going to be here for ages!' "So, Mrs ___.." said the pharmacist "How're you feeling after the chemo?" Now that, my friends, is perspective!..

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!!

Give me a break?..

Yeah, gimme a break! Turns out one of the four photographers at the Wedding Fayre this weekend was actually .. a fireman .. and I'm not going to say another word about that! Not one! Not a dicky bird! Schtum! ...

All in all it it turned out to be not a very good fayre, and very few actual Wedding couples came through the store the whole weekend. I ended up giving out a mere five business cards on Sunday! Pretty bad, huh? Still, every cloud has a silver lining, and I had a nice chat with a photography student who told me all about how she shows her Wedding photographs (No comment here, either!) on Flickr. Lightbulb moment! I'll hold my hands up and say that I've never thought of putting my Wedding photographs on Flickr. Everything else, yes .. flowers, documentary work, travel, gloves and poo .. but never my Weddings .. So, guess what I spent last evening doing? They look good, too!..

Thank you for your pictures...

Apologies for another shot of plop, but it fits with today's blog, so stick with it! (Ugh!)

I love Flickr and the fact that, as a photographer, I can get my photographs in front of a worldwide audience in seconds. I mean, as a photographer, that's the whole point, isn't it? To have your photographs seen by others? Anyway, imagine my delight when I received a message on Flickr yesterday..
"Thank you for your pictures" it said, signed ..  Bill.



Bill is Bill Dane, from over there in LA, CA., and he's one of my mostest ever hero photographers. I've liked his work since I discovered him in a magazine I stole from a night-school class in 1977 (Wow! Confession time!) So, imagine how excited I was to know that he is looking at my work. Looking at it .. and liking it! What a compliment! So, a couple of new additions to my collection 'Seen', and here's to Flickr and the fact that I can show you sh*t shots like this and get away with it! Hurrah...

Double Whammy!...

Grumpy Old Man time, I'm afraid! I put two new Glove shots on Flickr yesterday, shot in the short amount of time it took me to walk to the shop to get a pint of milk! Fair enough! Good work! Keep it up, O'Neill .. BUT .. here's another shot I took at the same time, just yards away from my house. Two of my pet hates - in one shot! If the driver of the car had been on his phone as he'd pulled up I'd have had a hat-trick. Aaaaagh! Why are people so inconsiderate? What would it have taken to pick up that plop? Or to have been more concerned with pedestrians than having the pretty likkle car scratched? Ugh! It drives me crazy!

Now, I know there are more important things in life - as I type, for instance, my girlfriend is at the funeral of one of her best buddies, still in his forties - so maybe I should just shut up and move on, but when the quality of life is spoilt for all of us, by a tiny minority, it makes me want to scream.

Jeez! TGI Friday.....

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!

Oh, plop!...

Things are looking up, and quite often down, too, in the latest additions to my FlickrPix sets!

I, being the consummate professional photographer, always carry a compact camera wherever I go, and am forever seeing photographs to take when I'm on my travels. Trouble is, I never do anything with them, so my new set of shots, called Seen... aims to put that right. I've put up the first of what will undoubtedly be many shots of random, amusing observations .. nothing heavy, meaningful or, hey, likely to make me any money, but fun to look at, all the same. One of my favourites is a sign in a pub, promoting a gig there. Midnight Johnny, here next Monday, it says.. at 8pm!