Girls on Film!..

Yes, it's another photograph of me .. and hey, why not? Here I am, posing like Vivian Maier, except ..er, in colour, with no shadow across my face .. and without a Rollieflex 6x6 camera. Otherwise .. perfect likeness! The film, Finding Vivian Maier, finally came to Manchester this week, and I made sure I was one of the first people to see it. I absolutely love her work! If you don't know the story she was a nanny in Chicago who used to take pictures in her spare time. Lots of pictures! Thousands and thousands of pictures, which she strangely kept hidden from the world and which were only discovered after her death. Go and see the film to find out more. Highly recommended...

Some of my future brides might also be 'girls on film', too! By a strange coincidence a young couple who came to see me about their Wedding photography on Saturday asked if I was able to shoot some pictures on film for them! This was just days after I'd ordered a pack of 120 film and some new batteries to 'fire up' my old Mamiya RZ67 - a camera that uses the same size film as Vivian's Rollieflex. It was the beast on which I used to shoot all the colour pictures when I photographed a Wedding in 'the old days', and I'd already decided to start offering 'real' photos at Weddings as a special part of my packages, so was delighted when these guys asked about the possibility!..

Now I just need to dig out my old Duran Duran album ..

Squaresville, Arizona ..

My Fuji X10 camera has an option on it that allows one to shoot square images and so, suitably inspired by Vivian Maier's 6x6 self-portraits, I've decided to try and shoot a few of my 'snaps' in a square format for a while. (By the way, how do you make the symbol for 2 and a quarter on a keyboard?) Of course, I'm well used to shooting square photographs, as I shot all my Weddings on a Mamiya RZ67 and I've used a Yashicamat for years, but it's nice to rethink one's framing techniques again after a long time with a 'normal' camera, and these four pictures are good examples from the last three days.

My next Wedding Fayre is on the horizon, and this one is the first opportunity to really push The Culcheth Collection in person! Both myself and Decadence Wedding Carriages will be at Statham Lodge in Lymm on Sunday - the Car and Camera parts of The Collection - and we'll be promoting a special offer whereby if any of you lovely brides book us both you'll receive an added 'extra' from each of us! Be there or - ho ho - be square!..

Those days have gone ..

Here's another of the shots that's going up on the walls of my studio this week. Fun, funky, modern .. permitted! It ties in with something I wanted to tell you about. There's a programme on tv tonight about Vivian Maier, the 'Mary Poppins' of photography who worked as a nanny in Chicago whilst quietly taking thousands and thousands of photographs, simply for herself. She lived in a time when - it seems - she had absolutely no problem in going right up to people on the streets and taking their photograph. "Maier .."  it is said, "disarmed kids and their parents with her camera and was welcome in their world." Well, as you'll have seen from my archive, even I lived in a time when it was absolutely accepted that you could take photographs in the street but, since then, I've already had two episodes of having "Paedo!" shouted at me by young children when I've tried to take their photographs in the recent past, and it's pretty terrifying, I can tell you! So, it's the studio life for me! Kids, yes .. but with their parents firmly in tow and giving their full permission for me to shoot. Sad, eh?...

#culchethportraitstudio

Maier may not!....

I shot this yesterday afternoon, and threw it straight into my 'Seen' project on Flickr. Pretty wild, isn't it? Makes you wonder what you're actually looking at! (Answers in the comments section, please!) I did a double-take myself yesterday when I logged on to look at a new sale of Vivian Maier prints at a gallery in London. They're going from £1, 300 upwards! Limited Editions of 15 prints! So ok, I won't be owning one of those any time soon! I hate all that art world snobbery of the limited edition. What does it matter if you buy the first or the 3 millionth in a run of prints. Unless you only print ONE of anything then every single other print is a copy, and you might as well shove 'em on your website for a tenner each! Oh, cue commercial break. Hey, wanna buy one of my unlimited edition Twelve for '13 prints? The nearest I get to four figures with these mamas is if I put in the decimal point! £15.00? Bargain!...

Darn Sarf....

Went Darn Sarf for a coupla days last week. Tourist hat on .. Tower of London, Kew Gardens and all that jazz! The main reason for the trip, though, was to see the photography exhibitions of both Thomas Struth at the Whitechapel Gallery, and Vivian Maier, at the German Gymnasium. Wow! All I can say is get there! Go see 'em! Especially the Maier .. though that ends on the 24th, so hurry up!
Hate to say it though, but as usual the best thing about London was the road out of the place!
Man! So many people!! How does anyone get used to that?