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?..    

Oh, yes...

I was chillin' and having some 'me' time last evening - you know the kind of thing - gin in glass, Smiths on turntable .. and a copy of a Japanese Photography magazine in my hands. It's called Camera Life, and I bought it when I went over to Tokyo for my Joy Division exhibition. Trouble is, it being in Japanese and all that, I haven't the foggiest idea what it's actually going on about! However, it comes with a strap-line - in English (Well, almost!) - across the front page, and I wanted to share it with you. It says ..

"Camera Life proposes happiness to your camera and photograph life"

Isn't that great? Wouldn't you just want that as a photographer?

Guess what! I've got it!...

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?

Grrr, nash....

Heard a new terrm yesterday..Bridesmaidzilla!  (Not these two little sweeties, obviously!)
A bride came to collect her Wedding Album, and was telling me how one of her bridesmaids was an absolute horror on the Big Day! Nothing was right..the dress was too tight, the make-up the wrong shade, her hair too floppy....
Gulp, I'm glad I didn't get on her bad side!