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Today is 'Je lis' day in France. (I read!) And it has delighted me to see that my blog is still read a lot (3.7k visitors last week), even though I don't put up as many posts as I used to. But why do I blog? I was asked the question over a lovely dinner this weekend. "Because I like writing," I answered, and I felt for the most part that was true. However, just a few years back, my response would have been 'To promote my work' and I realise now that's still true, too. What Princess Anne has to do with it I have no idea, but I thought I'd show you one of the earliest 'Royal' pictures I ever shot - Autumn, 1978.

Anyway ..  (Here comes the commercial break) .. can I interest you in reading one of my books?

There is a light ..

I must be mellowing in my old age! I only got told off twice yesterday for getting too close to Princess Anne on her visit to Manchester. I got the PR booking to photograph her during a walkabout at a City Centre company and so - hey, you know - if I've been booked to take pictures then I'll get into the best positions I can to get 'em! I loved the fact that she had her own name badge printed out, though I think Special Branch should have had a word with her, too, 'cos she didn't wear it once and nobody could tell who she was!!

It really was busy yesterday, with the 'Royal' job sandwiched between trips to The Lowry in Salford to cover an international business conference! I then ended up at The Imperial War Museum North last night to photograph the start of their dinner, and now I'm dashing about producing 101 framed prints of all the delegates so they can take them home when the conference ends today!

Oh, and there were two Wedding enquiries and two portrait bookings at the studio..

Tunnel! Light at end of?....

Oh, my Lord ..

Well, I never! Now I'm no prude but I got the shock of my life yesterday when I happened to open a newspaper that someone had left in a staff canteen. I was killing time at the supermarket in which I was working and there, beside someone's half-eaten ham butty, was a copy of a UK tabloid. I think it was the Star - not sure - 'cos I haven't looked at one of those rags for a long time and - as I now know - for good reason! Thing is, I briefly scanned the front page story about the guy called Trotter who, apparently, knew he was going to win that disgusting amount of money on the lottery, and turned to the inner pages. There, pointing straight at me, was a pair of tits! Stopped me in me tracks! (Well, it would!) OMG! Do they still do that? Naked girls in the paper? You're kidding! How very 1979!...

Ah!1979! I knew there was a point to this story (Two points, if you'll allow me a pathetic joke!) Sorry, I was getting distracted by breasts! Yes, I was going to tell you about 1979 because, next week, I'm booked to photograph Princess Anne for the first time since I shot her (Oops!) that year. She was opening the new Greater Manchester Police headquarters in Stretford, and you know it's a long time ago 'cos the bloody building's been demolished a year already! I'm thinking it was the first time I'd ever been on a Royal Rota and here I am, the 18 year old version of me as a Press Photographer, all Vivitar flash and Yashica, doing my thing with Annie. Like the Joy Division blog earlier in the week, the realisation has dawned on me that this was 35 years ago! Oh, my Lord..

Hand it over! ..

There was a time when, now and again, you'd shoot a PR job and then have to hand the film over to the PR company. Various reasons - the company might want to take the film back to process in London, for example, or deadlines were tight and there was no time to get prints across to a company. (There was no duplicating of images onto parallel memory cards, or getting photographs emailed back to you after the job in those days!) The thing is, I did it twice when it really hurt! Once was when I photographed a band called Take That - who you may have heard of!! - but who were the support at a Radio One roadshow I was shooting, and once when I was the official photographer to the Queen. She opened The Festival of Food and Farming in Hyde Park in 1989, and I was the only photographer allowed to cover her doing the honours for the sponsors, ASDA supermarkets, who took all the film back to their HQ to make a big song-and-dance exhibition of it all. Well, I've long given up on the Take That shots, but I've been trying to get hold of some of my photos of Her Maj to show you in her Jubilee Year. The thing is, I don't think half the staff in the offices there were even born when I shot them, so trying to explain about negatives is unfortunately falling on stony ground.  However, the search goes on, and I'll keep you in the picture .. but you can't have the film!! By the way, the picture today shows me -aged 18 or 19- shooting Princess Anne on a visit to Manchester! I can't remember who gave me this print, but at least somebody kept hold of their negatives! ;-)