Cancelled ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After seven years of retirement, I've grown used to a life without clients - worrying about getting their bookings, getting my name 'out' to them, doing a good job for them and trying to ensure I got further work from the little darlings. Last night I dipped my toe back into that world again, after agreeing to photograph the new members of a village council. And what happened? The job got cancelled .. a mere ten minutes before I was due to leave the house! Oh, how it took me back to all the fun and games of 'working for a living' ..

Anyway, unashamed plug time. Rob Bremner, a well-respected documentary photographer, has got his sticky mitts on my Café Royal book and felt moved to say he thought it was "up there with the best Café have done". Thanks so much for that, Rob. Really appreciated. (I still have a few available - signed - for just £10 in the UK if you're interested!)..

Another of my favourite Christmas photographs for you today. Taken at least forty years ago. I mean, where would you see a waitress now with a fag in her gob? I love the lady approaching from the right. Looks like she's ready to give her a right b*llocking. I wonder if her job got cancelled ..

Hooray for XA ..

I dusted down one of my old Olympus XA cameras last weekend, took it to the Southport Air Show and pointed it at .. people! Got some nice pix, too! (Click the montage to get a closer look!) Oh, yes .. this is what I've been missing! The kind of close up, in yer face photography that I shot so much of in the past. Now, I almost steer away from it. The fear of getting whalloped, attacked or called a paedo has kept my camera in my pocket and my self-value as a street photographer in the waste basket! I've just not dared do it, to be honest. I've not dared shoot the kind of photography that I shot all the time in 'the olden days'! The days when you weren't thought of as sleazy because you wanted to photograph someone, the days when a subject thought it was practically a form of flattery to be asked to pose, or to be amused if they 'clocked' me taking their photograph. I filled a book with shots like those - Don't Miss This, available in the foyer! - and, guess what, I intend to fill another one now! I've priced up dev and scan at Asda, and I've started ordering film in five packs. Oh, yes! Da boy is back! The Olympus is back. Hooray for XA!..

HP5 v Pixels ..

This photograph is one of my own personal favourites. I took it at an Air Show in Manchester around 1980. Last night I was scrolling through 'My Archive' - as it's grandly called on the Mac - and it occurred to me that, if I were to put one of the pictures from it online every day, it would still take over three years just to show you all of my favourite black and white shots! That fact I found amazing! And that's without all my colour shots - the travel stuff, the slide library! Man, when I had my little Olympus XA camera I just shot and shot and shot! And those were the days when you had to buy film, and spend money on darkroom materials (Not to mention the time to process and print everything!) I have nothing against digital photography - seeing as I use it all the time! - but it does make me feel good knowing I was a photographer when the art needed a certain amount of skill, knowledge and know-how! Smug gloating over...   

Whatever floats your boat ..

A well-known Garden Centre near me has just launched its annual amateur photographic competition. The entries will be hung in the centre's restaurant to be judged by the public and the winner will get a £50 voucher to spend in the store and a framed print of .. er, their own photograph! Eh? Call that a prize? Oooh, what a lovely photograph, but where have I seen that before?...

Let's not mock, though I can see that's going to have the rainbows and robins, sunsets and seashore shots a' flyin' in! Oh, sorry, taking the mickey again but, for balance, I've put up my own photograph of Carrickfergus Castle just to show you we all have our cliché moments!

Anyway, I mention this because it's exactly one year today until an exhibition of my work opens in Manchester. I'm having a show of my Archive photography at The People's History Museum, based on the premise of what it was like to be 'working class' in the 70s. I'm off there this very morning - one year to the opening day - to discuss the details, but I can guarantee you my pretty harbour shot won't get within a million miles of the walls! Still, whatever floats your boat ..  

Rocktober ..

Ok, wind instruments aren't exactly 'rock' but, seeing as everyone says I use this blog to blow my own trumpet, I thought this picture would be appropriate as the first image this new month. It's from the October installment of Twelve for '13, my documentary photography archive from Eccles and Manchester and, boy, you're in for a treat this month as I've not only uploaded eight more images than normal .. but two of 'em are in colour! Spoiling you!..

So, October, Rocktober, Stoptober .. call it what you will and, if you're doing something selfless for charidee this month then I hope you succeed, but the only thing I'm going to stop is my sporadic forays into the National Lottery. I'm sure Gilbert O'Sullivan's delighted that his old song's seeing the light of day on their advert, but I notice no-one mentions on it that the ticket price is going up a quid!
Hey, who knows  .. they might change their minds and start charging a pound again. Then they could use 'Get Down' as the soundtrack! Now that's rock!!...

(No it isn't, Martin! Get a grip....)

Are you crazy?..

Blog? On a hot day like this? Are you crazy, who's going to read it? Everyone'll be outside, catching the rays at long, long last! Actually, the thought of people sunbathing put me in mind of this photograph, which I took at Barton Air Show in the late 70s. It's a sight you see often and, as I gear up to hit yet another air-show this July, I just can't help wondering why! Why go all the way to an air-show and .. sleep? I mean, these things aren't cheap, and you can always sleep .. well, at night .. so why miss all the aircraft you'd been looking forward to seeing all year? The funnier thing about this photograph, which you might not be able to see in this low-res version, is that the sunbather's wife is actually asleep .. in the car! She didn't even make it outside! Hurrah for crazy people! They make great subject matter for us photographers ..

Time machine..

Oh, my God, Doctor, what is it? A kind of Tardis? Have aliens finally landed? Who is that giant woman? And what does Kodak mean?

Keep calm, son! That's not a space-ship, it's an enlarger! A what, Doctor? An enlarger, dear boy! A Vivitar colour enlarger. Believe it or not in the old days, if you wanted prints, you had to lock yourself away for hours in a dark room with one of these bad boys and bucketloads of smelly chemicals! Oh, wow Doctor, so it is a Tardis - it's a time-machine from photography long ago! Ha, yes, my son, I suppose it is. That and the Kodak sign. Kodak were one of the companies that produced the paper to make the prints, you see. Ah, yes, they're all signs of an era long ago and far away and, do you know, that enlarger's gone from having a price tag of £393 in this photograph to being sold on ebay last week for £19.99. Old technology, see. Wow Doctor, that's amazing! But, doctor, one last question. Yes, my son? What's a print?

When I were a lad...

I've done it! I've bloody done it! After months of searching through thousands of negatives, scanning hundreds of strips of film and cleaning up the scratches and dust of 35 years in a box .. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you .. MY ARCHIVE!

At last! It's finished! Over 900 photographs from my early photographic years! Man, I can't tell you how good that feels! And it looks amazing! I can't believe (he said modestly) that I was taking photographs like these when I was just 17 and 18 years old. They're fantastic! And they work on two levels (I think!) They work as pure and simple 'documents' of the 1970s and early 80s, recording the styles, fashions and environments of the time, but they also work (I like to think!) as interesting, amusing, eye-catching photographs in their own right. And they're so descriptive of my small-town upbringing as a teenager. (Never went to restaurants! Never travelled abroad! Aw...) They show Eccles market (a lot), they show the estate on which I grew up - and the people I grew up with - they show Barton Air Show, they show the bus rides I took as a lad, the shop-fronts, the power station, the old Morisson's supermarket, the chip shops, the Army Cadets, the clubs I began to go to, the cars, the flares .. and the all-prevalent smoking, and it's sad to think that so many, many of the people and places in the pictures are now all long gone! It's been a real trip back for me, and I have such a sense of pride that I've finally managed to finish the project. Of course, the important thing now is getting it seen, so it's over to Flickr and the hope that you all might let your pals know about my body of work. I've decided to release 80 images on the first day of each month of the coming year and all, of course, will be available for licensing or for purchase as prints. There'll be a small exhibition in Eccles in January, too - finalised details to come!

Man, I am so pleased I joined St Pat's camera club when I was thirteen...

Happy Families....

I went to Ikea yesterday, completely forgetting it was half-term! Eeek, there were kids everywhere although thankfully Ikea, thinking of everything, had most of 'em corralled up in a play area by the front of the store! Anway, that's my way of introducing another shot from my archive! I must have shot this around 1980, and I seem to remember it was in a park in Irlam, near Manchester. It hits home on quite a few levels, the first one obviously being the fact that I could randomly photograph a Dad and his kids, without asking, in a public park. I'd be swinging from the nearest tree if I did that these days! And I love the fact that it portrays such simple pleasures. It's not a play-area, used to keep kids quiet whilst parents shop; it's not a commercial 'theme' park, designed to sell associated espensive products, it's just a normal park, with a normal family .. having fun! 

The reason I like it most, though, is because you can see it's been shot right at the begining of a roll of film. I'd seen the shot, but obviously needed to reload my camera, so I'd got the film just about on the spool when I took the picture! Ah! Simple pleasures!

New foundations...

So, it's time for the Tories to 'up sticks' today and buzz off from our quaint Northern town again. I heard at least one of 'em talking about how surprised he was to see the sun shining in Manchester! Oh, how we laughed! Grrrr! And I love the fact that David Cameron will today tell us to "pay off our credit cards" So how does he expect...

Ooops! Got a bit distracted there! Anyway, after Sunday's little TUC demo, here's another dip into my archive and a look at a more pleasant march through our 'town'. That lad will be nudging forty years old by now, I reckon, and look at the old Marks and Spencer building behind him. Remember that? Pre-bomb? Well, I once stood right at the bottom of the huge hole they dug when they knocked down the damaged building. Some 'big-wig' had come up from M&S to ceremonially dig the first spadeful of the new store. I excitedly asked just what would be on this exact spot when the new building went up. "Oh, nowt.." said the gaffer "This is just the foundation for the crane!"..