Use your head..

Just when I start to really focus on the year's Weddings, there's a sudden flurry of PR activity! Yesterday was great for public relations enquiries and bookings, and April looks set to be busy on all fronts! I dived into my archive to find an appropriate shot to accompany today's blog and, to my amusement, came up with this image. I think this chap was the owner - or something high up! - in the American Golf Company. We needed to get a portrait for some news story or other, and I thought using his bonce as a tee would be a good idea! Now, it'll tell you everything you need to know when I say I shot this on 645 transparency film. In other words, it was pre-photoshop and we really did have to have someone swinging a golf club at the poor guy's nut! I asked him to look worried. I don't think I needed to! Funniest bit for me? Trying to celloptape the golf ball to his head! Fore...

Is it real, or is it....?

A photograph of Elliott Erwitt - my hero! - appeared on my Facebook page this morning. He was showing off a T shirt that said "Warning! Digital manipulation kills photography" Hmmm, discuss!

Well, I suppose it depends on what you mean by "manipulation" doesn't it?
I mean, I 'manipulate' my photographs on the computer. I dodge, burn, spot, crop, sharpen .. but it's nothing that I didn't do in the darkroom of old. If that were the case you could argue that using Ilford Multigrade filters was tantamount to 'manipulation'. Oooh, boosting the contrast are you? Damn it, don't you realise you're killing photography? So, in my book, manipulation means using all the crappy 'effects' that are offered in Photoshop. Turning someone green, with horns, and making them float above the moon in a tutu .. now that's manipulation! But 'killing photography'? Nah, it's just created another branch of ART. It's just another way of giving people an outlet for their latent creativity. I might not like it but, hey, I can't stand Adele and look how popular she is, so what do I know? If anything I think that kind of photography - let's called it photo-art, or phart, for short - just gives all the more meaning to my kind of photography. Real! Accurate! Trustworthy!...

Elliot Erwitt is killing T shirt design!

©Martin O'Neill 2012

He's gone and clicked the clone tool...

I put this shot on Facebook yesterday because, half way through making a Wedding album, it suddenly dawned on me that I'd photoshopped a Wedding image .. and liked it! What's happening to me? When did this kick in? Will I be alright?...

Loving this album I'm working on at the mo, though - from a Wedding at Manchester Town Hall, last November. Some gorgeous shots and some real fun moments, captured forever .. and photoshopped for the time being!

I have to be honest and say that, so far, this year isn't looking as good as previous years for Wedding bookings, but yet another booking for next year came in yesterday, and it's starting to look like people are deciding to say 'Stuff the recession! Let's get married!' I hope so! I'll even photoshop their pictures for them!

Cold Turkey!...

Ten days!!! That's how long I've been without Photoshop, and I'm going bananas! Ever since my Mac went to iHeaven I've not been able to do any work on any of my images, short of a little bit of tweaking in my newly acquired Lightroom software.

I need a red-eye fix! I need a line of lasso! A Gaussian mask to unsharpen my brain! I need to dodge! I need to burn! Gimme some hue, baby! Gimme some saturation! I gotta fix my levels, man! Aaaagh! Ahem, sorry! Oh, but please hurry up, Mr Postman. Lay some CS on me, dude! I'm gonna go crazy!

Oh, you are NOT going to believe this! He's just knocked on the door and handed me a lovely new CS5.
Kindly mother, father disregard this letter......

(PS! That backside? Belongs to Brian Connolly, the late, great lead-singer with The Sweet! Let's just say I think he'd been enjoying some tasty sampling, too, when I went to his house for this shoot....!)

©Martin O'Neill 2012

Er, press that one...

So I've finally got a smart-phone! All singing, all dancing, app filled and fantastic! The only thing it doesn't do is make me look smart! I stand over it, squinting at the screen with my spex on my head, slavering with my tongue hanging out, flicking through the screens like some perv with a porn mag and screaming with frustration as menus go flying past me! It's keeping me up at night, too (The phone, not the porn mag!) Emails that my computer just flings straight to the trash ping merrily onto my Samsung at regular intervals through the wee small hours, and I'm sure my electricity bill has doubled with the amount of times I have to charge it! Leave it with me is all I can say! I'll get the hang of it!

So, my picture of ye olde quaint phone box seems an appropriate illustration for today's blog. It's from my 1980's series, Don't Miss That, and it brought up an interesting point. If you look closely you can see the horse's bridle, held by the caller in the phone box, and oooh, it would be so easy these days to simply photoshop that out. If I did that, though, I would completely change the meaning of the photograph. I'd be saying that yes, the horse is queueing to use the phone, which is, of course, completely untrue. As it stands, the reality of it suggests the horse is standing in line, which is so much more funny than simply 'making it' queue there with computer trickery. Grr, I hate photoshopped imagery! Is there an app for that?..

Far out!..

I just love this incredible new Deep-Space image from The Hubble Telescope. Somewhere out in the constellation of Taurus, it shows dust lanes, galaxies, nebulae and at least one supernova, and it all took a kerzillion years for the light to actually reach us!

Naaaaa! It's a pile of bird poo I saw on the way to the paper shop! Just my little dig at people who feel that Photoshop is more important than photography! Taurus? Bull !