Continental '82

 

 

 

 

 

 I do like a project for the winter. In the past I've concentrated on fiction-writing and my photo-books, but this year I'm using the time to sort out a box of negatives I've had since 1982. That was the year I spent five weeks criss-crossing America on a Continental Airlines Visit USA air-pass, which allowed me unlimited flight all over the continent. I think it cost £200, and I went over with just £200 in my pocket, travelling from New York and New Hampshire to Seattle, Houston to San Francisco and Boston to Denver, dossing in airports or with pen-friends or friends of friends, as well as a second-uncle of my Dad's and even a very kind Californian lady whose photograph I took when she visited Warrington to campaign against proposed nuclear weapon storage at the former RAF Burtonwood (I think!)

I travelled light, carrying only my trusty Olympus XA camera, and I shot Ilford HP5 and Kodak Tri-X to produce well over 500 black and white negatives, all of which have just been sitting in this box for the last 43 years. Now I've started scanning them to digital, transporting myself back to when I was just 22 with untold adventure ahead of me. (Although, I must admit, I've already seen some things I can't even remember anymore. There's a shot of me with a vast grassy canyon behind. Turns out it's Cannon Mountain in upstate New Hampshire. Not a single memory of it! Would never even have known I'd been there without that photographic evidence!!) I see the work as my own personal Stephen Shore road-trip, or a Robert Frank tribute, and I'll produce a book of course, to go (unsold) with all the others I've produced. But, hey ho, it's worth it for the creative satisfaction I'm getting. Continental '82 is what it'll be called. Available in no good book shops ..

The shots above show a 'cowboy' on a vast, empty DC-10, and a skinny oik with pretensions to photographic grandeur on the deck of a Staten Island ferry. Ah, the joys of youth ..

 

Me, me, Moorea ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have a relative - a second cousin, I think (never met her!) - who is currently travelling in India and Nepal. I know this because she puts about sixty photographs a day on Instagram. (Me in a bar, me at the Taj Mahal, me in a tuk-tuk .. etc., etc., etc .. ) Now, I've no qualms with this and think it's lovely that she can relay the story of her trip to friends and family back home. It just reminds me of the time I did a round-the-world trip in 1991. Back then there were no mobile 'phones, no internet, no nothing! I shot all my photographs on Kodachrome 64 transparency film and posted the rolls home so that my Dad could forward them on for processing at Kodak's Hemel Hempstead labs. I didn't see a single one of my shots for six months. Now I know that's hardly Amundsen and the Antarctic, but it does show you how far things have come in such a short period of time, doesn't it? 

Ps: Since you ask, this is me on the island of Moorea, scene of one of my favourite films of all time. The bay on the left was deemed to be more photogenic and therefore used instead of Tahiti in The Bounty, with Anthony Hopkins. It looked so beautiful on screen that I just had to go and see it in 'real life'. I wasn't disappointed ..

Riding the Dirty Dog ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In 1985 I caught a Greyhound Bus in Detroit and didn't get off until Los Angeles seven days later. Yes, I spent an entire week travelling across America on the lovingly-named 'dirty dog', and now I've published a collection of 80 photographs from the trip, all shot on Kodachrome 64 colour transparency film. Like all my other photo-books, it costs just ten squids, and is available here. But why did I put myself through such an ordeal? Ah well, you'll have to buy the book to find out ..

Jumping for joy ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

So many good things happened at the weekend (and I don't just mean in the FA cup!) that I'm surprised I can get my head through the door this morning ..

Out of the blue, I received a message on Facebook saying "I'm LOVING seeing your work, absolutely fantastic. So inspiring .." and then an email came in saying "I always enjoy your bloggy ramblings." (Here's the next one, Simon!) As if that wasn't enough, I was contacted by a Scottish chap who's started reading my first book 'Page 99, by Joe Bancroft', having been sent it by a friend who'd read it on the Gold Coast in Australia. From Brisbane to John o' Groats, no less ..

Speaking of long journeys, today's photograph is one of the Kodachrome slides I've scanned as I move towards making a new travel-photography book. Can't wait to announce its launch ..

 

 

Two today! ..

Two today! Culcheth Photo Studio has been open for two years exactly!..

Well, what can I say? The honest answer is .. I'm amazed I'm still here! I'll hold my hands up and say it hasn't been quite as busy as I'd have liked, and I've been on the verge of closing down quite a few times. However, it's lovely to have 'a place of my own' and I intend to keep it on as long as is economically viable. I thought two pictures of other 'struggling' brothers - taken on my travels - would be appropriate images for today! Here's to the next two years...

Hit the road, Jack ..

There's a cloud of dust and sand blowing up into the UK from the Sahara today, and its timing couldn't be more appropriate as I'm suffering a severe bout of wanderlust this morning! I decided I'd add a Travel Photography page to my website and so, yesterday, set off trawling through files and files of colour slides of trips I've taken in the past. Big mistake! I'm now absolutely pining for journeys I've made and places I've been and seen. Tahiti! Brazil! Australia! Noo Yoik!!
Oh, I wanna go back..

Still, it's a good job I took photographs, eh? And all on good old Kodachrome, too! Kodachrome 64, pushed to 80 ASA, if you're interested! I got through boxes and boxes of the stuff over the years and ok, the slides take up space but, call me old-fashioned, I really love having folder after folder of physical, tangible images to pick up and look at. You won't be saying that when you can't find your iphone holiday shots of Greece, will ya?..

Anyway, here's me, pointing out where I was during a trip around Australia. On the Nullarbor Highway, since you ask! And where am I hitting the road to today?
Eccles! I'll tell you about that trip tomorrow ..