Late ..

Too late! You missed it! My 'Eccles' exhibition at The People's History Museum in Manchester ended yesterday. That was quick! By all accounts it's gone down very well and I can't wait to pop back there tomorrow and pick up the Comments Book..

Sadly, something else ended yesterday. My Auntie died. Born in Northern Ireland but a resident of Eccles for the best part of her life, she was the mother of the lads in today's shot - my cousins, obviously - although poor Ricky, on the right, died many years ago.

Thank God for photographs .. 

All show ..

Easy when you know how and, thanks to a photography workshop I've just held, a few more keen amateur snappers have got to grips with how to use the aperture on their cameras. This demonstration of depth-of-field  - achieved by the mere twiddle of a thumb - was just one of the exercises we worked through on my first ever 'Walk in the park' tuition event on Saturday afternoon. I'm delighted to say it went really well and I really enjoyed showing people the basics of camera operation. Messages that have come in such as "I think I've cracked it" have really spurred me on to do another event very soon, too. Thanks to all the 'students' who braved the chilly Spring breeze to come along ..

I've been meaning to tell you about a new exhibition I'm going to have in Eccles but, believe it or not, I've now had another show offered to me that'll take place before the first one even goes up! Strewth, dudes, it's non-stop! I have a meeting about it tomorrow and I'll tell you about everything then. In the meantime, just a quick reminder that this is - sob, sob - the final week of my show at The People's History Museum in Manchester. Get on down there ..

Terrible ..

D'ya know, a man could get a complex! Following on from the recent 'Sh*t' email I received, I read this in the comments book of my exhibition on Saturday. I was at 'Made in Eccles' at The People's History Museum with some of my pals. I had to bribe them with booze to get them to come into Manchester, of course, but come in they did, and - despite the tears - a good time was had by all..

The comments book is filling up nicely. Some of the exhibition visitors even liked it! There are comments in there by a couple of other snapper mates, and even a few nice lines from a girl I used to date about 30 years ago!! One of the staff members told me a chap from Germany had come to the museum specifically to see my work, and on Saturday I chatted to a very nice couple from Middlesborough who said it didn't matter that the pictures were about Eccles, because it felt so similar to the working class area they'd grown up in in the North-East..

Blog update: No sooner had I posted today's blog than this photo was sent to me!..

So, not so terrible after all ..

Oh, Joy ..

Finally, finally I have a website dedicated to my Joy Division photographs .. and it's only taken me all of ten years since I first showed them to the world! JoyDivisionPhotos.com went live this morning and I'm delighted to be - at last - able to start promoting the site. In May I'll be kicking off a major Joy Division exhibition in Macclesfield, as well as several 'travelling' shows to tie in with a stage-play about the band. And all that, of course, is tied in with the - gulp - thirty-fifth anniversary of the death of lead singer Ian Curtis. Poignant still ...

The show at the People's History Museum is going well too, judging by the tweets that are coming out from people who have been to see it. Actually, if you'd planned to go and see it, it's down until Thursday because of other activities going on at the Museum. Bit of warning for ya there! ..

Great to get yet another Manchester Wedding Photography booking for a Wedding next year, but .. ask me how I got it! Go on, ask me! Did the couple Google me? Meet me at a Wedding Fayre? Pick up a flyer at a hotel? I'll tell ya tomorrow .. 

It's up! ..

Done! At last! Made in Eccles is up and running! I can finally relax! Actually, I'm aching all over today, pathetic as it sounds. I just didn't realise how much bending and stretching and reaching and hammering is involved in the hanging of over 100 photographs. Still, they're there now so I only hope that now I've "built it, the people will come"!..

Funnily enough, the first person to see the show was one of those ubiquitous Japanese tourists, who'd obviously been tootling around the rest of the museum and just carried on and wandered into my space, camera - inevitably - in hand! Now the last time a Japanese chap saw one of my exhibitions in Manchester he ended up staging it in Tokyo, providing me with a fantastic and memorable trip to the land of the Rising Sun! Now a good friend, Nobu rang me and asked if I'd "mind" if he put my Joy Division photographs on view in his home city. Mind?
No, I did not mind, and the rest, as they say ..
Here's hoping ...