Bigging it up ..

Shooting some lovely portraits at the studio yesterday, I decided to knock off a few frames on my Mamiya RZ67. "What's that?" .. cried the teenagers in unison as I pulled it out of the bag and, for a split second, I did feel as if I was revealing some monstrous bye-gone antique curiosity until I remembered ..  'This baby is cool' !! To think that, up to only a few years ago, I used to shoot all the 'colour' at my Weddings on this hulk! Here it is next to my little Fuji compact! Big, eh?..

It weighs a ton and, off the tripod, is quite awkward to handle but, oh boy, does it produce fantastic photographs! It will be making many more appearances, I can tell you! ..

I shall be hitting the sauce tomorrow afternoon as I join up with three other freelance photographers for our annual Summer Booze Up! Stand back and prepare for a barrage of moans and groans! Work's down! Fees are down! Prices are up! Etc., etc., etc .. yet ...YET .. we are all still professional photographers after all these years! Somehow we've all hung on and made our livings from photography alone. I hope the guys remember that and don't spend too long in the doldrums. We should be proud of our achievements and BIG OURSELVES UP!...  

New for old ..

A Wedding photographer at work, circa 1977, and he's probably using an old Mamiya or Rollei TLR - or two and a quarter - or 6x6 if you're modern! I've got a box full of old cameras like that now .. the most expensive ornaments in the house, as I call them .. and now Nikon have brought out a DSLR that's based on the old FM2 camera. Retro feel, as they call it! Phwoar! What is it about 'old' gear? Why does it just feel 'right'? I mean, as much as I love my D300s I get such a buzz out of holding and using 'old' cameras! You can't beat grabbing an FE2 and giving that wind-on lever a good ol' yank! (Oh, heck .. where am I going with this?) Anyway, let's put it this way - £2,750 says I won't be getting a new 'old' Nikon any time soon. Funnily enough though, I'm starting to use the camera on my phone a lot more! I used to get in a blind panic if I found myself without a camera. "Have you got your phone with you?.." Lesley would ask .. and I'm suddenly calm again! Damn it, they're good! The only thing we need to sort now is the names of cameras. In the good old days we had SLRs, and then we called digital cameras DSLRs to differentiate. Digital cameras are now, surely, the 'norm' so why can't we just start calling them SLRs and call film cameras FSLRs? Just asking ..

#weddingphotography

©Martin O'Neill 2013

Before..

I've been re-jigging the PR page on my website over the weekend. It's now miles better than before, but it's not half been bringing back some memories! Like the time I was doing a shoot with the Man U captain Bryan Robson. The plan was to liaise with him at Old Trafford after training, then follow him back to his home in Hale to take the photographs. Trouble was, he was in a Merc and I was in Metro! I must have crashed red lights, junctions and any number of pedestrian crossings to keep up with him. There was no way I could lose him. This was, of course, in the days before mobile phones!

Or the time I was doing a photo-shoot with Dame Edna Everage, when I had this great idea to get him/her/it with an A-Z of Manchester to show that he/she/it was in the city. This was, of course, in the days before SatNav! Thing was, I thought that a great twist would be to have him/her .. oh .. The Dame holding the book upside down, to make a point about Her being Australian. Trouble is, she just wouldn't do it. Nowadays, with digital, it would have been three seconds work to change that but this was, of course, in the days before photoshop!

Or the time I was photographing a snake-keeper at a zoo in the Midlands. I went behind the cages, set up my lights, got ready with a Mamiya 645 loaded with trannie film and put on a .. wide-angle lens!
The guy pulled the snake from its cage, turned it towards me and .. it went for me! Bit me right on the head, it did, but not before I'd fired the shutter and got the shot of it up there! This was, of course, in the days before I had any sense!!