It's Life, Gym!

Two nice pictures used in this week's Crain's Manchester Business.
Coupla great guys who've set up a gym 'with a difference' in Stockport.
(Think you can guess that by the bloody great tyre!)

Smile, flower!

The Manager at High Legh Garden Centre hams it up as he heads past my exhibition..yes, it's on the wall at last!
Go see it, or check out the images here......

I've worked hard on this..I hope you like it!

I'm on TV, ma....

Well, my new advert is!
I've got a small commercial running on a new plasma screen TV within Warrington Registry Office, so check me out if you're popping in to register your forthcoming marriage or the arrival of little Freddie...

Bloomin' Amazin' !!

Ladies and Gentlemen..I give you....My New Exhibition !!

Wow!

No words needed...Well done that snapper!
(Marco Fulle...)

Tentative link...

...and bugger all to do with anything, but I just got Facebook'd this link, and had to share it.
I shot this photo of poor old Steve Wotsit, from that old Vets programme (I obviously paid attention!) for OK! Magazine about a zillion years ago. It fits in nicely 'cos it's all to do with animals and Steve looks like...the great JAKE THACKRAY!

Goin' Nowhere....

My mate went shopping at Iceland the other day..he was asked if he wanted "ash back"...hahahah...

Sorry, I guess it's not funny if this whole Mother Nature Moment is affecting you, but at least it gives me another chance to show an old shot of Manchester Airport, with a good ol' Pan-Am 727 in the foreground, and a British Airways VC-10 behind.

Anyways..back to the comp to get my Florescence show finished...two days before it goes up at High Legh Garden Centre....

Following the white trails of planes...

 ..except..they've gone!

I wanted to do a shot to show the skies sans con-trails, now that flying's banned over the UK.
But, let's face it..a picture of clear blue sky is just a picture of clear blue sky..even when shot by an artist like wot I am !!!
Then...the sun went down last night and...da daaaaaaa....the new moon, with Venus just below it...and not a jet-trail in sight!

(Following the white trails of planes, by the way, is an album by Chris Rainbow from about 1978 !)
Far out, maaaan!

Up the wall, flower!

Oooh , good news! My photographs of flowers and leaves - Florescence - is going up on de walls...!
High Legh Garden centre, near Lymm, is giving me a space to show my "art" from Tuesday 20th, for four weeks. Drop by, buy snowdrops...see my snaps.....Sneak Preview here....!!

Anything interesting happen at work today, dear..?

Oh, the usual........NOT!

(This shot taken from my Eccles series...)

Just put it there...

Shot a portrait for a newspaper yesterday that involved this hunky guy that runs his own gym in Stockport. Had fun arranging the flash to light a man in black sitting in a black tyre on a black mat in a dark room...but I think I did alright!!

Boardom!

Right...I'm all blogged out so here we go with the last one of the day...

Well..it's another of my projects that I want you to see....

It's called BOARDOM...not a spelling mistake as you'll see when you click.....

Lift Off!

So..time to pile into the old negs again...and further to my blog the other day about the difficulties/dangers of street photography today..take a look at these.
Shot at Manchester Airport in the '70's...or Ringway, as it was called then! Man, you could walk around anywhere and it didn't cross your mind to lob a grenade off the terrace, or pick off a pilot with your Gat gun....(Or maybe it's just 'cos I was 17 and more interested in the photography 'n planes!!!) Just look at the crowds above the jet! Ah, innocent times...but hey, Laker, Dan-Air...great memories for the plane-spotters amongst you (Me included, obviously!)
One or two more here...

Hello Flower!

It's finished!
Just in time for Spring...Florescence is my fantastic new collection of 142 flower and plant photographs, designed as a set of amazingly vivid 48 inch montages...So pleased to have finally finished this project, and thrilled with how it looks! Even better news is it looks like I've got somewhere to show 'em, too!
Stay tooned....I might even invite you to the opening!!

Sun's Out !

Well..it was briefly, and it reminded me of one of my recently re-discovered photographs...sun-bathers in Manchester. Look again..the whole of that square is now built on and unrecognisable...the shot's over 20 years old! A fine example of a simple snap now describing history...something it's becoming more and more difficult to do with the growth of the public paranoia over photography...correction, the paranoia over public photography. It's bloody nerve-wracking to point a camera in the street these days. One steels oneself for an angry investigation and undeserved suspicion. In the 'old days' I could quite confidendently walk up to people, camera in hand, and be rewarded with a smile and a thank-you..people were flattered to be photographed! Gone are the days when I could merrily shoot shots like these....The irony being, of course, that we live in a digital world...where EVERYONE is a photographer and they're taking public photographs all the time!
Without being stored though, never mind being printed...those photographs/memories/slices of history just disappear into the Flickrsphere, never to be seen again.

Now, where's my sunscreen?...and don't even get me started on sunshine being bad for us....!

Commercial Photography

Ha ha ha...Commercial Photography...So THAT'S how you do it !!!
This is so funny.... It's all about Light..you need it from a direction !!

Out on the town..

..for an photographic exhibition opening at the Royal Exchange in Manchester.  Old and New City is a show by a coupla pals of mine. Howard Barlow and David Dunnico have had their vastly differing shots thrown together by the theatre for the run of their current performance, A Comedy of Errors (Don't read anything into that, guys!!)
Great pix..go check 'em out...

RIP Dude.....

So, Malcolm McLaren has left the building...sad day.
Photographed him at an 'In the City' event in Manchester many moons ago, and he was really lovely.
How bland would the music world have been without his genius??

Dream on.....

One in, one out...???

Looks like curtains for our Lenny & Dawn, but as one marriage sadly fades, an exciting new one pops up on the horizon. Hey guys..looking for a photographer??

Tough Times....

No, not petrol at £1.20 a litre...I'm talking about the hard times that Professional Photographers are currently enduring. Currently? Hmmm...I see it going on after the recession is over, because we've been hit by a double-whammy! The recession AND the fact that, with digital cameras, everyone suddenly thinks they can do our job! An article in the New York Times, as well as one in Sunday's Observer, spelt it out....

To the pub...Raise your glasses!

An odd sight at my local last Saturday...a whole room full of people wearing dark glasses. Not a mass hang-over, but the 3D showing of the Manchester United game! Clever stuff how these new spex work..gone are the old green and red days and in comes polarisiation..or something !
Technology moves on...just need to work on the scoreline now!

Died on Good Friday....

No..not HIM...this guy! One shot..photographic fame..then the irony of not getting work becasue people thought he'd be too expensive! Pain in the ass!

Back to basics....

Just puttin' out the feelers....a few people have approached me asking if I'd run a tuition event..maybe a full-blown course, or perhaps just a half-day get-together ..just to get folks up to speed with their hi-faluttin' digi cameras...would that be of interest to anyone?

Happy Easter everybody!

Ah, Easter....Spring..Bank Holidays...Relaxation...!

Yeah, right! Well, I guess it's a sign of the hard times we're having, but I will be having a break this Easter, as I don't have a wedding booking...boo hoo! Hell of a change from my Press days at the Manchester Evening News when Easter was always so busy. Four days off? No chance..but I loved every minute and photographed everything from Easter Egg hunts to Spring Fairs and everything in between....(Cutting edge journalism, eh?) Have a good 'un, y'all !

We have lift off!

More Red Arrows but using this fab print to try a new sort of photographic selling online...

Yeah !

Now that's what it's all about....a really fun Wedding with a funky, happy Bride & Groom.. lots of laughs...challenging light (Sunny! Grrr....!) .. I've come away tired, sweaty (ugh!) but creatively satisfied as I struggled with the constantly changing light and the er..stiff breeze!

Had a blast....and so pleased for Jane & Brian...

Flies by!

Time, that is!
Just reading the other day about the Red Arrows crash in Cyprus. Took my mind back to this picture, which I shot when I was a mere lad of twenty (1980..save you the maths!)
It was the Manchester Air Show, and the Arrows were wrapping the show in their typically fantastic fashion. I was trying to get a shot of the two 'singleton' jets as they crossed each other. Show over, I shot back to the darkroom to develop my film (Sigh!) and was disappointed to see this was the shot I got. Yes, disappointed...you couldn't see the two jets and their lovely crossed smoke trails.
Luckily for me my old boss, the legend that is Eddie Fuller, had a second look at the negatives, and saw the frame. He made me print it..it went front page of the paper and won me Photographer of the Year (with a nice congratulatory letter from the head of the Red Arrows!)
They say a photographer sometimes doesn't spot his own good shots...I certainly proved it that day!

Flower Power!

Wow!!!

I'm just finishing a project that's taken me...quite a while!
It's a montage of 158 flower photographs, measuring 9 feet by 3 feet!!..
All shot on trannie, then scanned, then individually spotted and photoshopped..then added to the giant finished product!

It looks incredible and I'm really pleased with it (Thank God!)
Can't wait for 'my public' to see it..Grand unveiling to be announced!

Tweet, tweet!

So, I've joined Twitter, which gives me an excuse to use my picture of this wonderful bird in Egypt. I think you can tweet me at Motakesphotos ...give it a go!

Anyway...the week ticks on and I've just taken a Wedding booking from a Lord and Lady, no less. September Wedding, 300 guests..better make sure my wide-angle's in the bag that day!

The Artist at work...

Sorry, couldn't resist adding a shot of myself. I've been kind to you all and left myself way outta focus!!

Twice as Nice!

See...you wait three months for a Bride, then two come along at the same time!
I was shooting my bride at The Midland Hotel in Manchester when in came another bride heading for her reception. I couldn't resist inviting her over for a quick fun shot with Steph.
In fact it was so quick I didn't even get the lovely lady's name...but congratulations to you both!

Have to say it's great to kick off my ELEVENTH year of wedding photography..lots of great bookings ahead .. fab people and groovy venues.. Bring it on!!

Ah, down to business!

Hurrah...My 2010 Wedding Season starts today and I can't wait !
First day of Spring, cameras dusted and charged, suit ready and.....rain!
At least it's a little milder than the last wedding I shot!

Anyway, off to the lovely Midland Hotel in Manchester for what will be a hectic event..with just an hour and half to get all my shots taken...but I thrive on that kind of deadline and am dying to let rip with all cameras blazing!

Talk to you later and let you know how it all went!

SPRING...At Last !!!!!!

Spring, at last.....and the frogs are up 'n spawning in me little pond.
But first they took time to pose for a family portrait!
Move over bruv!....Ribbit!

You're 'avin' a larf!

Great example of the way photography's value has declined in the eyes of others...

I've just been approached by a company to shoot a few trial shots of their new product, just to see if we could work together. I spent a whole morning in my studio trying out different lighting arrangements / product set-ups, etc., and showed the company the photographs. They liked them so much they asked if they could use two of these 'pre-shots in a magazine.

I was really pleased, until they said they'd pay TEN POUNDS per image....They didn't get the images!!!

That's a real shame for both of us, but I'm gonna stay on my high-horse and defend the worth of all that work. To them, they just saw images that they liked and wanted...to me that was a morning's shoot and 32 years of experience..(working on my own, without the client present, I might add!) coming together to get what the client wanted, but didn't want to pay for.

That's another reason I don't "Just put our wedding pictures on a CD"....like amateurs do.
Why am I going to give a client ALL my photographs, without getting sufficient financial recompense? I mean. the option I offer, with a choice of 200 Hi-Res CD images for £1,000 works out at a fiver a photo, for goodness sake!

Moan over!

Tasty!

Exciting! A new range of designer T-shirts has been launched in Japan, featuring some of my Joy Division/Ian Curtis images. Trendy label 'Lad Musician', based in Tokyo, is selling a range of eight different shirts, plus the full set of 26 prints from the Joy Division Bowdon Vale gig in 1979. This shot is from the company's flagship store in dowtown Tokyo, and rumours are that the exhibition is off to Saudia Arabia next !!!

Say Cheese!

Oooh...a nice bit of cheese on toast!
One of the photographs from today's shoot for a cheese-maker's web-site.
Next week....shooting for a dentist's website and covering the launch of a Polar Expedition!
Good, eh?

Variety is the Spice of Life...

Interesting and varied work on at the mo....portraits this morning of a prospective parliamentary candidate for an election brochure, followed by a quick re-jig of the studio to shoot a new range of Flip-Flops ready for their forthcoming UK launch...oh, and I'm in a cheese-factory tomorrow!!

Dear Charities....STOP !!!

I mean...how many bloody clothes do you think I throw out???
Enough with the plastic bags already...
Here's me trying to do my bit with my re-usable shopping bag and you buggers keep chuckin' these through my door.
Have a care, dear charities......for the environment !!!

You get what you pay for...

Now, we all know you get what you pay for...but, dear brides, it's never been shown to be as true as my examples this week. I have been booked for not one, but two reshoots by people who went for cheap photographers and paid the price (so to speak !)
I'm taking a bride and groom back to their church, with dry-cleaned togs and all...to shoot the portraits that their photographer cocked up...and I'm spending a morning in a factory re-shooting web-site photographs after they booked a naff snapper for a hundred quid and now can't use any of the crappy shots!

Here endeth the lesson!

Spring is here!

Hurrah...the buds are out and the air is warm !
Goddammit, it must happen soon!
Anyway, this shot's just a little taster of the lastest delve into my archives,
and I'll soon be uploading over 150 of my flower and plant photographs, painstakingly scanned from 645 trannies (And for those of you who've never used film, no, I don't mean a lot of homosexuals!)
Stay tuned while I photoshop all the years of dust off 'em....

Holy Scrambled Eggs, Batman!

Ditch those cameras, guys and gals....I've seen the light!
THIS is the new way to shoot portraits...rustle up some eggs and set fire to the pan afterwards...result: an unbelievable likeness of your subject..
(Asssuming Our Lord Jesus Christ Amen Hallelujah was a squinty eyed, scabby-bearded anorexic!)

Then again, it might have just been a flash in the pan !

Who hell he...?

Finished sorting thru my old negs and there's the odd band or two that I don't recognise...my memory's going !! Now I need to know who the hell I've photographed, so if anyone knows or recognises any of these bands/singers could you pleeeeze let me know..ta!
Cop an eyeful of the rest of the shots here...
Is it you?

Bop 'til you drop..

Just caught on to an online radio station for "discerning Mancs"..
Check it out funksters!

PS...The image is one of mine from a Meteors gig...circa 1980.
Just one of the negatives I'm currently restoring and putting online soon!

What am I missing...?

Somebody..please tell me...!!

This photograph has won the World Press Photo of the Year ...and silly old me is at a complete loss as to understand why...

Help!

Blast from the Past..

Look what I've dug up!
Johnny Marr and Sandie Shaw at Manchester Apollo, 1984...and two young punks at the
Joy Division Bowdon Vale gig in 1979...(Is it you ? Get in touch!)

Lots more "old" stuff to follow...got all the negs scanned now and just need to blow all the dust off 'em!

To Infinity and beyond...

Bloody hell! Did you see the Horizon programme about Infinity?
Me and the infinite copies of me that are out there are still trying to get our heads round it !
Infinity goes on for ever, eh? So why does a lens focussing ring stop there ?
Ha!

Best foot forward...

Just a filler whilst I get on with scanning a ton of old negatives of bands.
Stay tuned, 'cos I don't know who some of them are and will need some help in identifying them..

Anyway, just an odd shot I caught the other day...one footprint...how odd. Don't worry, it's not going to kick off a new project like 'On the one hand'....incidentally, this was featured in the British Journal of Photography last week!

Aim, fire!

A good way to introduce the master that is Don McCullin.
He's got a new exhibition at the Imperial War Museum of the North, at Salford Quays.
I was going to say I'm dying to see it, but you get my drift...

One for all you snappers reading this, but he was on Radio 4 this morning giving his thoughts on digital (ie: colour) photography.
"That's like offering fruit salad instead of a main meal!"...he said.....bearing in mind he shot in black and white.

I remember another gem from his lips....I met him in 1992 at his book launch at Waterstone's in Manchester. I dutifully waited in line to have my copy of his book signed...and when I told him my name he said, in his gruff, soft once-cockney voice.."Bloody hell..your's is the first Northern accent I've heard here!"

Good luck with the show, Don!

Happily Ever After...

Some helpful hints on life-long marriage here...