Now and then ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

An accident in the family meant that I've just had to go back to the UK for the first time in four years. Can't say I was delighted about the trip but decided to make the most of it by having a little wander around some of my old haunts (once the emergency was over!) The changes were astonishing, and I thought it would be fun to put some new shots together with old pictures from my archive. I have to say that poor old Eccles is looking a little worse for wear. (Either that or it was always so, and I just never noticed because I was just a kid.) Lots of vape shops and boarded-up pubs, take-away food shops and litter. Quite depressing, really. I won't be going back for a long time ..

God Saved The Queen ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well, she made it! Seventy years on the throne and good luck to ya, missus! Can't say I'm a big fan of The Royals, though I WAS once rather chuffed to be the sole photographer allowed to cover an event with The Queen in 1989. (I don't own a single shot from the event .. the client insisted on taking all the negatives and says now they have no idea where they might be!) So, enjoy your four-day holiday UK, and here are a couple of photographs from the 1977 Silver Jubilee, taken when I was a mere stripling of sixteen. (That's my sister, in her bedroom!) 

God Saved The Queen!..

Thirteen years ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And so I mark another year since the death of my Dad. Thirteen now, though it seems like only yesterday. Here's the daft bugger with a big Bell's whisky he won in a raffle. When the booze was gone he filled the bottle with one and two pence pieces and gave the whole amount to the Children's Hospital in Manchester. You can be sure I'll be raising a glass to you tonight, Dad!

One for the ladies ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's International Women's Day, so here's a selection of my shots of International Women, though the only ones that are really on my mind at the moment are those poor ladies in Ukraine. God help you, ladies ..

A world turned upside down ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It feels like the world has been turned upside down this morning. Russia has invaded a European country and I can scarce believe I've just typed that ..

I can only hope that Putin comes to his senses (!!) and that this disaster resolves itself quickly. I pray for the people of Ukraine ..

22.2.22

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Two, two, two, two, two! Another excuse for a blog and what better than my lovely archive shot of Morrissey, lead singer of The Smiths, taken almost forty years ago at Manchester's Free Trade Hall. The Smiths? What've they got to do with .. ah, well .. wasn't one of their songs 'Vicar in a TU-TU'?

Groan!

Back in my day ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On another day, I might have called today's blog "On being smug and thinking it was better in the old days" .. because that's exactly how I'm feeling! 

I saw a tweet the other day from a photographer asking how they could cut down on the amount of time it took to edit their work. I wasn't the only person to reply "Take less shots! Yesterday I watched a TV programme featuring a young photographer from Liverpool, who's made quite a name for himself by photographing gigs. At one point a caption came up that said he took 'between 1,000 and 2,000 shots per gig'. Reader, I nearly fainted! Holy shit, that's a lot of pictures. I've never taken that many shooting a whole bloody wedding! Does kinda make you think he just leaves his finger on the shutter button and machine-guns what's in front of him, doesn't it?

So why am I feeling so smug? Well, I'll tell you. When I photographed the Joy Division gig in 1979 I sensed that this new band was 'different'. They were so exciting and different to anything I'd heard before that I decided to throw caution to the wind and use a second roll of film. I took the sum total of 72 photographs! Man, I was crazy in my youth ..   

(And just a quick note on today's photo. It's from the Manchester Air Show, circa 1978. I love the guy shooting on a Mamiya!)

2.2.22

It struck me the other day that I haven't written anything here for a while and so, when I got onto this site, I was surprised to see that, this month alone, eighteen people have already read my blog .. and we're only two days into the month. (And that's without even writing anything since last November!) So I got all pretentious and precious and thought that I must write something new today, simply to please 'all' those interested people.

What to write about was a different matter. (Things are pretty quiet around here these days!) My photography consists only of Instagram posts showing leaves and frost and trees - and, of course, I haven't shot a wedding for a long, long time - so I'm hardly in a position to blow your mind with any new photographic insight.

And then it struck me. Today is 2.2.22 and if that's not reason enough to write a blog then what is? Now then, I've had this picture of my Dad on my computer screen for quite a while now. (He's sticking up TWO fingers! See what I did, there?) The reason for the image is that I've written a book that's kinda, sorta based on the years I spent sharing a flat with him, so I've looked at it a lot when I've been searching for words to put down. It's called 'Page 99, by Joe Bancroft', and I'm very, very, very, very proud of it. Getting anyone else to show any interest in it is another matter altogether. I've now submitted it to .. get this .. eighty-nine literary agents without a sniff of anyone wanting to take it forward. (Make that 90 .. I've literally had another rejection this afternoon!) But keep trying, I hear you say. Think of J.K. Rowling. Well, I've thought about her and it doesn't help in the slightest, thank you very much. No, I think my next move might have to be self-publication. Amazon Kindle beckons, and I'll let you know when I hit my first million.

If anyone out there .. anyone! .. is interested in reading my book then please let me know here. It's all about music, looking for chicks .. oh, and press photography .. and is funny, sad, historically interesting and a fab look at the shared lives of two working-class blokes in 1970s Manchester.

As with all 'authors' I feel that, once it lands in the right place, my book will prove to be very successful. When it is, I'll then unleash my second book on the world and try to get used to all the world renown. My second book? Yes, that's right. I've written TWO!

  

My view ..

 

 

 

 

 

We're a few days into the COP 26 conference in Glasgow and, not surprisingly, there's been rather a glut of depressing tv programmes about climate change. On one, an Australian woman was talking about a plague of mice her farm had suffered, after enjoying a bumper crop of cereal after years of drought. Literally famine or feast! The presenter then cut to a shot of Madagascan islanders, starving to death because of the way we're fucking up the world. And then it struck me.. 

 Which was the more sensible species? The mice, obviously! Their population only exploded when there was ENOUGH food to go around. Our population is expanding regardless of any such consideration. The mud hut in Madagascar was literally teeming with little children, brought into the world even though their parents knew they lived under incredibly unfavourable circumstances, and you have to ask yourself .. why? The matriarch of the family described the kids as 'gifts from God'. He should have given them the gift of reason, and perhaps they might have worked out that having so many children might not be such a good idea after all. Religion has got a lot to answer for!

I can't say it enough. Contraception should have been the first thing the COP 26 delegates discussed this week. We have GOT to cut down on the number of people on this planet. Critics of my position tell me that, if my parents had used a condom that chilly November day back in 1959, there would have been no such thing as 'me'. My answer is .. well, I wouldn't be here to worry about that, would I?

COP .. Contraception on Prescription!

Please!

Half a bloody century .. !

What were you up to exactly fifty years ago today? I'll tell you what I was doing .. my French homework! I know this because I still have in my possession the exercise book in which I did it. (I'm a right little hoarder, I am!)

Yes, half a century ago - September 27th 1971 -  little eleven-year old me had just started at Eccles Grammar School and was getting my first taste of the French language. Little did I know that, fifty years on, I'd be living in the country and still trying to learn it!

Oh well, at least I've done my homework!

 

 

 

 

Four years!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's the late summer Bank Holiday Monday in the UK, a date that will stay with me forever. It was on this day, incredibly four years ago, that I photographed my last ever Wedding in England. Now, as I sit here - completely retired - it feels a different world. Weddings filled my days back then .. either shooting them or editing them or promoting myself and looking for bookings. Man, the hours I spent trying to get couples to book me for their Big Day. I don't miss it a bit ..

Me and Abe Lincoln

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another Father's Day, and yet another year without my old pop. Here we are in New York, well over half my lifetime ago. I fucking hated that 'Abraham Lincoln' beard he'd decided to grow, but now I'd give anything to give that bristly chin a cheeky scratch. Miss you Dad x

Over the rainbow ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After three years, I'm still trying to get my books published, and I was rather encouraged to hear that the daughter of a friend of mine has just had her work accepted, until she told me that it had taken ... FOURTEEN years for that to happen!

I'll be almost 75 in fourteen years. I hope I've still got my marbles about me to enjoy all the acclaim, the TV shows, the book tours, the wine, the women, the song ..

Ah, dream on, Martin. Still, it's a nice dream .. the publication, that is, not the wine, women and song. One just needs to keep one's chin up as one trundles along that long and unforgiving road. 

There must be gold at the end of the rainbow ..

 

To Dad ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's twelve years today since my Dad died. Here he is around 1980, aged about 47. Sharing a flat with him in my twenties, I was never short of a model whenever I needed to test a new lens, or a new way of lighting. He absolutely loved having his photograph taken, and you can see why. He really was a handsome bastard ..

This week, my Carte de Sejour finally came through .. my legal permission to live here in France. I was delighted, of course, but one of the things that cheered me most was the reaction from people who saw my card. Wow, they said, you look just like your Dad. Ha ..

Love you, Dad ..

 

The wait goes on ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"A good read."

"Your powers of description are excellent."

 "The characters are nicely portrayed, to the extent that they're easy to visualise. I can even hear their accents."

 Just some of the compliments coming in for my latest book, called SNAPS, which is out now in .. absolutely no form whatsoever! (So a big thank you to the patient pals who've taken the time to read the stuff I've sent them!)

No, sadly, I still haven't had any publishing interest in my work and am now seeing that as a badge of honour. Hey, if it took 47 attempts to get Booker prize winner Shuggie Bain into print then I'm right on track!

I'm sure success is just around the corner, though. I can feel it in my bones. The best-seller list beckons for both SNAPS and my first book, intriguingly entitled Page 99, by Joe Bancroft. Both are based on photography. 99 is semi-autobiographical, and SNAPS is the completely fictional story of the South Neldon Amateur Photographic Society. Well, they do say 'write about what you know,' don't they?

 So, any literary agents out there reading my blog? I'll be home all day if you want to get in touch!

Meantime, a nice shot of my Mum, taking my picture in about 1974. Question is, where's my Mum's bloody picture of me ..?

No ordinary Joe ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm marking Saint Joseph's Day with a photograph of my favourite 'Joes' .. my Dad and my Grandad.

In the Catholic Church, Joseph is the patron saint of workers and, in these two guys, the name couldn't have been more apt. Man, they were grafters ..

My Grandad always used to tell me he was a gravedigger and, to this day, I'm not sure whether or not he was joking. I know he used to scare me to death with stories of ghostly sightings in the graveyard ..

As for my Dad, the poor fella never stopped working, right up until the day, way back in the early 80s, when he was made redundant. Talk about being thrown on the scrapheap .. 

Tonight I'll raise a glass of Guinness to these two strong Ulstermen, now both long gone. And to Dad, an extra special thank you. He gave me the middle name of Joseph and, today, I couldn't be more proud .. 

Hail Mary ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

A year ago today we dashed out in the morning for one last bike ride before a noon lock-down kicked into being ..

That's it. End of blog. Well, it's not as if I'm the only person in the world to be going through this, is it? No, it's just an excuse to show you one of my travel shots, this one from Brazil showing care-free holidays and a bit of intercession from The Virgin Mary. Two things we're probably all praying for, right now ..  

Just like the old days ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

This weekend I did something I've not done in a long time. I unwrapped the cellophane from around a new CD ..

(I almost feel that, at this point, I should explain to younger readers exactly what a CD is!)

How exciting it was to open up that clear little box and listen to versions of songs I've never heard before. It brought it all back. All that rushing to record shops to buy the new Blondie single, and waiting outside HMV for The Smiths latest album. I can even remember when CDs came into my life, picking them up second-hand in America and then having to buy a CD player when I got back to the UK ..

My friend says I'm stuck in the past when it comes to my taste in music but I try, I really try, to listen to new stuff that I might like. The trouble is, I don't like it. Music really was better in my day (© My Dad, circa 1978)

So yes, it's been a long time since I bought a new CD. The irony is, it was a CD of Manchester band The Diagram Brothers 'Peel Sessions' recordings, which came out in 1980 ..

Ooops ..  

A day without music ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There's not a lot of moshing going on at the moment, is there? Not that I go gigging very much these days, but it's a shame for 'the kids', who are being deprived of a very vital part of their lives. I couldn't have lived without bands and music when I was in my twenties ..

As if to illustrate the point, I happened upon my diary for February 1981. It tells me that, this exact week forty years ago, I went to see Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, Bad Manners and the UK Subs, and also that The Spliff Radio Show were on the Old Grey Whistle Test and there was a new single from a band with the very apt name of The Photos ..

Just to show that's not a fluke, the next week I went to see The Drones, the Expressos, U2 and The Freshies, and the week after that I saw Duran Duran, Discharge and The Revillos ..

Out of all those I can only remember the U2 gig, which was at Manchester Poly, where there was a big painting of Dennis the Menace on the wall. Gives a bit more meaning to their song 'A day without me' ..

It's a long road ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm thinking of having my yacht re-sprayed. It looks so boring in white ..

Sorry, I'm getting ahead of myself. When I get a yacht I will no doubt, at some stage, have it re-painted. I will have bought a yacht because the film rights to a book I've written will get taken up by a big Hollywood studio and I'll be assigned the role of artistic director to oversee accurately creative filming. The film rights will have been bought after an unsightly mega-tussle because my book will be such a massive best-seller that all the studios will want to get it to the big screen. The book will have been so successful because nine publishers all wanted to get their hands on it and the highest bidder paid out big styley. The publishers went crazy for the book because seven separate literary agents all wanted to represent me ..

And this is where I wake up again. At the 'literary agent' bit. Yes, I'm having a bit of trouble with that bit. 

Like a zillion other 'writers', I don't seem to be able to get anyone interested in taking it on. By sheer coincidence, I got yet another rejection email this morning but an email from one agent described perfectly to me how hard it is to get selected. She receives, she tells me, five manuscripts every .. what? Every week? Every day? Folks, she receives five manuscripts an HOUR!

So, the yacht, the respray, the mega-tussles .. it'll all have to wait. I've got a long road ahead of me ..   

It's the little things you remember ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thirty years ago today I was trekking in the Himalayas and stopped at a hostel that had a short-wave radio. On the BBC World Service news that evening, I heard that the 'Desert Storm' Gulf War had started.

"I can't believe it," I said. "That's my friend, reading the news!" And so it was. My pal, who now works for the Financial Times, was the newsreader that fateful day in January '91. Doesn't sound so special now but, back then, to hear my friend's voice when I was half-way up a mountain range in Nepal was amazing.

By 1992 I was in New Hampshire, where I photographed this 'Desert Storm' train set in a shop window.

It's the little things you remember ..

 

 

A world of difference ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As a thirtieth birthday present to myself, I bought an airline ticket and took off on a six-month 'Round-the-World' back-packing trip ..

 It began on the sixth of January, 1991 ..

Exactly thirty years on and I'm living in a completely different world, one in which that dream is now an impossibility. No-one can go anywhere, anymore! The Covid pandemic's got us all in its grip, and even poor old STA travel, with whom I booked my ticket, has ceased trading because of it ..

I was going to call this blog 'The opposite of lockdown' because, flying off from Heathrow at the start of that trip, I'd never felt such freedom in my entire life. Today, people can't even step outside their front doors ..

I'm not writing about my trip to show off, I'm simply marking an amazing personal anniversary and thanking my lucky stars I was to be able to fulfill my dream. How fortunate I am to have such fabulous memories ..

Covid is never going to be a fabulous memory for today's thirty year olds. Here's hoping that their world - and ours - will open up again soon .. 

(Ps: If you're interested, this picture was taken in Moorea, the island across from Tahiti. I've always been fascinated by the 'Mutiny on the Bounty', and the inlet on my right is where they shot some of the Anthony Hopkins' film version.)

 

Knock it on the head ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The late and lovely Duke of Westminster, about to get clonked on the head with a hammer. At least, that's what it looks like, in one of the weirdest PR photographs I think I ever took.

Years and years later I have no idea why I was taking it - something about a charity helping people, surprise, surprise - and I think this old chap may have helped to build the shed, for some reason. All I know is that - because it is so corny - the shot had stuck in my mind and I was delighted when I found it again in that 'old box of negatives'.

It's New Year's Eve, and I'm not going to do all that 'looking forward' stuff that one's supposed to do at this time of year. No, I'm going to take a leaf out of our little dog's book and simply live for the moment. Let's just all enjoy what we've got and who we've got, if we have someone.

Happy New Year, everybody! 

And 2020? Let's just knock it on the head ..

Time for the children ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm still trawling through a big box of old negatives, with some great memories coming back to light.

This morning I found this one ..

After the disaster of Chernobyl in the mid 1980s, a group of children from the town were brought over to Manchester for a holiday. It was then that I took a picture of this delightful little girl, with her cute 'hat' and her beautiful smile. She'll now be nudging forty years old.

Everything's so fleeting in this life and I don't know where I'm going with this blog other than to say 'Merry Christmas' to everybody, and hope you cherish what you've got.

Peace, love, vodka .. 

Beat that bug ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's twenty-one years since the world was battling with another 'bug' that threatened to take over the planet.

The Millenium Bug.

It was a major worry, with everyone being told that their computers could crash and the world would go to gerbil shit ..

It never happened!

The only thing that changed was that I made a few bob out of shooting PR photographs to promote awareness of the possibility. I had to visit all sorts of businesses with a selection of 'Millenium Bug' material - including the four foot high cardboard bug in the 'pub' picture - and plonk it into my shots to get the message across. Interesting to note that, in December 1999, I was still shooing film. No computer crash was ever going to cause my photographs to disappear!

I can only hope that the 'other' bug is consigned to history as quickly ..

 

 

Hello Dad ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's got to be the biggest cliché in photography but, yesterday, I literally spotted a box on top of my shelves and wondered 'What on earth's in there.'

Lots of wonderful negatives .. that's what was in there!

Family shots, street scenes, pictures I'd forgotten I'd ever taken. Snaps I took in the office at my first newspaper and shots taken during an eight-week block release at Sheffield College in 1981.

Shots like this, too, of my Dad in 1978. I used to share a flat with him and would rope him in to 'model' every time I wanted to try out a lens or some other gizmo.

I happen to be listening to the radio as I write this blog and, of all things, a song has just come on that he used to sing all the time. Cliché, coincidence? Probably both of the above but I definitely felt he was watching down on me this morning ..  

 

 

 

My latest book ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So what did you do during the latest lockdown?

Well, I'm glad you asked. I wrote my next book, that's what I did.

And, do you know what, I already have something in common with the Man Booker prize winning novel, Shuggie Bain. Yes, I've been rejected .. already! Hurrah! Only 41 more rejections to go, now.

It's called Page 99, by Joe Bancroft and I've absolutely loved writing it. 85,000 words and a real dive into the world of a young press photographer on a local newspaper. (Where DO I get my ideas??)

So yes, now the fun begins, trying to find an agent that will take my work on board.

Don't worry, I'll still love you when I'm famous!!!

Forty-five quid ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

On October 11th, 1978, the renowned newspaper tycoon Eddie Shah wrote me a letter. Ok, it was actually his secretary, but he did sign it, so that counts! The basis of the correspondence was this: he was offering me a job with Messenger Group Newspapers. I'd got a job as a press photographer, at just turned 18 years of age. 

I was in! ..

That letter changed my life. I still have it, stuck in one of my many scruffy old scrapbooks ..

"Dear Mr. O'Neill, we are pleased to offer you the post .. "

Magic words, and amazing to think of the places and people and occasions they've allowed me to witness over the ensuing forty-two years. On my first day in the job - the first day - I had to photograph the captain of Manchester United! Thank you, Eddie Shah, for giving me that chance, so long ago ..

And hey, it gets better. That dream job, an ambition from the age of thirteeen, a job I'd have happily done for nothing .. he threw in forty-five quid a week as well ..

Four ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

And so we start our fourth year in France. Zut alor!..

The joy of gîtes ..

 

 

 

 

 

Well, goodbye guests. That's the end of the summer season for La Galerie, our little gîte in downtown SW France, and what a short season it was. Thanks to Covid we were shut from March until the beginning of July but, we're delighted to say that, as soon as restrictions were lifted, the bookings came flooding in. We had Dutch guests, French guests, Scottish guests and .. some English!!

Now, I'm saying it like that for a reason, and that being, as much as we like and need them, the English are so bloody messy! They don't seem to be able to tidy up after themselves when they leave. The Dutch? Brilliant. Same for the French, the Spanish, the Scots, the Poles and every other nationality of guest we've welcomed here. But the English? Well, they seem to think we're some kind of skivvies, put on earth for the sole purpose of cleaning up the mess they leave behind them. There seems to be a general attitude of 'leave it, we're on holiday'. Look at this photograph of the shelf in our bathroom. Disgusting, isn't it? Still, I suppose I shouldn't complain. The guests left us a great review. The gîte, they said, was .. "spotless" !

Let's hear it for the oldies ..

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A week on from turning 60 and I've already seen one advantage of my advanced years. I've been able to get an eye-test appointment a full month ahead of that whipper-snapper Lesley! Ha ..

Grateful ..

I'm going to be sixty years old tomorrow. Good God, I'm not old enough to be sixty years old and, as unoriginal as it sounds, I have to ask 'where did all that time go?'

Well, I suppose it went whilst having a great life and, at 59.9999999 I have to say I've enjoyed practically every minute of it (so far). So, I'm feeling grateful today. Grateful for everything I have, grateful for my health, my family, everyone I know, everything I've done, everything I've experienced, everything I'm still going to experience and, probably, grateful for headache tablets come Wednesday morning ..

Today's shot is probably one of my earliest photographs. This is the street I grew up on, circa 1974. The little blighter on the left is my brother James, and he's 53 years old now! Little did I know when I took this that a long and wondrous career as a photographer beckoned and, for that, I am very grateful indeed ..

Normalness ..

Dare I say there's a hint of 'normalness' re-appearing in our lives? I've had my first photo-shoot in the studio since February - the delightful young ladies above - and, last week, I had to photograph the newly-elected Mayor and council for our commune. I've also had enquiries for a Wedding and a shoot at a property ..

Good news on the gîte front too, as La Galerie welcomes new guests today, our first since March ..

Covid 19 hasn't gone away but, thank God, the stark reality of life in lockdown is starting to fade ..

Is 'normalness' a word? It is now ..

My Olympus Trip ..

I'm a bit late coming to this news, but I read the other day that Olympus have stopped making cameras. I mean, that's like saying Hovis have given up on bread. What sad news. Sad but inevitable, I guess, as the rise and rise of the 'phone camera continues ..

When I first started working on a newspaper, I was presented with an Olympus OM-1 camera, with its 'arse-about-face' shutter speed ring where the aperture ring would normally be. (Don't worry about the technical stuff. Let's just say it was very odd to get used to). However, when I was about 20 the company launched the Olympus XA camera - a little compact beauty that I immediately fell in love with. From the day I bought one I was never without it. We went everywhere together and I must have gone through about five or six of them over the following years. (Including the one I dropped down a volcano in Sumatra.) I shot all of my book 'Don't Miss This' on them. It was just so quiet and inconspicuous. And now? Erm, now I use the camera on my 'phone ..

Sorry, Olympus, but it's been one hell of a trip ..

Father's Day ..

It's summer 1961, and a good-looking 28 year old proudly holds his one year old son for the camera, their smiles captured forever.

The 28 year old was my Dad. I'm the little nipper in his arms. I wish I could put my arms around him now .. 

Have a nice day!

My blog today consists of this one single picture. I think the headline in the newspaper sums up my thoughts perfectly. Showing you this old picture of mine means that I now don't need to write about Covid-19, or racism, or unemployment, or recession, or Chinese aggression, or Dickhead (Sorry, every time I try to write T.r.u.m.p my computer spellchecks it back to Dickhead), or kids with knives, or corporate greed, or scum raping women at illegal Manchester raves, or people dumping statues into the sea (That'll definitely erase things from history .. not!!), or the UK Government, or people suing their date because they got a cold-sore, or North Korea, or Assad, or, or, or ..

Have a nice day! 

Watch it, Grandad ..

Writing about Wedding photography yesterday reminded me how I would always meticulously clean my cameras before photographing someone's Big Day. It was a little ritual I had. The sensors, the viewfinders, the lenses .. they all got the (pre-Covid) deep clean ..

So, after writing my blog, I took out all my gear and decided to give it the once-over. And then came my Grandad moment. I looked at my first camera body and realised I couldn't remember how to open the back. And then it dawned on me. It was a digital camera. One does not open the back of a digital camera. Gone are the days of blowing dust from your open shutter and checking there were no broken fragments of film stuck to the sprockets. My, how I laughed ..

I always fretted if I had a long gap between Weddings. It was important to keep 'up to speed' with all my camera gear. Three or four weeks without a booking meant I got rusty, in my opinion. I wonder how rusty we all are now, seeing as we haven't done 'normal' things for so long ...

To illustrate today's blog, a shot from the early 80s, when people would latch themselves onto each other and 'row' along the disco floor to the song 'Oops, upside your head'.

Hmm! Did I say "normal" .. ? 

Mind the gap ..

It's a frustrating week of 'Would have, Should have' this week. For a start, we should have had family over here for a holiday, but Covid's put the mockers on that. And, if things had been normal, I would have been going to an air show a couple of hours from here next Sunday. Most annoying of all, I would have been photographing a wedding this week, but all plans got put on hold and now it's not going to happen. Ironic in the week that lockdown got a little easier on us, with bars and restaurants finally opening again and larger groups able to get together for the first time in ages ..

Still, we're going in the right direction but I worry that people will take things too far and we'll all be back to square one. So, please, as they say on the Underground .. Mind The Gap!

My Dad ..

It's the morning of Saturday May 23rd .. 2009. The morning my Dad died. Eleven years on and I still miss him so much. I have so many good memories, like the night he won this giant bottle of Bell's whisky in the pub raffle. Once it was finally drained he used it to collect loose change and, when it was eventually full, he donated the money to charity. He was nice like that, my Dad ..

On yer bike, China ..

First bike ride after the end of lock-down yesterday .. and wonderful it was, too. Just waiting for the achy legs to kick in now. By sheer coincidence, I dug out this shot the other day - a kodachrome slide from a trip I made a long time ago. I know China is a dirty word at the moment, but this is a picture from Canton and I look at it now with a sense of dismay, that a country can have as many cyclists as it has and still pump out all the pollution it does. How depressing to hear that pollution levels are on the rise again as things there get 'back to normal'.

I don't want normal anymore, thank you very much ..   

Look, don't touch!

What was it like before the pandemic, Grandad? I've heard there was a time when people could go into pubs and clubs and sit next to each other .. without masks .. and they could shake hands and kiss and hug and not be afraid of catching anything! Is it true, Grandad? Is it true?..

 (A shot from my archive: The Talk of The North club, Eccles, circa 1977. That's my grandma, trying to hide from my camera!)

Leaving Lock-Down ..

Freedom! Erm, apart from the weather ..

Today is the first day we in France are being allowed to move around more freely and, wouldn't you know it, it's blowing a gale and pouring down.

It's also the day my Lock-Down Landscapes project must come to an end even though, ironically, the weather of late has been too good to come inside and actually design any. So, you can thank the horrible conditions for the fact that I've actually been indoors this morning and it gives me great pleasure to present to you my final three montages. All were shot in, or from, our garden, apart from half a dozen that I photographed on our permitted one-kilometre walks ..

God, imagine only being able to walk a kilometre from your home. Yes, they've sure been weird times. Let's pray to God that people are sensible and we never get a restriction like that ever again ..

Ten out of ten ..

It's the tenth of May, 2010 ..

I'm pulling into a pub car-park, heart-thumping, about to meet - in person - a girl I've met on-line.

Her name is Lesley, and she's lovely.

______


It's the tenth of May, 2020 ..

I'm in France, with the girl I love.

Her name is Lesley, and she's lovely.

_______


Our tenth anniversary. Wow!

Oh, the picture? Well, she'd kill me if I put up a picture of herself. These are Lesley's grand-daughters. What? I'm going out with a grandma?..

;-)

x

Ten years into the future ..

I had the most lovely surprise yesterday ..

"Just wanted to say hi .." said a message I received. "Ten years ago today you photographed our wedding at Manchester Town Hall. You probably won't remember it as you've done hundreds but you did make our day and we've got lots of captured memories thanks to you."

Well, of course I remember it, and what a lovely message .. and how absolutely wonderful of the couple to think of me on their wedding anniversary. It really made my day ..

'Future Everything' said the poster that I posed them by all those years ago and now that we're in 'the future' it just reinforces the importance of a good set of Wedding photographs. It makes me feel great to think of all those 'hundreds' of couples who now have a set of my photographs in their homes ..

Happy anniversary, Judi and Chris ..  

Rain! Hurrah ..

A month ago, our garden was flooded. Spring was only just making itself felt and I feared for our poor old flower bulbs, underground and underwater. Four weeks later and the ground is rock hard. Weeks of winter rain has drained away, leaving the soil as cracked as the Kalahari. Nobody seems to have told the plants though, and they've all been coming up like crazy these past few weeks ..

And now, rain again, and nature is being rewarded for its no-nonsense approach to life. (Hey, it's been doing it for years.) I can't tell you how happy I am to see the skies darkening again, and we've been getting some great thunder and lightning to spice up the party ..

Of course, another aspect of nature is still darkening our lives at the moment. Confinement continues, but I hope my lock-down landscapes bring a little sunshine (and rain) into your day. Don't forget, I'm here if you have any photography questions that need answering ..  

Lock-down three ..

Lock-down Landscape number three .. the same number as the amount of weeks we have left inconfinement. Yeah, right ..

But what? A Jumbo Jet? Well, yes .. I've included it as it's currently as wonderful a sight as the fresh Spring leaves or the horses grazing just beyond our gate or the farmer sowing a new crop in the field by the side of us. The sky above us is normally a cross-roads for aircraft, demonstrating just how inter-connected our little world is. We get planes travelling up from Spain and Morocco to Paris or other parts of Europe, or from Rome and the UAE heading for the USA, and even South America heading for China - but, at the moment, there's barely a thing in the sky. It's working wonders for the reduction in pollution, and playing havoc with my plane-spotting ..

Still, I won't complain. People are going through hell at the moment. My thoughts are (as always) with you all today ..

For Joan and Alan ..

Time for Lock-down Landscape number 2, my new series of shots taken from, or within our garden ..

Sadly, since my last blog, two is also the number of deaths I've heard about, of people I know back in the UK. How sad. RIP Joan and Alan ..

President Macron has told us that the confinement will finish on May 11th. Personally, I think that's a bit too optimistic, and I'm sure I'll be shooting my landcsapes for quite a while yet. Don't forget, I'm here to answer any photography questions you might have about shooting landscapes and flowers ..

Life goes on .. it has too!

The start of our fourth week of lock-down .. or is it the third? No, the fourth, definitely .. I think!

Trouble is, we can't tell the difference between lock-down and normal life, tucked away in our remote little bit of France. (Not for nothing did a neighbour describe our village as 'the arse-end of nowhere') ..

No, we really are lucky to be a long way from all the problems of the world and, aside from missing our meet-ups at the bar and our bike rides with friends, life goes on as normal here. (I'm not telling you this as a way to gloat or to show off, it's just a fact) ..

Now, I say normal but, of course, we're impacted as much as many. The gîte has had to close, so that's obviously affected us, and mask-wearing and limited shopping trips are also now the norm. It's a shame, but a couple of visits from UK-based family and friends have had to be postponed, and the lovely French habit of greeting friends with a kiss on each cheek has also had to be put on the back-burner, too. Mwah, mwah ..

Life goes on, though. It has too! There's no stopping Spring, in all its magnificent beauty, so I've decided to start shooting a series of 'Lock-down Landscapes', featuring pictures I can take either from, or within, our garden. So, here's number one, and I hope you enjoy it. If you have any questions about any of the shots, or photography in general, either technical or artistic, then drop me a line. In these days of teaching from home, sending you an answer is the least I can do ..