Keep your eyes peeled ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Keep your eyes peeled, because a selection of my photographs is about to be published by Café Royal Books. Based in the north of England and run by a chap called Craig Atkinson, CRB is "an award-winning publisher of documentary photography, committed to producing high-quality, limited edition, affordable books." My little addition is entitled 'Eccles, Salford, Manchester 1970s 1980s' and I'm delighted it'll be seen in the company of some really great names in photography. To mark the occasion I'm offering a limited edition of forty of the books, available numbered, signed and with a 7"x5" ink-jet print of one of the images, for just £20 each (Plus that pesky P+P). There are 26 images in the book. Email your interest and pick a number between one and 26. I'll then print and sign whichever photograph that corresponds to in the book. A bit of lucky-dip for ya ..

News just in ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There's a lot going on in the world at the moment. Elections in the UK and France, Putin chumming up with Kimmy, China ramping up its stockpiling of nuclear weapons, extreme weather conditions across the globe and .. wait, what's this .. there's a new book of photographs by Martin O'Neill? Now there's reason to be cheerful amongst all the global gloom and doom ..

I'm delighted to say I've been 'picked up' by Café Royal Books, the distinguished publisher of photography in the UK, and will have a collection of my pictures in one of their iconic photo-books from mid-July. I say 'delighted' because it means my work will now be available along with such renowned names as, among many others, Shirley Baker, Daniel Meadows and Chris Killip ..

It's the first time any of my work has been compiled by anyone other than myself, and fascinating to see what the editor considers to be an interesting selection from my archive. Perhaps you'll buy the book and let me know your thoughts? (It's called Eccles, Salford, Manchester 1970s-1980s, by the way, and I'll be offering a limited edition of signed copies of the book complete with a print of one of the photographs in the collection. Details to follow, as they say!) ..

And now, over to the sports desk ..

       

You're twistin' me melon, man ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To a certain generation, the word Manchester meant "The Haçienda" and if you mentioned the name they'd stick their tongue out and look at you like you were going to throw them an 'E'. The club was a major part of the city's landscape in the 1980s and 90s but, not being into the 'Madchester' scene, (You're twistin' me melon, man!) I only went there every now and again for a pint or to see a band. I remember my pal Chris ringing me up once and asking if I fancied going there to see 'some girl called Madonna'. "Never heard of her", I said, and we gave up the chance to see an up and coming Madge and probably went to stare at girls that were far above our pay-rate at Placemate 7 instead. I do remember going to see The Gun Club there, and The Eurythmics with Blondie's Clem Burke on drums, and having pints in the ever-so-unspacious 'Gay Traitor' bar down the stairs, but that's about it. Even despite the Joy Division connection, it just wasn't a place I bothered with ..

Nice though, to stumble upon a couple of transparencies I shot there when I was commissioned by the (now-defunct) Sabena Airlines in-flight magazine. Not many people on the dance floor so I'm guessing it was a wet Wednesday in March, but who's to say? Lovely memory, all the same ..

David Bailey? Who's he ..?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What to do when it's so goddam hot outside? Knuckle down and finish the next edition of your photo-book collection, that's what. So now Book Six is done and dusted, and I can't wait to see what it looks like when it comes back from the printers ..

It's entitled 'Who d'ya think you are, David Bailey ..?' - which will only mean anything if you're old enough to remember the Olympus camera ads he made in the late 70s - and is a bumper collection of 91 images from my archive. The photos were all taken in the late 70s and early 80s, around my old stomping grounds of Eccles, Salford and Manchester, and the good news is that, even after six books of photographs, I still have over a hundred pictures left to show you, so there'll definitely be a Book Seven at some stage. After that, I'm going to start on my colour photography, as I've got thousands of Kodachrome slides from my travels around the world ..

A review in Amateur Photographer magazine said my work was "a flick through history in a well-observed, light-hearted trip down memory lane." You can start your own collection here .. and, by the way, they're only a tenner each!

SNAP!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I passed rather a pleasant hour or two yesterday, amusing myself after I'd read an article in The Times ..

There's a well-known photographer called Tom Wood - affectionately known in his adopted home town of Liverpool as 'Photie Man' - who's being honoured with a big exhibition at the city's Walker Art Gallery. The newspaper article featured over twenty of Tom's pictures, taken back in the late 70s to early 80s, the same period of time I was working on my own 'street photography'. What a nice shot, I thought, as I admired his picture of a group of Scouse scallies leaning against a metal railing. It reminded me of a photograph of my own, the shot you see here of three 'Teddy boys' in my own home town of Eccles. Snap! I chuckled. How interesting ..

And then .. what a nice shot, I thought, as his picture of two girls on a bus brought a smile to my face. That reminded me of another shot from my archive, a worried-looking mother smoking on a bus as one of her children slept and the other tried to evade boredom.

And then .. what a nice shot, I thought, as an image of two Passport-photo machines put me immediately in mind of a remarkably-similar picture of my own.

And then .. 

Well then, folks, I worked my way through the entire set of his photographs and realised I had a similar-looking photograph to every one of his. I felt rather pleased to have (in my opinion) comparable work to one of documentary photography's masters, and I've put them onto a web page, if you fancy taking a look. 

I'd love to hear your opinion ..  

SNAP!

Showtime!

A sliver of new moon appeared in a darkening sky, Venus glowing above it as the sun went down on Saturday night. In the old French town of Guîtres, the 11th century Abbey of Notre-Dame took on its own majesty as lights came on in the square. A crowd gathered as music began to crackle from a pair of speakers. Divine music, uplifting music, joyous .. The Pop Group, The Cure, Virgin Prunes!

It was the opening of my Joy Division/Manchester exhibition, and a cold-wave (post-punk!) disco sparked the evening to life after speeches by myself and the mayor. I was so delighted with the turnout, as well as the interesting questions I attempted to answer in French. I can only thank the lovely people from 'Asso Biodynaboum', the organisation that offered me the show, for the great job they've done in promoting it. (And the mayor with the funky Converse trainers!) ..

The show is now on view at the Marie (town hall) in Guîtres until the end of June. I hope you manage to see it .. 

Ladies and Gentlemen, my new book ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Writing a book, they say, is the easy part. After that, you've got to market the bugger! So here I am, marketing the bugger, and you're going to have to get used to me going on about it. Yes, I've finally self-published my book, after probably four years of writing and editing (and trying to find an agent!) ..

Page 99, by Joe Bancroft, is the semi-autobiographical tale of a young Manchester lad who lands his dream job as a press photographer on a local newspaper (ring any bells?) There's a lot more to it than that, of course, and it feels good that it's finally all down on paper ..

I've already had a great review, which ends with the line "Personally I loved the book and can't recommend it highly enough, I can relate to so much that Martin has written about, a joy to read, go on treat yourself to Page 99" .. so that's a good start, isn't it?..

If you fancy a good read, you can get hold of your own copy on Amazon Kindle. 

I really hope you'll give it a go ..

Ten years into the future ..

I had the most lovely surprise yesterday ..

"Just wanted to say hi .." said a message I received. "Ten years ago today you photographed our wedding at Manchester Town Hall. You probably won't remember it as you've done hundreds but you did make our day and we've got lots of captured memories thanks to you."

Well, of course I remember it, and what a lovely message .. and how absolutely wonderful of the couple to think of me on their wedding anniversary. It really made my day ..

'Future Everything' said the poster that I posed them by all those years ago and now that we're in 'the future' it just reinforces the importance of a good set of Wedding photographs. It makes me feel great to think of all those 'hundreds' of couples who now have a set of my photographs in their homes ..

Happy anniversary, Judi and Chris ..  

Lucky 13 ..

It's Friday the 13th, and I'm feeling really lucky! A local magazine is carrying what must be the weirdest by-line I've ever had. The tag runs 'Front cover photo by and of Martin O'Neill' .. my italics! At the beginning of the year our Culcheth Essential Guide mag began a year-long series of profiles of local businesspeople, and I was asked if I'd take the shots as I very often provide the front cover image for the company. Well, call me biased, but I thought a good start to the series would be a photograph of .. me! So I shot the proverbial selfie and, as I say, it's the front cover of the mag .. until I shoot the next one!..

I'm showing a flower photo because I want to tell you about a 'Pop-up shop' that I'm having next month. I was told about some space that can be hired withing the reception area of Warrington General Hospital, and have managed to book a date there at the beginning of March. I thought it would be the ideal opportunity to try to sell some of my Florescence photography - bright colours and good vibes within a hospital, and all that!..

Tomorrow I'm being visited by a bride and groom who are coming all the way from Sheffield to see me! Their Wedding is exactly one year today! They really like the look of Manchester Wedding Photography so let's hope that, this time tomorrow, I'll know what I'm doing on Saturday the 13th of February ..

File under fantastic ..

Another dive into my mysterious cache of unfiled negatives yesterday, and I dug out a cracking pair of pictures from the early 90s. These were the heady days when Manchester felt it had a decent shot at winning the 2000 Olympics although I think, from the peeling poster and the headline on the MEN board, you can guess the outcome!..

Prince Andrew was another surprise in the box. I'd forgotten I even photographed him! And then there was Nigel Lawson, Gary Davies and Sonia, the Scouse singy-bird from Stock, Aitken and Waterman's little collection. There was even a shot of my old boss from the Warrington Guardian, a diminutive Geordie called Eddie who looks like he couldn't possibly have the strength to actually carry the huge Nikon and motor-drive he's wearing round his neck.
All great additions to my archive ..

What's a motor-drive, Grandad? ..

Getting a sweat on ..

There's a lot of water around at the moment, what with the 'orrible weather and all that, so I had to laugh when I edited this shot from July for 'one of my brides' the other day. Look at Mike's brow! Dripping with the stuff! Boy, did that guy have a sweat on! Oh, for July's temperatures right now. At least, I think it was the heat, though I know Weddings can be a stressful time for young lads! Anyway, I'm delighted his new wife added this shot to their selection!..

Emily's just one of 'my brides' who's done the 'Christmas thing' and got a spurt on with their picture choices these past few days! It means I'm knee deep in Summer Weddings at the mo although, it's true to say, some of those were as wet as it's been here lately!..

The New Year's looking good for Manchester Wedding Photography, and I've even had two Wedding enquiries this week, something that hardly ever seems to happen this close to Christmas. At this rate, it'll be me that's getting the sweat on ..

Just cut the bloody ribbon ..

Three PR jobs today! My God, count 'em! It's been a while since I had three in a day like this! In fact, it pains me to think back to the 'old days' when I'd be so busy - and so in demand, blush, blush - that I was actually able to dictate when jobs would go ahead, just so that I could work them into my diary rather than the other way round! I even had a Wedding like that, once! The couple wanted me as their photographer so much that, when they found out I was already booked on their Big Day .. they changed it to when I was available! Talk about an ego boost!
Well, I am an artist, dahling....
It's funny how work has changed. I'm just glad I'm hanging in there!..

Damn! Forgot to put keywords in again! Erm .. Manchester, PR, Photography! There, that should do it! Doing my own pr here ..
 

No pressure ..

There's a lot buzzing round my head at the moment, what with designing Wedding albums, sorting the SEO for the new website and dealing with what's turned out to be quite a lot of fantastic PR work this week, but I thought I'd write about what I guess is 'The grass ain't always greener on the other side!'..

I was shocked at the number of posts that flew up onto Facebook after the death yesterday of poor old Rik Mayall and, this morning, there are photographs of him taken on Sunday when he was out walking his dog. My God, I thought, he couldn't even walk his dog without being snapped! That was a theme echoed in a TV programme last night about David Beckham, who set off for a motor-cycle ride through the Amazon jungle to 'get away from it all'. (Ok, we'll ignore the camera crews, medics, bike technicians and that irritating little 'health and safety minder..) He was talking to a native of the Yanomami tribe who - much to Beckham's delight - didn't recognise him as he only followed football on the radio. Beckham was talking about his life, and the reasons for his trip. He was doing it, he said, to get away from all the pressure. "Pressure?.." said this guy who lives in the jungle, killing his own food, risking death by everything from poisonous frogs to falling trees and jaguars "What's that?!"...

And relax ...

A long, long time ago ..

Have you been watching 'Happy Valley' with the amazing Sarah Lancashire? Man, she's sure been dealing with some monsters in that programme, hasn't she? Well, here she is again - in earlier times - getting to grips with 'The Alien' at the old Granada Studios tours! It's a shot I took when I used to do the PR Photography for the tour back in the day. Lesley had me go into the loft to look for some old thing or other yesterday and, before you knew it, I'd been lost up there for two hours, distracted by piles of my old press photographs. I found shots of Tony Wilson, David Hockney, Cameron Mackintosh, Bernard Manning, Eartha Kitt and .. wait for it .. Sooty and Sweep .. but it's an archive that's sadly lacking because much of my work was filed at the Manchester Evening News .. and they threw it all away when they moved offices. Cheers, MEN! Thank goodness I kept a few of the prints for myself...

Actually, now that I've mentioned them, I can't resist showing you the world's most famous glove puppets - seen here with Brian Murphy and Matthew Corbett at an Asda store  .. 

.. and Cameron Mackintosh, during a theatre photo-call ..

.. a long, long time ago ..

Larger than life ..

How to get ahead in business! I was shooting some PR photography at an office in Manchester yesterday - on the day they'd just received some 'blow-ups' of some work I did a month or so back - and couldn't resist a quick shot of the prints, all stacked up and ready to go on the walls! Can't wait to see my new 'exhibition' when it's up, as it'll cover all the stairwells of a 3 storey building!

On the subject of 'larger than life' I'm off to a birthday party with a difference this weekend. The event is a Punk 'All-Dayer' with the good old UK Subs to celebrate the ... gulp, I can hardly write this .. to celebrate the 70TH!! birthday of their lead singer Charlie Harper! I'm amazed! 70 and still heading a punk band! My hero! I'm in awe! I'm .. who the hell left that zimmer there?

We have lift-off ..

Ok, folks! Time to get this show on the road. I think I've finally finished the new website for Manchester Wedding Photography so, to mark the launch of the new name, I've come up with a great offer. I'm going to give a free DVD Slideshow to each of the first five couples who book me to shoot their Wedding as Manchester Wedding Photography. That's a presentation of all the images from their Big Days! How good is that?..

Anyway, I've sorted out all my new pricing and all my new packages and I feel really good that I'll soon start to work my way up the Google rankings and begin to get seen by all those lovely Brides and Grooms. They'll certainly get a good flavour of my style when they see the new site, that's for sure. Much to my surprise I've just totted up that I've put 138 images on my own home page slide show - everything from close-ups of Wedding rings to this trio of unusual Wedding vehicles! 138! If that doesn't tell you how I work then nothing will!..

Anyway, speaking of work, I've got a PR job in Manchester today, photographing a Board meeting at a swanky hotel. After three days of looking at Wedding Photography I just hope I don't ask for the Bride's parents! Now, where are my car keys?..    

At the end of the rainbow ..

I was in the position of being able to use the word 'bokeh' during a Scrabble game last week. "Bokeh..?" laughed Lesley "What kind of word is bokeh?" (I have to admit that, up to a year or two ago, I myself thought a bokeh was what the bride carried as she went up the aisle). "It means blurred background.." I said. "It's one of those new-fangled digital photography words!" She let me use it .. and then went on to beat me by over 100 points!..

I didn't care! We were on holiday in Greece, and the end of the game merely marked the time to pour another Ouzo as we lazed in the scorching Greek sunshine. Back at the coal-face now, though .. with a jumper on! Brrr...

The big thing that happened whilst I was away was the launch of my new Wedding Photography website. ManchesterWeddingPhotography.com went live at probably the same moment I was tucking into a Chicken Souvlaki at our new favourite taverna. The email came in, and we ordered an extra portion of Baklava to celebrate. I can't wait to get its name out there now .. and I can't tell you how excited I am about the relaunch. Let's hope there's gold at the end of that there rainbow ..  

I'm like, a creative, man ...

A small set of Corporate Portraits for you today, seeing as I spent yesterday afternoon shooting some new ones for one of my clients. I love arriving at what is basically a bland, empty office and being told "Get on with it!" - having to come up with a whole series of images from, well .. nothing! The portraits I shot yesterday are going to be made into posters to be hung all over this particular company's Manchester offices. They'll be seen by thousands of people, but I got just an hour and a half to recce the room, set up the lighting, shoot the shots of 20 staff members and de-rig so that the office was empty again for its next meeting. But that's - like - totally my scene, man! Hey, I even got to incorporate a little bit of sunshine into the picture! Just check out the image on the right! Ooooh, creativity! Je t'aime!...

Cheesy ..

You probably won't remember a blog I wrote in the summer, detailing the day I had just 15 minutes to arrange 200 people on a car-park into the shape of the name of their new company project, but I went back to that company yesterday to shoot some new pr stuff and ... wow! You know those moments you kinda think "I didn't charge enough!" .. ? Well that's how I felt yesterday, 'cos the image is everywhere! Two framed prints greet you in reception, it's up along the corridors as you walk through the building, it's a centre-spread in the in-house newspaper, it was the screensaver on the laptop of the key speech-maker at yesterday's event and it was projected onto the walls as a greeting to the attendees at the talk she was giving! Yowzer, where's a bloody bye-line when you need one? Anyway, you can check out the 'movie' of the whole thing here...

More pr photography today and this time I'm off back to a cheese factory in Cheshire (As opposed to a Cheshire Cheese factory) to shoot new images for their web-site update. I was there about 2 years ago and thought it was hilarious to squeal "Say Cheese" every time I took a shot! This time I'll stick a wedge in it! I don't think the staff could Camembert any more ...

Rubbish!

And so, with January in mind, I begin the process of throwing things away! This morning alone I've  filled two bin-bags with the rubbish that's accumulated in my desk draws. It's no wonder I couldn't find my bank statements when I needed them! Next I'll attack my shirts. I mean, who needs 25 stripey shirts? Are they still even in fashion? Were they ever? Oxfam here we come...

Another thing I'm getting rid of this month is my price list. I'm offering 10% off everything I shoot as long as it's booked in January. Weddings, PR and portraits! All with ten percent off for this month only.

Ps: Hope you like today's photograph. Shot outside Manchester's Museum of Science and Industry on Monday! What do you mean, it's rubbish?