All right on the night...

Flippin' 'eck, that was a bit good, wasn't it? Danny Boyle's opening ceremony? Very good indeed, especially the magical chimneys and the parachuting Queen! One is most amused! Could have done without Paul McCartney, but apart from that it was pretty much all right on the night! Cripes, I'll have to be careful here - there's a little bit of a positive vibe coming out of all this, and I might just have to knock one Z off the Olympiczz ... it's starting to wake me up! Speaking of a great show, this shot was taken back in day when 'they' tried to introduce American Football into the UK. These young Manchester Allstars fans were up behind the posts at Salford Rugby Ground! As you can tell, it didn't quite take off!...

So, I went to see Morrissey on Saturday night. First time I've seen him in absolutely yonks, and damn near enjoyed almost his whole show, the rabscallion! It was practically all right on the night! (Meat is Murder went on far too long!)
By sheer coincidence, that afternoon I was approached by a Photographic Gallery in Bedford, asking if I'd like to contribute to an exhibition of Smiths and Morrissey photography, scheduled for October. Er, that's a yes, please! More details to follow...

Now, I'm going to say something I've never said before! I'm off to shoot a Wedding .. on a Monday! Feels weird! I've never shot a Wedding on a Monday before but hey, bring it on! Sunny Peckforton Castle here we come! Last time I was there I was a 'guest' at a Wedding, and that felt weird too, but normality is restored today and I'm back behind the camera where I belong. Actually, did I say sunny? It's pouring with rain as I write this, so it's safe to safe at least one thing is back to normal, unlike the spelling on the back of this kid's head! Not quite all right on the night!..

The Big Day is here...

Well, the big event is almost here! Yes, folks .. it's time for that amazing, one-off event that's got everyone buzzing with excitemement and flocking to the arena. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you .. Morrissey! Oh, you thought I meant the Olympiczzzz? Sorry, still can't get excited about them! To be honest, I wish I could, 'cos I feel like everyone else is having a groovy party and I'm not invited, but they're just not floating my boat! Bit of running? Bit of swimming? Nah, not interested! And the fact that it's the London Olympics, and you hear people say things like "Oh, I'm sure such and such an event will be fine, even though it's not in London" just makes me feel even less a part of it!

Anyway, back to the important stuff. Yes, the Moz is back in Manchester tomorrow night for his only gig of the year, and even though it's at the MEN arena - and I hate the MEN arena - some things just have to be done for His Mozness. Ironically - given the fact that I've just had 100 of my music images selected for a gallery in New York - this is the first gig I'll have been to this year! How bad is that?
I remember once going to three in a night in the 'old days' .. ! And how mind-mushing is it to think that the shots I did of The Smiths at the Free Trade Hall are twenty-eight years old! Blimey, if I'd had sex that night - which didn't actually happen until I was 47 - I'd be the proud dad of a strapping almost-thirty-year-old, who could be queueing up with me to see Morrissey for the first time in their life! (Pause for shudder!)

Anyway, I know now I've turned into my Dad, so just to save you the time and effort, I'll fill in the dotted lines for ya!.. Two, three, four ..."I was happy in the haze of a drunken hour, but heaven knows I'm miserable now..."

Tra la la......

And here isn't the news...

I had to switch off the Today programme .. er, today .. because I just can't take any more bad news! Double-Dip Recession, Syria, Korean Flags, Gas Bills.... Aaaaaaaaagh! So .. er, today .. I offer you a little Olympiczzz symbol of solitude, peace and quiet .. composed of some of the flowers in our garden. (Click the pic for a closer look!) I am playing a little Julian Lloyd Webber as I type this, and when it's written I think I'll chill with a nice glass of Sauvignon Blanc and listen to the bird song from the trees. (Oh, it's only 8.45 in the morning, so maybe hold the vino!) Day off today and I plan to relax, maybe shoot some more flowers for my ever-growing Florescence range .. and avoid the news like the plague!
Happy Thursday, folks! Sod it, where's the corkscrew?...

She falls into frame with a professional pout...

No apologies for a blatant plug of a blog today, but I've just had a range of music T-shirts launched .. and I'm dead excited!! A 'Photographers Project' has picked up on my work and designed a range of shirts featuring everyone from Joy Division to Siouxsie Sue and even Devo, The Meteors and .. Martha and the Muffins! They look great too, and I'm just waiting for a tasty box of samples to land on my doorstep at any moment!

One of my favourite Siouxsie and the Banshees tracks is the 1980 song 'Red Light', appropriately named after the safe lights in darkrooms - God! Red lights! Darkrooms! The opening line of the song is 'She falls into frame with a professional pout', accompanied by the sound of a motordrive zipping film through a camera in time to the music - God! Motor Drives! Film! The song's a veritable history of analogue photography! Hey, it even mentions Polaroids and Kodak, and there's one line that I can use with 'Shoot 'n Tutor' when Siouxsie sings 'The aperture shuts, too much exposure!" I'll use that in my next workshop.
Just don't expect me to sing it...

GR8 lol...

I heard a news report yesterday that said we now text each other more than we actually call each other. Hm! Did I hear it or was I texted it? Cripes! Anyway, I'd had mobile phones for years before I even went near that technology. I just couldn't see the point of spending ages trying to type a msg with my two clumsy thumbs when I could simply press speed-dial and talk to my friends!
Shows you what I know, eh? ..  ;-) !

Gave me another chance to dive into the archive, though, and look what I came up with. Rabbit! Remember Rabbit? Rabbit was the Big Thing in 1992! All you had to do was carry that brick of a phone around with you and then, when someone wanted to contact you, you were sent a bleeper msg which would prompt you to go and find a Rabbit transmitter point, marked by a turqouise Rabbit sign stuck onto a nearby building, so that you could then phone them back. What a brilliant idea, eh? Er, no! It last less than two years and loss the company millions! Still, it made me a few bob, as I got to do the PR photography all over the North-West. Here's our hairy friend Mike Harding - on the left - (Sorry Mike!) plugging the cutting edge gear in front of the Liver Buildings in Liverpool. Ain't technology GR8, lol....

Flower power..

Had a great day at the annual RHS Tatton Flower Show yesterday and came home with a car-load of gorgeous new plants and flowers. Just gotta get 'em into the garden, now! It's incredible how popular horticulture and gardening actually is these days, and I hope my Florescence series of flower photographs ties in with all of that. It's hard work, though! There were actually two flower photography stands at the show yesterday, and all I can say is .. I admire their bravery! I looked into the possibility of having a stand for my own work, but at well over £1000 for the four days I decided not to bother! I'd need to sell an awful lot of place-mats to get my money back from something like that! Meantime, I'll keep them up at Botany Bay, where things are quietly ticking over though not, I have to admit, selling as fast as I'd like! I can only hope the power of flowers will prove to be irresistible in the end...

Kids, eh?....

End of term, and the kids are free again! Well, for the next six weeks, anyway!
I love the photograph I'm showing you today. This little girl was crying because she was leaving her primary school to go to the high school, and her old teacher was taking a moment to comfort her. Now I hate, hate, hate to say this but I'd really worry about taking a photograph like that today. I'm getting paranoid about pointing a camera at a kid! What a world we live in! Kids think you're a paedophile and you need training to go up ladders! I ask you!...

Popped out last night to see me old mucker Peter Dench open his exhibition at the new White Cloth Gallery in Leeds. Very nice it is, too, and I'm glad I nipped across, all the more so because it gave me time on the train to knuckle down and write a bit of a Biog about myself. Two different photography galleries want to put me on their sites, so I'm having to get a new portrait taken and pen some words about my life as a snapper! Put me in mind of .. I think it was Grandmaster Flash's song White Lines. There's a kid on the start of the record who asks Mr Flash to tell him the story of his life. The Grandmaster says "Well, I was born a long time ago ... and now I'm here with you!"
"Yeah.." says the kid "But what happened in between?!.."
Kids, eh?...

Gimme a break...

Oooh, you can't go up there!

I'm just back from a PR shoot in an office in Manchester. Nothing too fancy, just six people around a desk. I stood on a chair to give myself a bit of height, set up my lights, and waited for the group to assemble. Just then, a lady came up to me - Mrs Health and Safety! "You can't stand on that!.." she said, pointing at the chair "You'll have to use a ladder.." "I haven't got a ladder with me.." I replied "Can I use one of yours?" "No.." she said "You're not trained!.."

Well, that put me in mind of a shoot I did in about 1980. A 300 foot chimney was being demolished at Tetley Walker's brewery in Warrington. My boss had a fancy Russian Panoramic camera, and the idea came about that we used it to photograph the demolition gang, who were knocking the chimney in on itself, dropping the bricks down inside as there wasn't enough space to simply blow the chimney up.
I got the shoot! I seem to remember it was on a Saturday morning, and it was just written down as another one of my jobs for the day, a nice change from the summer fairs and dominos tournaments of a typical weekly newspaper. The thing was, there was no other way up than by climbing a set of ladders, which were tied around the chimney all the way up to a platform of planks around the rim. Once you reached the planks, you had to let go of the ladder and haul yourself over the planks until you could stand up! (And then, of course, you had to do the same thing in reverse!!) However, as you can see, I survived and the camera allowed me to get the whole of the chimney top in the shot. Now, here's the fun shot! Yours truly on the top, with my trusty FM and my fantastic glasses!

Harnesses? Helmets? Ha! Gimme a break....

Dear, oh dear.....

I don't usually use my blog to gloat, but hey.. there's always a first time!
Remember that Wedding I went to as a 'guest'? Well, the reason I was a guest and not the 'official' photographer is because I am the groom's mum's partner, and there was no way she was going to let me work on her son's Big Day! Still, I took the gear anyway and managed to squeeze off 1,150 shots to make a fab CD for the lovely couple. Good job I did, 'cos you should see the state of the 'official' photographs! Man, I have never seen a grimmer job done of a Wedding. Just look at this group shot, for example! I mean, come on! And this was how it was presented to the couple on their CD, by the way - as the one and only choice of group photos! As for the rest of the CD .. well, there are a mere 267 other shots on it, from an entire Wedding day shot by two photographers! They're shot with direct flash, at awful angles and without capturing any of the spontaneity of a Wedding Day.

Dear, oh dear? You betcha!
They charged over two thousand quid for this sh*te!!!....

Put your hands together....

Well, alriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight! Good evening, Manchester! It's great to be here, man!

          OMG! I've got some really exciting news! Pause, deep breath! ..

I've had my music photography accepted by a 'Fine-Art' Gallery in New York! Yeah! Rock on! Like, groovy baby! I sent them 101 shots for consideration, and they've taken the lot!! How good is that? I am so excited! I've got everything in there, from Joy Division and The Smiths to Devo, The Gun Club and Siouxsie and The Banshees (No Freshies, ironically, but they never did quite hit the Big Time! Sorry Chris!...) Anyway, I'll let you know when my pages are up and running on their website! Meantime, check 'em out here..

Mick in the middle..

My good pal Mick Middles, erstwhile music writer and red wine drinker of this parish, got hitched to his beloved Vicky at Sale Town Hall in Manchester on Saturday, and they picked me to take their shots for them. I am so flattered! The funny thing was that, when we talked about their photography, I mentioned a shoot I'd done in Sale in 1979 with Chris Sievey and his band The Freshies, and thought it would be fun to replicate as we were so close to the location - ie: The Tesco car park! Well, as you can see, the plan worked and all the more so because, after that one frame, Mick decided it was too dodgy to carry on and get any more shots - Hey, it's not my fault people were driving up and down the ramp to do their Saturday shopping! Imagine!  Anyway, here's the amazing thing. The Wedding was a small one - 9 guests - but guess who was one of them. Tosh Ryan! The guy who owned The Freshies' record label! Small world, eh?

PS: Ok, I realise there might be one or two of you readers out there who haven't heard of Chris Sievey, so I'll tell you he was the man behind  - inside! - Frank Sidebottom, and he sadly succumbed to cancer a couple of years ago. The Freshies played Bowdon Vale Youth Club in the same series of gigs as Joy Division in 1979. You can check out the shots here...

Joy Division? They're just one of the bands Mick has written a book on. He's also written about The Fall, Arcade Fire, Stone Roses.. oh, the guy's a genius! (That ok for ya, Mick?)

That's lucky!.....

Friday the 13th, eh? Well, lucky for me that it was raining when I got up, 'cos it meant I could get out into the garden and shoot this little montage of droplets on my plants. (Click on the pic for a close-up) Lucky, too, that Lesley and I had to postpone a trip to Wales this weekend, as my pal's suddenly decided to get hitched tomorrow (As you do!) and it's meant I'm available to shoot his Wedding! It's going to be really funky - I believe the bride's wearing a black leather motorcycle jacket! - and there'll be a whole seven people there (Eight if I can get onto a shot!)  I can't bloody wait! Best thing of all? It's the third time he's married!
Third time lucky, eh Mick?...

No Moss Gathered...

50 years of the Rolling Stones, eh? Like, cool, grandad! Now take your medicine! Wow, that is going some, though it's not like they are still, actually, er .. going .. is it? God, it's bad enough when bands of 'my' era reform, and I think that says it all. The Rolling Stones were a band that my Dad liked. They were just a little too early for me, like someone who's now 40 saying they wished they'd seen Joy Division. Still, we all get 'our' time, and I'm just so pleased that I was born in the BA era. BA? Before Adele!

Anyway, in the interests of topicality, here's my shot of Bill Wyman, which is as close as I got to shooting the Stones. It was when he opened a branch of his Sticky Fingers restaurant in Manchester. I seem to remember he never offered me any food, but that's the photographer's lot for ya, right there on a plate. Or not....

Looking forward to another Shoot 'n Tutor workshop today, with a young lady whose Prom Shot I did about 4 years ago. I'm not saying she's keen but, for her birthday last week, she got a new Nikon D3000, a Shoot 'n Tutor session to learn how to use it and a birthday cake in the shape of the camera!
Now that's what I call having your cake and eating it...

You da best...

It seems the search for happiness is doomed to failure, apparently, because we're always projecting things forward (An expert said!) We will get that promotion, we will win the lottery, etc., etc., etc... Turns out that when you achieve what you aimed at, you soon revert to your normal state of unhappiness.

Well, I guess that's why I'm always so deliriously joyful. I'm always looking backwards!...

Back to the 'good old days' when everything was rosy and Adele hadn't even been born! Back to HP5, and vinyl and news that came on sheets of paper! Back to 3 TV channels - ok, four - and access to bands and famous people without having to sign your life away! Back to a time you could trip over a wire and not make money by blaming someone else! Back to the days when a good photographer could make a decent living without being undercut by a numpty with a 'good' camera. Yes, folks, I like it in here. Those days were the Best...

The devil's in the detail...

I do like to get to a Wedding nice and early! That way I get to spend time soaking up the detail of a venue before all the 'madness' kicks off. Saturday's Wedding was especially good for that, because it was at a venue that was new to me - Eleven Didsbury Park. It was full of little nooks and crannies, and a lovely lemony cake, all crying out to be photographed. The shots build up to make a lovely memory of the couple's Wedding Day, so it's important they're topical to that day. That barometer? - set fair to 'Very Dry' - that shows for sure that I shot it on Saturday, in that brief window of decent weather that we had (You can click on the photo to see it in more detail!) Now though, as the rain hammers against my windows again, it's just teasing me! I think I'll have the shot enlarged and put into a frame for my hall! It's a little devil of a detail!...

About bloody time!..

Ooh, that confetti gets everywhere! Hey, what an amazing day I had on Saturday at the Wedding of Sharon and Malcolm in Didsbury. It had the lot! Fun, love, intimacy, champagne, good weather AND .. a swearing vicar! There was a lovely moment during his sermon when he said he was about to voice something he knew everyone else was thinking and, to much laughter - straight from the altar - he exclaimed "About bloody time!.." Turns out these guys have been together twenty-seven years, so I think the vicar got it just about spot on! About bloody time, guys, and I'm so pleased you chose me to capture the momentous event!

So, from an entire Wedding party of 24 people I now turn to next weekend, when I'm shooting a Wedding with only seven people at it! I'll be able to sell my wide-angle at this rate! Yeah, seven people, including the bride and groom, who are good pals of mine and have already told me they want "something different". Oh boy, are they going to get it!

So, yes.. I did say good weather earlier! Unbelievably, the rain cleared away on Saturday and I actually had the problem of too much sunshine at the Wedding. About bloody time, that's what I say...

Get ahead, get a hat..

Right, it's time to hit the road! After three weekends of Shoot 'n Tutor, family portraits and an air show, it's time to roll up my sleeves and shoot another Wedding today. This time I'm off to the bijou hotel 'Eleven Didsbury Park' - a venue I've not worked at before - so I'm really keen to see what new shots will come my way. I won't mention the weather just in case I jinx it but, as I write this, there are hints of blue sky and a warm breeze coming in off the gas works!
Here's hoping...

Send in the army ..

So, let me get this straight..

The task in hand is pretty important but, to save money, you sack the professional and get a part-timer in, someone who does the work as a hobby at the weekends. Right? Well that sounds a recipe for disaster if ever I heard one! And what if they get killed? It doesn't bear..

Oh, sorry! No, I'm not talking about Wedding Photographers here (As if I'd complain about people booking cheap amateur 'photographers' - ie: camera-owners - to cover their Weddings! As if...) No, I'm talking about the Army, which is to lay off 20,000 troops and replace them with part-time TA soldiers. I mean, I've got nothing against the TA - I'm sure they strive hard to achieve the standards of the regulars - but there goes another layer of professionalism down the pan as we yet again we hear the cry of "That'll do!"

Actually, "that'll do" should be printed on the mast-head of the Manchester Evening News. It was bad enough when it layed off the last of its staff photographers (Hi Mark!) but now it's decided it's not even going to employ freelance photographers, and will make do with shots supplied by its coterie of weekly newspaper shooters and erm .. the public! Recently there was a fire in South Manchester and the MEN tweeted "Anyone got any photographs of it?" "Why.." I replied "don't you send in a photographer?"

Dust me down...

Just cleaning all my camera gear in readiness for this weekend's Wedding, and wondering how much I should charge for the process! No, seriously! Well, serious in the mind of one photographer I've just read about, who's put out an open letter trying to justify his rather large fee by saying that, amongst other things, he has to spend time before the Big Day .. "cleaning his cameras" !! Well, 'scuse me, but doesn't that come with the territory? I mean, who the hell would want to shoot a Bride with dusty sensors and lenses? But to charge her for the privilege?? God, I'm doing this all wrong! Mind you, he does go on to say that he spends 10 to 30 minutes editing every photograph .. so maybe I am doing something right, after all!

50 T-shirts...

Now, I'd be the first to admit that I'm a bit of a hoarder - I can't seem to throw anything away - but even I was surprised when I came across a 'collection' of 50 of my old T-shirts, unworn for years and taking up an entire shelf in my designer walk-in wardrobe! Their discovery gave me an idea for a project, and I finally got round to shooting them as a Flickr set yesterday afternoon. Well, what fun! What larks! What a trip down memory lane! I found a B-52's t-shirt from the early 80's (I actually have a photograph of the 21-year-old-ish me wearing it) I have a t-shirt from the Asda Festival of Food and Farming (Trendy!) in Hyde Park in 1989 (I covered this for Asda, meaning I was the only person allowed to photograph the Queen when she opened the event!) I have a Tubes t-shirt from a gig at the Free Trade Hall in 1981 when I got the entire band's autographs afterwards, and I have a British Airways 'Jet Club 16-24' shirt from when I went to America for the first time in '82! (I'm going to get in a State, it says! Ho ho!) I actually remember wearing this 'Hilda Ogden' t-shirt to an event attended by the actress Jean Alexander, and she refused to be photographed with me wearing it! Bloody temperamental artistes! Anyway, that's that! They're all photographed for posterity, and up online for everyone to view. Thing is, now I've found 'em, I can't bear to throw 'em away!

Time flies..

Three hundredths of a second! Now, you might know I'm not really into the Olympiczzz, but I'm hearing that a Blake beat a Bolt by . 03 of a second in a running race, and I reckon that's the time difference between these two photographs. Well, three hundredths of a second .. and thirty-one years! The shot on the left is from 'Don't Miss This', one of my Olympus XA photographs from  - I reckon - 1981. It was taken at the Barton Air Show, which was held every year at the aerodrome at the end of our estate (Always handy for sneaking in over the fields!) The shot on the right was taken on Saturday, at RAF Waddington's annual air show (No sneaking in possible. Much bigger fences - and soldiers!)
Just think .. the boy on the right could be the son of the boy on the left! How time flies! I say this after meeting with another lovely Bride and Groom, who have booked me for their Wedding next August. It turns out that I'm older than both sets of their parents! And by a lot more than three hundredths of a second, too!..

Oooh, nearly! ..

Another air show, and I'm getting ever closer to replicating my award-winning 1981 shot of the Red Arrows at Barton Aerodrome! (Ok, these were the Saudi Hawks but, hey, who's checking?) I had a fantastic day at RAF Waddington over the weekend and came away with almost 400 shots .. and a sunburn! Yep, I look like a bloody panda this morning but I'm wearing my colour with pride. The weather was really changeable all day long, but the sun obviously managed to peep through the clouds enough to sizzle my noodle! The way this summer's going though, that'll be the last sunshine I'll see for another bloomin' month! (Aaagh! I wrote about the weather .. again!) Anyway, 400 shots .. and here are de bestest! ...

From Waddington to Weddington again now, with my next Summer Wedding coming up this Saturday. It's in a church that I've shot at before, but with a reception in a bijou swanky hotel that I've not worked at, so I'm really looking forward to getting some fab, relaxed images - and the odd spring roll, to boot!
(The couple have invited me to join them at their buffet-style meal! Yum!)

So, from boot to football, and a great climax to Euro 2012 last night. Just the Olympiczzz to come now, though I've changed my mind about going to the opening ceremony!...

Doggone it..

I know, cute isn't it? It's a miniature lesser-spotted Japanese Pom-Pom poodle, with detachable legs and a butterfly on its dog-lead. Honest! Just found it as I trawled through the shots of my trip to Tokyo in 2008. It dawned on me that after four years I still haven't actually put any onto Flickr yet, so I aim to put that right in the next few days.

Can't you tell I'm in a real TGI Friday mood today! Enjoy the weekend, folks. Woof!...

Spits and spots..

It's spitting, it's spitting! I've put my suntan lotion away now! It was sitting on the kitchen window ledge, handy for those quick squirts when we went out into the garden, but now it just seems like it's mocking me with its summery orange label and its fruity good-time smell. Summer! Where did you go?

Speaking of spitting, did you watch the football last night? Pathetic, wasn't it? Those guys should get equity cards. They're not sportsmen, they're cheating, devious actors, more interested in getting a cheap free-kick than actually doing anything with any innate talent they might possess!

Hey, if you ever want to check that your camera sensor is clean go and photograph a white wall! I was shooting some interiors the other day and couldn't believe the amount of dust spots I could see on the shots! It was so visible against the plain white walls I was shooting. And that despite having 'Sensor clean vibration' switched on! I ask you! I was spitting...

PS: My shot today is Lady Di, as if you didn't know, shot during a visit to Manchester. It was raining!

Perspective..

This is one of my favourite shots from the book 'Don't Miss This', and it kinda puts the whole world of art and self-promotion into persepective. It's getting harder and harder to get one's photographs seen, overwhelmed as they are by the kertrillions of images that get shoved up online every single day (Guilty, m'lud!) So, with that in mind, it was fantastic last week to be 'discovered' by a chap from 'darn sarf' who had been told about my Joy Division photographs and is now planning to design and market a whole range of T-shirts based on the shots. "How come they've not been seen by a wider audience?" he asked, amazed. Well, it's not for want of trying, I can tell you!

As you can tell by the extreme heat and drought, high summer is upon us, which means my Flickr 'Glove' project has more or less juddered to a halt. However (to my sad delight!) I came across one on Sunday, which I thought I'd treat you to today.

Oh, Gawd! That's a kertrillion and one photographs uploaded today! Anyway, I went into the chemist yesterday to get some cough medicine. My man-flu is persisting, probably getting worse, definitely not getting better! The lady in front of me put five prescriptions on the counter and I thought 'Cripes, I'm going to be here for ages!' "So, Mrs ___.." said the pharmacist "How're you feeling after the chemo?" Now that, my friends, is perspective!..

It's all passing me by..

How weird last night to have no football to watch although, to be honest, I'm kinda glad I've no longer got an interest in Euro 2012. Apart from anything, it was costing me a fortune. It's those bloody ads on ITV, isn't it? I just can't help myself! I've already put down-payments on an Audi, a Qashquai and two Citroens, lost four thousand quid on online betting and picked me out two of those tasty little brown Macdonalds player escort kids to adopt over the coming winter! I just wish, wish, wish I could get excited about the Olympiczzz now or hey, even the tennis, but I can't and I feel such a failure! I mean, think of all the people that are turning out just to watch the Olypiczzz torch. They can even get excited about a lit stick being jogged past 'em? It's beyond me!

I've had an offer from a magazine to review my book 'Don't Miss This' .. a copy's going off in the post to them today so stay tooned! Today's photograph is another one of my Olympus XA shots. Remembrance Day parade, circa 1985.

Happy Tuesday, folks!

Oh, poo...

Well, come on, we knew it really didn't we? Playing like that meant we were never going to get our hands on the trophy, so it's back to normal and the count-down begins for the World Cup in 2014. Still, look on the bright side .. Rooney's hair'll be a good two inches long by then! My shot's from 'Don't Miss That' .. check it out!

I had a good laugh at one of my recent Shoot 'n Tutor sessions, and I'm sure the chap involved won't mind me repeating this. He asked me what I did with my camera when it rained. "Well.." I said, "there are a few things you can do. You can drop the shutter speed a little, or open the aperture, or..."
"No.." he interrupted "Do you put it in a plastic bag?!"

My Joy Division shots are on the move again! A company has asked if they can start using some of the shots on a new range of T-Shirts. We're mashing out the contract today so I'll let you know when they're available to buy ..  'cos I know you'd love to have one, wouldn't you?

Another of my journo pals has lost his job! Cut-backs on his newspaper have meant he's being hoiked after many years at the 'paper, and now he's on the look-out for work like .. well, the rest of us! Should be the flippin' England team that are on the dole, if you ask me!

Bums on seats...

I'll be glad of a sit-down when I finally get to take a break this afternoon. What a week! I've shot motorcycle training, crisis management workshops, the interior of a building for a brochure and a family portrait with 21 people on it! Just a Shoot'nTutor to run this morning, and a bride and groom to meet to discuss their Wedding album, and then I can grab that beer and watch the footy with a satisfied smile on my face. Love this 'aerial' shot of the terraces at Coventry City's ground, which I shot during a coffee break at the Crisis Management job...

Snap decision..

I stopped to take a picture of this faded shop sign whilst I was in Greece last month. It was a bit of a Kodak moment, really...

A gun to our heads..

Being thoroughly inspired, creative and cutting-edge, I was going to blog about the weather today (Zzzzz...) but then a message came through on Facebook and my rainy p*ss poor June stories went out the window! The note was from one of my snapper pals who has a long-standing connection with Manc funster band The Stone Roses. Seems they've reformed and have a gig coming up in the city soon (Bothered??) Thing is, they're issuing a two-page contract to any photographers covering the gig that gives the band the rights to their images "in perpetuity throughout the world so as to enable us to exploit the photographs as we deem fit without further reference or payment to you" Well, up yours, Stone Roses! Go take a flying leap, you jumped-up, arrogant grabbing farts! I hope no-one takes a single shot at your money-based seedy reunion and you go unnoticed throughout the world and have to disband and go on the dole and get scabies. I know, I know, it won't happen! Hard times mean that of course they'll get their shots, 'cos there are enough skint snappers out there that'll do it for the one-off dosh they'll get for covering the gig, but how sad is that? The band is holding a gun to the heads of any young - 'cos they're bound to be young - photogs who want to get their foot in the door of music photography, and it's yet another nail in the coffin of photographers' respectability. Sigh!

Oh, and it's still raining..

Midday sun?...

Mad dogs and Englishmen will be fine today, as there's absolutely no danger of being boiled in the heat of the midsummer sun! Ha ha, as if! As the announcer on Classic FM said this morning "Welcome to June the 21st, the wettest day of the year. Sorry, the longest!..."

My plan today was to work my way through another Wedding selection of 100 photographs, then relax in the sunshine with a Pimms as I prepare to watch the first quarter-final of Euro 2012 - it's a hard life, this freelancing, you know! Actually, digressing, I heard it was Prince Will's 30th birthday today and it dawned on me that it was May/June of 1982 that I got laid off from the newspaper I was working on, meaning I have actually now been self-employed for thirty years! Bloody hell, I must be doing something right! Anyway, back to the non-event of the solstice, I was thinking about the time I got up at 4am to climb a volcano in Indonesia just to watch the sunrise over the lip of the mountain, and when I got to the top it was cloudy! And that reminded me of the time I went up Sugar Loaf mountain in fog so bad you couldn't see the summit. At the top the statue of Christ the Redeemer was covered in scaffolding! And one time a pal and I flew to the US to watch a shuttle launch, and it got cancelled before we landed in Florida!
Mad? You're telling me!...

Plane simple..

I've had a brilliant idea! This'll solve the housing shortage problem in one fell swoop. See that nearside lane on the motorways? Why don't we build on it? Get a long line of apartments put up along the whole length of the entire UK motorway system, and get those homeless people in 'em, pronto! Well, I mean, it's not as if the lane's used by motorists, is it? Not these days. No-one wants to be seen dead in the inside lane these days - no pun intended in view of my photograph today, which I'll get onto in a minute! Come to think of it, nobody even wants to be seen dead in the middle lane anymore. That's just used by moronic lorry drivers who've managed to get their wagons moving ONE mile an hour faster than the truck in front, so feel they can pull out and slow the traffic down for bleedin' miles! Has anyone else noticed this seemingly new trend of hogging the outside lane on the motorway? I drove to a PR shoot in Coventry yesterday and must have undertaken hundreds of cars, all stuck behind each other doing 65 mph in the outside lane whilst I whizzed past at 70 - on the dot! - in the nearside lane. Is it something to do with a vast influx of continental drivers or something, thinking they're all on the inside lane but forgetting which country they're in? Or is it that same old macho bullsh*t that kicks in when people get into their lovely, lovely cars? Look at me, look at my shiny brum-brum. Aren't I great! The lovely shiny white Audi brum-brum that was ahead of me yesterday was great. Was! 'Til it went straight into the VW in front and became a teeny weeny squished Audi, and made us all very annoyed as we queued up behind it! Yes folks, driving winds me up. Actually, no, it doesn't. The improper, selfish use of motorways winds me up! Now, crashing an old plane onto the cars on the M62 might be a bit drastic, but I really feel something needs to be done to educate a lot of the drivers in the UK!

PS: This plane crashed in '88, straight onto a 2CV. Oops! I got this shot used in the MEN after simply walking onto the hard-shoulder and taking my pix! Betcha can't do that these days!

That's lucky!..

Funny how things work out! This weekend was the first in ages when I didn't have any work on, so what happened? I got a stinking cold, that's what! Cough, cough, sneeze, wheeze, gasp! Honestly, I don't even know how I found the energy to watch the football!! But, what great timing! Getting 'Man Flu' this weekend meant I was free to drink hot-toddies and build a hill of used tissues without having to sneeze all over a bride, cough over a Shoot 'n Tutor pupil or blow my nose mid family pose! I start the week well on the mend, and ready to tackle today's PR job, tomorrow's full-day coverage of an annual conference in Coventry, Saturday's family portrait and Sunday's Shoot 'n Tutor. I mean, how lucky am I?

PS: No, that's not me in the picture. It's me old mucker Stenning, snapped snoozing when we took a road-trip to Florida in the 80s! Right before I dropped a cockroach into his sheets! And I didn't even get thumped! Now, that's lucky..

Best Dad in the world...

No blog today as I'm full of Man-Flu - ie: a slight cold - and I'm feeling yuck! That said, I didn't want to let Father's Day go by without a nod to me old Pop, who's been dead three years now and I miss him like hell! Happy Father's Day, Joe O'Neill !!

I'm lovin' it..

3-2 against Sweden! I'm lovin' it!..
Two more enquiries for Weddings next year! I'm lovin' it!..
It stopped raining for almost half an hour this morning! I'm lovin' it!..
Photographer loses memory card with all of a couple's Wedding photographs on it after boozy night out! Oh, dear!..

Hang on a minute..

Ah, that explains a lot. "Budding" photographer loses memory card, etc., etc., etc... Oh, dear! The story reads .. "(The couple) agreed to let their friend B.. F.. - a budding professional photographer - take the pictures to help boost his portfolio." Oh dear, oh dear! Time for my mantra, folks! Owning a good camera does not make you a photographer! Say it out loud! Say it out loud and learn from it, dear Wedding couples, then you too can be like all my brides and grooms. They book me, have a fantastic, worry free day with a brilliant, experienced professional photographer then get their CD or album and say .."I'm lovin' it.."

It's started to rain again! Brilliant! It's good for the flowers in the garden. My Florescence flowers are lovin' it!..

Serious football blog...

Tonight, just like the England team, I'm going to be surrounded by Swedes. No, I've not been picked as full-back for England, but I'll be bouncing up and down on my Ikea Splamsplom sofa, spilling my beer over the Yecksdroogvoll coffee table and eating sandwiches off a plate from my lovely Jahlsbergsonsonson range of designer crockery. Do you think they're trying to send me subliminal messages?

Had a great meeting with another lovely couple last night - Hey, I even sacrificed the first half of the Ireland game to see 'em - and now I can't wait to shoot their Wedding next year with, wait for it, three hundred guests!! I don't even know 300 people, but thank God for wide-angles and bring on the challenge, that's what I say!

Quiet weekend on the cards for me! No Wedding, no Shoot'nTutor! Truth is, we were supposed to be going to Oxfordshire, where we were to have a stall selling my Florescence products at a friend's Village Fete, but the pesky rotten weather's put paid to that event, so we're staying home and eating meatballs instead. Meatballs? Where did that Ikea come from? Idea! I meant idea!!...

I'm blushing...

"Mega thanks for your fabulous work" ...

I'm blushing! I am! I've gone all shy and modest and bashful! Naaah, have I heck! I love it! I'm an artist, darling, with an ego, after all, so bring it on! I've had another 'unsolicited testimonial', as they say, from Catherine, one of 'my' brides, who got married at The Belle Epoque and thought her photographs were "fantastic". Naturally, I concur, but then I would, wouldn't I? I shot 'em!...

Being booked by Catherine, though, did remind me of a story. I was once photographing the Wedding of another young lady called Catherine, and because she lived abroad it happened to be one of those rare times when it wasn't possible to meet her before her Big Day. So, I arrived at her house to photograph the bridal preparations and the door was opened by a cheery, smiling young lady who waved and said "Hi, I'm Catherine". I dutifully followed Catherine around the house, photographing her having her hair done, shooting as she had her make-up applied, and moving in for close-ups as she opened a bottle of champagne. Eventually, just as she was about to go upstairs to get her dress on, she stopped and turned to me with a puzzled look on her face and said "Aren't you going to take any photos of the bride?" Aaaagh! The chief bridesmaid had the same name as the bride!
Now I'm blushing!...

By the left...

Shocking to hear of the redundancies being made by the Army, as they try to reduce capacity to just 82,000 soldiers, and it does make you wonder just what is a safe occupation to get into these days.
(Ok, the words soldier and safe don't belong in the same sentence, but you know what I mean. Long-term security. Job for life. Nice early retirement, cushy pension etc., etc., etc...) Well, undertakers are sorted, that's for sure - we're always going to need them (Sadly, we'll certainly need 'em as long as we've got soldiers!) - and so is Being Queen - she's in a job forever and ever. But what else? Oh, Scottish voice-over artists! They're safe, too! It feels like they're going to be in work for a long time yet. (The Co-operative, Gid with Fid anyone?) But that's about it, isn't it? I mean, we all know there's no future in a job on newspapers. I spent half the Jubilee weekend consoling a journalist pal who'd just had redundancy dropped on him from a great height, and as I said the other day, we now live in a world where daily evening newspapers are happy to take free pictures from Twitter rather than employ a photographer. Last weekend I enjoyed a great Shoot'nTutor session with a young girl who's going to take Photography at A Level next term, and I advised her not to consider photography as a full-time career! How bad is that? Reminds me of when I was a nipper rushing home from a careers lesson at school. "What did you say you wanted to do?" asked my Mum, as she peeled ten tons of spuds. "I said I wanted to be a photographer.." I gasped, excitedly. Mum put down the peeler, wiped her hands on her apron and said "There's no money in that! Go and join the Army!"

Today's shot is from my 'Don't Miss That' series, shot in Eccles in the mid '70s. Eccles Army Cadet Unit, marching up the street outside their HQ! By the left...

Blue Moon..

I love the fact that Nasri scored against his Man City team-mate Joe Hart last night, despite the fact it meant England only got a draw against France in the Euros. It must be really weird to be so reliant on another player, and then turn into his deadly rival for those 90 minutes on the pitch! Makes me think of us photographers .. all pally and bezzy mates at the bar, yet as competitive as hell when you put a Nikon in our hands. (Or a Canon, but hey ;-) that's no competition!) Even as recently as yesterday I was chatting with a Wedding photographer friend of mine, and we were discussing off-camera lighting. Whilst we both agreed that we used it, we only hinted to each other how we actually set our gear to do it, neither of us quite going as far as telling the other exactly how each of us shot. Yet, she's one of the first people I'd recommend if I was already booked for somebody's Wedding date, and would call on her in a heart-beat if I was ever unable to attend a Wedding. Mind you, that's a once-in-a-blue-moon event and, in all my 34 years as a photographer, I've never missed a Wedding yet!

Moon? Someone mention the moon? I was out-and-about at half-six this morning, enjoying the glorious summer's morning, when I looked up and shot this as an aircraft's con-trail drifted in front of the waning moon. Well, don't you walk around your garden with a 500mm mirror lens on your camera?

Glorious morning? Someone mention a glorious morning? Well, you wouldn't know it if you were listening to Chris Evans on Radio 2 this morning! You see, folks, it's raining in London today, so as far as the BBC is concerned the whole country is having a pissy, wet day! The day 'Auntie' remembers there are a lot more of us outside London than in it? Now that would be a once-in-a-blue moon event!

Just not cricket..

I'd like to thank over 100 people who gathered in Salford on Saturday night to watch a video slide-show of some of my Wedding Photography. Nah! They didn't really! Over 100 people actually gathered in Salford to celebrate the Wedding of Nadine and Paul, who married in Portmeirion at the beginning of May and held a party - replete with a slide show of my photographs - to show all the family and friends that couldn't make it to Wales. Still, it gave me a buzz and the images looked great, beaming out with a backdrop of the new Salford Reds Rugby League ground.

Actually, speaking of rugby, I'm thinking of starting to follow the game! Three days into the football of Euro 2012 and I'm already sick of the way the pansy, wimpy footballers keep falling over, rolling in 'agony' and deliberately trying to get their opponents booked. Grow up, lads! It's just not cricket!

Shoot'nTutor was great on Saturday, and I had a really eager pupil who arrived with a whole list of questions for me to answer. We worked through his queries about white balance, exposure lock and ISO, but I had to smile when he next asked .. "Is there any money in Press Photography?" "No, David.." I replied "There isn't any money in Press Photography these days, not when even the once-great Manchester Evening News refuses to pay for submitted images, and merrily cherry-picks 'news' shots from Twitter instead of sending a photographer!"

Now that, my friends, is just not cricket!

Friggin' in the rigging!..

It was a dark and stormy night and..

Actually, it was a dark and stormy night last night and I had real trouble sleeping, woken in the early hours by the distant, niggly noise of someone busy with hammer, saw and power drill. Then, Noah's Ark swept past the house, closely followed by my car, our dogs and every flower pot in my garden! Man, I think it's rained for a solid week now and I'm getting thoroughly cheesed off with it all. At least I now have the football to cheer me up, and I can hunker down and watch Euro 2012 free from any feelings of guilt about not being outside in the glorious sunshine! Heaven help the brides getting married this weekend, though. As luck would have it I'm running a Shoot'nTutor workshop today, so I'm free from the 'stress' of shooting a wet Wedding. Rather, I can use the low light levels to my advantage, and I can run through the use of wide apertures and faster shutter speeds with my 'pupil'...

I had a blast of a childrens' portrait session yesterday morning, though I'm amazed I've still got any hair left on my head. The youngest of my five subjects just would not join her siblings to be photographed! Two? She acted like she was twenty-two, deliberately turning her head away from the camera and running away as soon as Mum let go of her arm! I'm off to edit the work this morning and, fingers crossed, I think there'll be just enough choice to keep her parents happy. Still, a flood of enquiries and two new bookings for Weddings in 2013 went a long way to ending the day on a high, so you could say that was two by two and it all ended swimmingly...

Well, you could...

PS: My shot of the Arab dhows is from a trip I took to Kenya about 20 years ago. Kodachrome 64 if you're interested. Still Kodachrome 64 if you're not! Enjoy the weekend! Stay dry!

The London Olympiczzz.....

Alright everybody, that's the Jubilee done and dusted, so let's hear it for the London Olympiczzz - the games by the people for the people .. as long as you're wadded and completely stupid!! Check out these event posters in my local travel agents. Just look at the prices! £299! £449!! .. £849!!! That's how much it's going to cost for ONE person to get ONE ticket for ONE event with ONE night's B+B in a hotel in London! Holy swear words!! Are they having a laugh? Who the hell is going to pay those kinds of prices? (And if it's you .. keep quiet!) All those rings in the Olympic symbol? They're the noughts after the prices now that everyone's a finalist in the 100 metres rip-offs. And the torch? We might as well let Coca-Cola staff and blokes with silly names like Will.I.Am carry it, taking the place of hard-working, deserving British people. Oh, they've already done that! Bloody hell, it's no wonder we 'Up North' feel so disconnected from the games. Even the name is enough to p*ss you off - The London Olympiczzz! Well, quite frankly, you can have 'em, London! I've never felt so disinterested in a sporting event in my life - well, apart from every cricket match ever! Oh, one more thing... those event prices don't include travel!

No, thank YOU!..

Ok, that's enough Queeny stuff now, thank you very much. I think we can safely say the Diamond Jubilee has been well and truly marked, and now we can get back to normality.. well, Euro 2012, anyway! Just love this shot of my sister, taken in '77 as she sat at her suitably celebratory dressing-table but, like she was, I'm all Queened-out now and chomping at the bit to move on.

One of 'my' couples came round to collect some parents' albums yesterday and gave me a lovely big vine as a thank you present. If this photography mullarkey ever starts to look grim I'm going to set up my own vineyard and start producing a cheeky little Chateauneill for you all. Their gift gave me cause to raise a glass though, as the simple act of saying 'Thank You' seems to have gone out of the window these days. The photographer has become 'just another supplier' at a Wedding - take your money, do your job. The thank-you letters, the happy little emails, they seem to have disappeared, and whilst that's fair enough I just feel the photographer is a much bigger player in a couple's Wedding, sharing everything from the tension and excitement of the bridal preparation to the love and intimacy of the first dance - behave! - and deserves a little more appreciation. When a couple are unsure about the 'next move' on their Wedding Day it's the photographer they turn to, it's the photographer who guides the day and makes it run smoothly. It might be that not saying thank-you is a generational thing, as the general level of politeness in society slides ever downwards. People just expect you to do your job and might not even realise that a little word of thanks might do a world of good. As a freelance, working alone, that little bit of positive feed-back makes all the difference. So I believe we've got to fight to maintain standards. Maybe not as hysterically as that rosy flag-waving, cap-tilting British world that's just been projected across the globe but hey, even Her Majesty said thank you!

Party like it's 1977..

Come on folks, no slowing down now! One more day to go and then real life can resume again! I thought I'd throw in a couple of shots today from the 1977 Silver Jubilee, which we celebrated not as a street-party but as a full-blown 'do' in the nearby school hall. Being just about 17, I took it upon myself to be the official photographer for the event, which meant I got to swank around looking important and, more to the point, got me in the good books of these guys, whose usual interest in me stretched only as far as threatening to beat me up! This weekend's celebrations have certainly put Britain in the spotlight though and, apart from 'Phil the Greek's' bladder problems, I'm really pleased it's all gone to plan. Just the Olympiczzzzz to go now...

Oh, the shots are part of my book 'Don't Miss That', more of which you can see by clicking the link here...

Long to rain over us..

A quick break in the partying to check you're all having fun over this Jubilee Weekend..

I shot a great (wet) Wedding at Walton Hall on Saturday and a fab (wet) 80th Birthday party at Willington Hall on Sunday then enjoyed a brilliant (wet) Garden Party at no hall at all last night!

I think this picture from Willington sums it all up 'cos, despite the Queen's best efforts, it is still, after all, a British Bank Holiday Weekend!!

Party!...

Whistle while you work..

Well, it's nearly time to toot yer flute for Liz, and this weekend I imagine press photographers all over the UK are gearing up to cover street parties, fetes, fairs, garden parties, parades, processions and barbies. Me? I'm shooting a Wedding and a family portrait! No complaints there, of course, and ironically the portrait session is back at Willington Hall, scene of last week's hot, sunny Wedding. Can't wait to get to Saturday's reception though as, by all accounts, it's going to include an entire brass band playing for the bride and groom! I hope they play one I know. I do like to whistle while I work...