Bless you ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I've just had a quick two-day flit to Manchester, bringing back memories of the days I used to go plane-spotting at the airport there in the 1970s. Back then, the roof terraces were open to spectators and you'd literally be above the jets and passengers as they got on or off their flights. Such freedom has long gone, of course, which is a shame but I can obviously see why. Also long gone are jets like these, the Boeing 727 and the Vickers VC-10, not to mention the entire Pan-Am airline, which went out of business many years ago. Anyway, a good time was had by all and I came back with duty-free gin, Cadbury's chocolate, a couple of new books and .. a stinking cold! 

Bless you, Manchester! 

Music to my ears ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

I've had another of those lovely unexpected messages, when a person not known to me recognises themselves in one of my photographs. In this case it's the charming little baby in the pram, who's now a 40 year old lady living in London. (And still charming, I'm sure!) She wrote to tell me she'd seen herself and her dad in my Café Royal photo-book and cried when she saw it. "My dad," she said, "was 30 in this picture and he's now 70! Not doing too well health wise and this is such a special shot, it really moved me." 

Well, that moved me too, and I was so pleased she got in touch. I love it when history comes to life again. When my random wanderings capture something that brings joy to someone's life. I mean, think about it. For forty years this lady didn't know this photograph existed, and now here she is, enthralled once again by her dad's tooting on a toy trumpet! 

Music to my ears!

F16

 

 

 

 

 

The world is going down the toilet. As Israel bombs whichever the fuck country it wants to, Russia continues its brutal destruction of Ukraine and Poland's had to launch F16s to shoot down Putin's drones. On top of that, and literally as we speak, France is going nuts at tyre-burning blockades around the country because a Prime Minister had the temerity to tell them they're up shit creek without a paddle ..

What's wrong with this picture? Yes, exactly .. this is two people TALKING to each other, back in the days before tweeting and texting and thinking the worst of your fellow man (woman!) because they didn't agree with your social media stance. I wish our leaders were like this, meeting over the divide to communicate and hammer things out. Maybe even reaching out a considerate arm to better facilitate their dialogue ..

I pine for simpler days, when F16 was a camera aperture and tweeting was left to the sparrows and the blue tits. I realise they were only simpler because I was young and gormless and ignorant of the world about me, but it would be nice to go back there for a while, wouldn't it!

Balls ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Today's blog isn't a blog, because I was going to blog about all the pretensions that surround a lot of photography but, having just watched the 'I am Martin Parr' documentary, I can leave it to Grayson Perry, who sums it all up nicely, thank you very much. In the film he talks about the 'wafts of philosophical waffle' that often pervade the art of photography. It's a load of balls, in other words! Ooh look, a picture with a ball in it .. deep! (I can't explain why I like this photo so much. As a kid, 'training' myself to be a press photographer in the 1970s, I used to photograph the Sunday League footballers who played on the field behind our house. It used to amuse me that, just like us, these 'grown-ups' would often lose their ball too, and have to send someone off into the undergrowth to retrieve it!)
 

End of non-blog!

    

Backs against the wall ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm hearing a lot about the British flag appearing all over the UK, and how that's not going down so well in some quarters. Here in France the tricolour flies everywhere, a welcome sign of civic and national pride. If only that was the reason a lot of the Union Jacks are being displayed in the UK. Anyway, I'm not getting into politics, I just wanted an excuse to show you one of my old photographs, a picture taken on Jane Street in Salford during the celebrations for the Queen's 1977 Silver Jubilee. Jane Street has long gone, a chap takes his life in his hands when he attempts street photography of kids these days, and the simple meaning behind the good ol' red, white and blue has gone out of the window .. Sigh!

I'm in love with the girl on the ...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In photography, some things just work. A young couple hug in Eccles precinct, the lad's arms wrapped tightly around his girlfriend with a dangling 'sign' that says 'Virgin'! But I think this photograph is made so much better by the fact that the kid has spotted my camera. It's like we've caught him 'at it' .. we know what his plan might be now with this young lady, who almost seems embarrassed to have been discovered with him .. or am I reading too much into it? On another level, remember when everyone went around with LPs (they were never albums back then) in plastic bags from record shops? And, of course, this all ties in nicely with my Chris Sievey blog, as his band The Freshies did that famous track 'I'm In Love With The Girl On The Manchester Virgin Megastore Checkout Desk'. Hey, maybe that's her!

In me 'ead!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chris Sievey would have been 70 years old yesterday. Shocking to think he didn't make it past 54, the poor bugger, and even harder to realise he's already been dead for 15 years. Chris was Frank Sidebottom, if you see what I mean. It was his head inside Frank's, the only way he ever gained any real taste of fame after his band The Freshies failed to make it big. I was lucky enough to photograph a gig by the group in 1979, and shot them again a couple of days later during a fun day out in Sale. Years after that, I photographed 'Frank' at some launch event after I'd cheekily encouraged him to creep up behind Sophie, the Duchess of Edinburgh. (She wasn't best pleased after she spotted him, I can tell you!!) So this is for you, Chris. I just want you to know you're inside my 'ead, too!

65, eh? ..

 

 

 

 

 

Bloody hell, I've reached the grand old age of 65. Happy Birthday to me! Until recently*, hitting that milestone used to mean retirement after 50 years of hard graft and probably death within a fortnight! Sixty-five meant you were an old-aged pensioner, put out into the long grass to concentrate on your hobbies and contemplate the approaching end. It meant an awkward little soirée with your work-mates and a speech from the boss, two cans of Watney's, a gold clock and a bouquet for the missus. Until I was eighteen I worked at the Gardner Diesel factory in Eccles, where there were retirement parties like those in the offices and on the shop floor on a regular basis. I used them to 'practice' press photography, honing my skills until the day I could quit my shitty job and start working full-time on a newspaper. Here are pictures from two such events, the lucky new pensioners gripping hands with their gaffers and staring their demise in the face. How I feel for the chap that received an electric razor ..

*If I were still working, I would now face another two years at the coal-face before my time was 'up'. The retirement age was raised to 67, which makes me feel all the better (smug alert) for retiring a full ten years early. Anyone for frisbee?

Modest men, lovely men ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As a follow-on from my 'Read this' post, here's a photograph I took of André Kertész with a cake that was made for his 90th birthday. It was July 1984 and he was at the Museum of Photography, Film and Television in Bradford for the opening of a wonderful exhibition of his work. (It was there that I first came across the word 'festschrift' - a collection of works published in honour of an artist - because I bought a copy and still have it, signed by the great man himself .. )

I believe Salford artist Harold Riley had a lot to do with bringing this exhibition to life. I lived down the road from him and photographed him often. "I'm a painter," he modestly told a lady at an event one time. "Oh yes?" she replied. "Can you give me a quote to emulsion our front room!" ..

Modest men, lovely men. I hope they're chattering together excitedly in heaven ..

Ps: This is from an original print, on RC paper, with my hand-written caption up the side! 

Read this ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I've splashed out £35 on David Hurn's new book 'On Reading', an homage to a 1984 book of the same name by the great André Kertész. That first book cost all of £2.50 (Technically $5.95, as I bought it in New York!) but I don't begrudge the higher price of David's book because - don't tell anybody - I think it's better than André's. His eye for a quirky moment conquers André's quietly contemplative photography, meaning there's so much more to see in the modern photographs ..

I own autographed books by both 'masters'. I got André's in person when I was lucky enough to meet him on his 90th birthday. Just got to wangle a meet with Mr Hurn now .. 

 

Gwapple me gwapenuts!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well I guess I know what I was doing thirty-seven years ago today. I was reading the British Journal of Photography, which I bought religiously every week for the grand sum of 60p. On this particular cover, the famous TV botanist David Bellamy peered out from behind a leafy bush in a pose I can only imagine he adopted every time he encountered a photographer. (I shot him exactly like that myself!)

 

Inside, there are articles on 'Stills video' for the press and news agencies (I remember the Manchester Evening News buying in just such a system) and the Canon EOS 620. There's a review of an exhibition at The Barbican - a 20th century collection of French photography entitled 'Art or nature', and there are adverts for the Mamiya 645 and the Bronica GS-1. The thing that surprised me most was the 'Classified' pages at the back of the magazine. There are .. wait for it .. EIGHT pages of jobs within photography, ranging from Slide Technicians on £8000 a year, Photography Lecturers on eight to fifteen thousand, Cruise Ship snappers, Black-and-white printers, E6 technicians and even Senior Photographers with the Ministry of Defence with a requirement of City and Guilds qualifications and at least an A,B or C pass in English Language, Mathematics and one Science subject ..

As David Bellamy (Or at least Lenny Henry) would say .. "Gwapple me gwapenuts!!!" 

(And if you don't understand that then you are TOO YOUNG!)

 

Happy Hockney

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I went to Paris recently to see the fantastic new David Hockney exhibition, then discovered yesterday that he and my Dad share the same birthday. (Two great men, two warm summer days in the 1930s!) I was lucky enough to photograph the artist back in December 1996, when he had a show at Manchester Art Gallery, but the work on display in the capital blew that exhibition away. Staged at the magnificent Foundation Louis Vuitton, it features 400 works of art over several floors and, although I found some of it rather childish, there's no denying the vibrancy of his paintings. And to walk into a room and see a picture that's fifty feet across .. wow! Highly recommended, and open until the end of August if you happen to be en Paris ..

PS: Having finished my photographs, I shook the great man's hand and asked for his autograph. I still have it to this day. You'd swear he's written 'Gary Lowry' .. ! 

PPS: Don't you just love the holes in his cardigan!!

 

Dad ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's sixteen years since Dad died, but July 9th is still a poignant day for me .. Happy Birthday, you old fart!

Lucky Angela Trimble

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In 1978, just like every other red-blooded teenage boy with his hormones a'ragin', I used to have a poster of Debbie Harry on my wall. So it came as quite a shock this morning to find out that her real name is Angela Trimble! "I love you, Miss Trimble" hasn't quite got the same punk punch to it, has it? Nevertheless, she still holds a special place in my heart and I'll be forever jealous of Chris Stein for, er  .. er .. let's skip that bit!

And so, happy birthday, Angela! Just turned 80 and looking fantastic. "How did I get so old?" she asked of herself. "I guess I just got lucky .." 

A lost innocence ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As I melt in 44 degree heat, I thought I'd show again my picture of Lisa in the bath, probably from that fabled summer of sizzly '76. Lovely shot, isn't it? A 'warm' memory of a time gone by and a valid photographic document of that incredible meteorological 'blip', with a delicious ice-lolly and a cool bath by the front door-step in what was a stand-out year for heat and drought. But hang on, she's got no clothes on!! 

I'd be terrified to take a picture like this these days ..

The Demon ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"It was a hot afternoon, the last day of June, and the sun was a demon .. "

At 13 years old I'm not quite sure I knew what was going on in Bobby Goldsboro's gorgeous 1973 hit 'Summer (The first time)' - at that age the only thing I'd ever been seduced by was the Kodak Instamatic - but I can certainly relate to his comments about today's excessive heatwave. "One ten in the shade .." sings Bobby and, after a quick click on a conversion website, I can tell you it's almost exactly that .. 42.9 degrees centigrade actually .. in our back garden this afternoon. I'll bet the sweat's "trickling down" the front of quite a few gowns today, but surely there can't be many people planning a night of steamy passion in this weather? Maybe there are. Perhaps it's an age thing again .. !

 Ps: Feeling the heat in Manchester. I used to cross this square almost every day when I went to the offices of the Manchester Evening News. It's all been built on now, the sun-worshippers have to look elsewhere. One of my Olympus XA shots from the 1980s.

 

 

 

 

It's an age thing ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

Funny to think Rod Stewart will be playing Glastonbury today. I mean, who the hell wants to see an 80 year old geezer up on stage, reeling out his 'hits' for an audience one quarter his age? And then I have to come clean. Last weekend I skipped over to Manchester to see one of my all-time favourites, good ol' Charlie Harper from punk band UK Subs. At 81 he's even older than Rod but, oh boy, you wouldn't know it. Beer in hand, he belts out songs that first saw the light of day when I was 18, way back in the 1970s. (And if that's what punk and alcohol do for you, then I'm glad I signed up early!) It's just a matter of taste, isn't it? I wouldn't dream of standing in a crowd of 100,000 to watch a screen showing an old fart a quarter of a mile away, but stick me in front of Charlie in a small venue of a couple of hundred punters and I'm in heaven ..

I genuinely dropped upon this photograph this morning, a picture I did of Rod at Manchester City's old Maine Road ground back in the .. 90s? (I'm compiling a set of images for a talk I'm giving next Saturday and there he was, along with a bevy of other 'famous' people in a folder I named 'Slebs'!) I'd forgotten I'd taken it, much as I forget a lot of things these days. It's an age thing ..

Ps: My informal talk 'A life in Press Photography' will take place at GALERIE 16 in Chef-Boutonne at 11 on Saturday. Please come along, if you can remember ..

Blowing my own ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's been three months since I last wrote a blog, and I can only apologise to those of you who have been waiting patiently for a new post. (Anyone?) I'd like to say this hiatus was because I was paddling up the Amazon or zoning out on a Tibetan hill-top retreat, but the boring fact is I changed computers and couldn't work out how to log onto the site again ..

Having sorted it, I was amazed when I got back online. Instead of having to dust down my page or brush away the digital cobwebs, I find my blog has been doing quite nicely in my absence. Very nicely indeed, I have to say.  In fact, in the past week alone it has had over 9,000 hits (Four thousand of them from Brazil astonishingly, and another thousand from Vietnam .. !!) How delightful! Thank you very much. Obrigado. Cảm ơn ..

Now, the question is, do I fill you in on what's happened since March or just skip lightly along and start again from today? I think I'll just move on .. you won't want to hear about my book sales or my upcoming photography talk or an email that came in just this week thanking me for my "amazing work documenting Eccles". Oh yes, it may have been three months, but I'm as keen as ever to blow my own  ..    

 

 

God bless Kath Smith ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Do any of you remember the indomitable Kath Smith, the wonder-swirl of a fund-raiser for the Royal Manchester Children's Hospital? She raised something like a million and a half quid for equipment used in the treatment of kids there. Not bad for someone who didn't even begin her charity work 'til she was in her late 60s. (She even convinced Cliff Richard to donate a pair of his trousers to raffle!) Poor old Kath died many years ago, but she lives on in a photograph I've just unearthed, in which she's roped in a couple of elephants for a PR stunt ..

God bless you, Kath Smith! 

Spring has sprung ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 My calendar tells me today is the first day of Spring, even though I've always thought of that as being March 21st. But hey ho, an extra day of the new season is always a good thing, eh?

Today's shot was taken on 6x6cm colour transparency film, from a series of landscape photographs I was working on in the 1980s. Hard to imagine now, isn't it? A mere twelve shots on a roll of film, a trip to the processing lab and a wait for the results to see if you'd 'got it right'. I was a really slow convert to digital photography, but now I can't imagine shooting any other way. Like the arrival of Spring, it really did bring in a whole new way of life ..