As it happens ..

 

 

 

 

 

I know we all think we have 'the best job in the world', but I think you're pretty damned close to it with press photography. The variety and opportunity, the complete lack of routine, the travel, the celebrities. I knew I had it made when, on my first day as a professional snapper, I had to photograph the captain of Manchester United. The captain! Oh yes, it doesn't get better than that ..

And the point being? Well, there is no point, actually. I just needed a bit of pre-amble to allow me to show you today's photographs. A lot of you may have seen the new TV programme 'The Reckoning', featuring comedian Steve Coogan as Jimmy Savile. In my role as a press photographer I got to photograph them both (regardless of what happened later!)

Told you it was a good job. Just saying ..

Jim'll break it..

Funny thing, context, isn't it? Look at a picture one way, and it means one thing. Look at it again, with a different agenda, and it can lead you to believe a completely different story. I get fed up submitting my photographs to people only to be told "We need some context." Why can't people just accept a photograph for how it looks? Its composition, its 'feel'.. Hmm? A couple of the 'institutions' to whom I've sent my Salford archive have asked for more 'context'. Well, what else do they need? It's photographs of life in Eccles, Salford and Manchester in the seventies and early eighties. End of..

Anyway, in the context of the fact that the Jimmy Savile saga is still rumbling on, here's one of my photographs of him starting off on a run from the Post House in Manchester. Up to a couple of weeks ago that's all it was, but now look at it again. See the boy being questioned by his Mum in the background? The smug expression from Savile? The arrows, pointing two ways at once?
Oooh, see how you can make a photograph mean anything?

Dear Jim..

Now then, dear old Jimmy Savile hung up his running shoes yesterday, and we'll never see his like again! I photographed him in Manchester years ago, at the beginning of one of his marathon runs for charity. What a character he was! I never wrote in to Jim'll fix it, but I used to watch it avidly every week, squirming with envy at the things some of the kids got up to. God bless ya, Jimmy!

As it 'appens, I met another great couple yesterday morning, and they've booked me for their Wedding next May at the lovely Belle Epoque restaurant in Knutsford. It's been a year or more since I was last there, so I'm really looking forward to shooting there again!

I'm trying to ignore the fact that the clocks have gone back and summer is now officially over, but I can't wait to shoot my forthcoming winter Weddings, all frost and snow and tinsel.

Dear Jim, please can you fix it for me to get some great shots in the next couple of months...