the dog blog

Fri, 11 May 2012 23:10:26 +0100

It looks very much like the Hipstamatic app for the iPhone is more than just a passing phase. It’s certainly handy for those quick snaps on the street. I’ve now begun a study of lonely dogs. They remind me a little of the homeless and disenfranchised and even though I know their owner isn’t far away, they probably don’t.

Here’s a few recent lonely street dogs - more soon ...

end of the road

Sun, 18 Dec 2011 10:01:31 +0000

It was a long and winding road that we took together. Ups and downs, all the time pushing hard to learn and grow. We weathered the digital revolution, print reps and piranhas, clients, staff and deadlines. We discovered America and dined on Top of the World.
A good travelling companion indeed.  RIP Raymond Sydney Jepson 1958–2011

cinemagraphs

Mon, 6 Jun 2011 09:15:44 +0100

The moving portraits on the walls of Hogwarts are a very neat idea, but not one you’d think achievable, well not for a while anyway. But Jamie Beck and Kevin Burg have invented a method of creating a ‘still with movement’. They call them cinemagraphs, but are in fact animated gif files.

Check out Jamie’s blog here.

Blip of the week

Fri, 1 Apr 2011 23:44:36 +0100

I recently subscribed to a photography networking site. The idea is to upload a picture per day, and it has to have been taken on that date. It’s a good discipline to do something satisfying or challenging every day.

Anyway ... I’d been doing this for about a month when I got a notification to say that I was Blip Of The Week. Here’s a screenshot of my moment of fame.

And here’s the original page with all the comments.

not normally a fan ...

Wed, 16 Mar 2011 13:45:24 +0000

I’m not normally a fan of spaceship art, although there are one or two fantasy art books on my shelves – Frank Frazetta and the like. But I found these pieces by Scottish artist Ian McQue intruiging. McQue is a concept artist, illustrator and art director for the gaming industry. He is currently working for Rockstar North, and gaming aficionados will recognise the several Grand Theft Auto titles to his credit, along with a number of other games.
McQue works in both traditional and digital media, the latter including Photoshop, Illustrator and 3d Studio Max. But what impressed me most were his working sketches.

Two stunning photographers

Sat, 5 Mar 2011 22:44:58 +0000

Patience and dedication seem to be the watchwords for both Tim Flach and Nick Brandt. Two very different photographers of animals. Brandt specialises in African wildlife in its natural habitat and Flach controls his subjects mainly in studio. Both award-winning photographers have exhibitions around the world and are highly acclaimed by the international press.

Tim Flach
“You can never predict an animal’s mood,” says Flach, “so you have to plan beforehand to get what you want. For example, the temperature in the studio often has to be carefully sdjusted before animals feel comfortable. Some may need their handler’s presence nearby. Most small creatures are easily intimidated by the height of a man and must be raised to an equal level. Some like music, while others are distressed by noise.”

Check out Tim Flach’s superbly designed website

Granny Turismo

Sun, 20 Feb 2011 10:19:11 +0000

An interesting one day photo-shoot with Marge, Doris and Mary, collectively known as Granny Turismo, a street theatre trio who amaze crowds with their motorised shopping trolleys and formation hip-hop routines.

We spent a fun day at the Rose Theatre in Ormskirk recreating the routines that the grannies use to tease audiences out in the streets, shopping malls and festivals.

Have a look at the site I also developed for them here

The observatories gathered ...

Tue, 8 Feb 2011 22:13:36 +0000

... on the hilltop. Some said it was sheer folly.

Birdsong inspired

Tue, 18 Jan 2011 10:49:05 +0000

Inspired by Sebastian Faulks’ Birdsong, and amazed at the similarities between the main character’s experience of the trenches during the 1914-1918 war and those of my grandfather, William Harold Jowett, I began work on the above piece using actual letters, my grandfather’s documents, medals, his personal diary and sketches.

He was taken prisoner on April 25th 1918 during the German Spring Offensive on Mont Kemmel, known as Hill 60, and for the rest of the war until repatriation was marched between a variety of POW camps in Belgium and Germany. He spent time loading shells with which to fire at the Allied troops and also working underground in the Westphalia coal mines. The cartoons in his sketch books show an unbelievable resilience and good humour.

He was awarded the French Croix de Guerre and the Military Medal for bravery in the field

Read more about William Harold Jowett ...

writing in the sky

Thu, 13 Jan 2011 19:41:21 +0000

Armed with buckets of ink, water, a large brush and a strobe light (calibrated to a very high speed), the photographer Shinichi Maruyama creates graphic swirls of liquids colliding in midair or on white paper. The artist, who studied Chinese calligraphy as a youth in Japan, exhibited his “Kusho” series (“writing in the sky”) in New York a few months ago.
For Maruyama, the spontaneity of the process is what he finds most exciting. “Each stroke is unique, ephemeral. I can never copy or recreate them,” he says. “I know something fantastic is happening, but I can’t fully understand the event until I look at these captured afterimages.”

Impressive, eh?

These pictures are not photographs

Sat, 8 Jan 2011 10:53:22 +0000

Firstly, these images are paintings. That’s right, paintings, oil or acrylic on canvas or wood. They are all by different artists of the hyperrealism persuasion. Astonishing skill and patience, I agree, but it does make me wonder why.

From top to bottom, left to right, the artists are: Steve Mills, Tom Martin, Matthew Cornell, Daniel Jackson, Jason de Graaf, two from Javier Arizabalo, Richard Estes, Tjalf Sparnaay and finally Emanuele Dascanio. Go and Google them to be amazed by further examples.

Mambo de la Luna

Sat, 1 Jan 2011 21:43:23 +0000

I know an island where the people are kind
And the rest of the world seems far away
Maybe it's only in the back of my mind
But I know when I go that's where I'll stay
Mambo de la Luna, Kirsty MacColl

Mr Hawley

Sun, 26 Sep 2010 14:53:56 +0100

In 1985 I lived at one end of Tenter Hill, a weaver’s terrace comprising five houses. At the other end lived Mr Hawley. He lived alone, was registered blind and occupied only the ground floor rooms of his house. He was aged around ninety, making him born in the 1890s. When the time came for him to be moved into a home and his house sold, I popped round and recorded his meagre and spartan life on black and white film.

His sink is a washing up bowl on a shelf, his cooker is a 2-ring Baby Belling. The wiring for his electricity is on the outside of the walls. His toilet is a commode next to the sofa. A picture of him and his late wife is glued to the wall by the strip-light. He rarely got dressed and lived in pyjamas and dressing gown.

This was 1985, the year when Live Aid raised over £30 million for the the starving in Africa, when Manchester United beat Everton to the FA Cup, when soap opera Eastenders went on air for the first time, when Mohammed Al Fayed bought Harrods and the year that Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was refused and honorary degree by Oxford University.

Suffering for their art

Sun, 15 Aug 2010 23:00:36 +0100

I have always been in awe of photographer Don McCullin known primarily for his gritty black and white images of poverty in 1970s England and also for his uncensored pictures of American troops in Vietnam. I recently saw an exhibition of his work and it has occupied my thoughts regularly ever since.

Times have changed and since 9/11 the war zones have expanded. Emilio Morenatti, a Spanish photographer, whose work has also had a stunning impact upon me, is currently producing similarly breathtaking images. Morenatti, who studied graphic design (and it shows in the composition of his images), has worked exclusively for the Associated Press since March 2004. In 2009 he was named newspaper photographer of the year by Pictures of the Year International, and the National Headliner Awards awarded him their highest honor, a gold medal. Emilio has years of experience in war zones, working in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Israel and the Palestinian Territories. In 2006, he was kidnapped in Gaza City and freed unharmed after 15 hours. The following year, he suffered a broken leg from a fragment of a stun grenade while covering a West Bank protest.

Morenatti was critically injured in August 2009 while on assignment with the U.S. military in southern Afghanistan when a bomb planted in the desert was run over by the vehicle he was riding in with other journalists. Morenatti's left foot was amputated at a military hospital in Kandahar, and he was brought to the States to a specialty hospital in Baltimore where he was fitted with a prosthesis and underwent rehabilitation at the University of Maryland Medical Center's Shock Trauma Center.
His boss at the Associated Press said that Morenatti is "fully recovered, and he's running 2 miles a day on his prosthesis. He's quite a character!" He returned to work in April 2010.
He was justly awarded Photojournalist of the Year.

Look at some of his images of hardship here, think about Emilio Morenatti and others like him and never complain that life is treating you badly.

See more of Emilio Morenatti’s images here and here.

Backstage passenger

Sat, 7 Aug 2010 16:22:49 +0100

Catching Imelda May with Seasick Steve behind the main stage was just one of the chance moments I managed to photograph at this summer’s Cambridge Festival. For ten years I’ve been privileged to have a photo pass with access to the stage area.

Part of my remit is to photograph the artists and presenters as they go about putting together television and radio programmes about the great music over the four-day weekend.

More backstage and live photographs can be found here

Brassed Off

Mon, 31 May 2010 10:03:02 +0100

There are hundreds of brass bands throughout the length and breadth of England, each and every one carrying forward a tradition that embraces its own local community. Families are steeped in the dedication which produces their band's own powerful and evocative sound. One of the most impressive events in the calendar occurs on Whitsuntide Friday in the steep moorland dales to the east of Oldham. The winding roads that connect the Saddleworth Moor villages grind to a halt as coaches full of sleepy-eyed players make their way in and out of a succession of normally quiet towns – Diggle, Dobcross, Delph, Denshaw, Greenfield, Uppermill.

The success of the film Brassed Off, which follows the fortunes and misfortunes of a pit-town band as it prepares for a contest such as this, has highlighted the strength, dedication of and spirit of the brass band. Filmed during an actual Whit Friday competition, it brought a certain atmosphere to the wide screen. But nothing compares to being in the melee, the scramble of supporters jockeying for the best view from the pavements, windowsills and walls, the determined faces of the players as they puff and blow their way through the crowds.

The bands head for a registration point where their conductor is given a number. The band then regroups and processes its way, playing a rousing tune, through the cheering throng to an area below the town cleared especially for performance. The judges sit behind closed curtains and are only allowed to know the band’s number. From mid-afternoon until the small hours, the judges listen intently, refreshed with tea and biscuits, and pie and peas, finally announcing the winners. The competitiveness is fierce. The audience around the performance arena is hushed and the next band stacking up in the lane behind are signalled to be silent. The conductor raises his baton and the power of the almighty brass is unleashed.

Records show that the Whit Friday march contests have been around since 1884. The number of bands recorded at Delph has reached over 100 in recent years. Evocative names like Manx Concert Brass, United Co-op Crewe, Stanley Newmarket Colliery, Knottingley Silver and of course familiar heroes Brighouse and Rastrick and Black Dyke. I read with interest that of the eighteen that entered at the Mechanics Hall, Delph, in 1897 the band names included Nazebottom Temperance, Oldham Rifles, Mossley Volunteers and Pendleton Old No. 2. All giving a flavour of the economic and social focus of the time.

For those sceptics who would dismiss brass bands as an historical recreation or a quirky aspect of the working class, take a day off and visit the Saddleworth villages next Whit Friday for a fervent display of English community life – and some astonishing musicianship!

Cornelissen & Son

Tue, 25 May 2010 21:19:09 +0100

Cornelissen & Son is one of those shops you just have to visit – even if you have no interest in the finer points of art and its many applications. Their shop is a place to gaze and wonder.

The colours and textures set the mind reeling. One wall of the Victorian interior is stacked with jars of pure pigment: pinks, oranges, umbers and ochres, crimsons and blues, five different whites and seven blacks. On sale are glass mullers with which to mix the pigments with linseed or poppy oil for oil paint, with egg yolk to make tempura and with gum arabic to make watercolours.

So who are these artists who call in from all corners of the world to purchase quill pens and pigments? Where are the Gilders who still require tips, mops, cushions and a supply of Palladium leaf? It has been known for gold leaf to be sold for furniture, food and even hairdressing. Interior designers order in bulk and nuns call in for small jars of pigment for icons. With over 20,000 items in stock, why would you travel to China for hand-made brushes when it is all in the very heart of London.

Brushes are probably the largest product area of all for Cornelissen. Many are made especially to the firm’s own design and specification but brushes from over 20 manufacturers worldwide for nearly every application are also stocked. It is not uncommon for conversations over brush purchases to be on topics such as why the best ones come from the tails of male sables – evidently the exercise they get while hunting for food during winter makes their hair more lustrous.

Cornelissen & Son have been trading as artists' colourmen in London since the company was established in 1855. Now known throughout the world as a specialist niche supplier of art materials from premises that a 19th Century apothecary would recognise. The original shop stood in Queen Street and in the late seventies, owner Nicholas Walt, together with a Greek icon restorer, rescued the business when the founding family died out. And when the company moved it took the fittings along too – the 150 year old drawers and cabinets look remarkably well for their travels.

With the help and advice given by the knowledgeable staff, specialist decorating has also been embraced. For an accurate colour scheme for that Georgian refurbishment, the fabric colours, mediums, brushes and Plaka Casein paint is there for the asking. There is no doubt that their stock of artists’ materials rival the volume of items found in modern artstores and a worldwide mail order service is available for the thousands of specialist items supplied. Whether you are a discerning printmaker in need of inks, grounds and varnishes, a calligrapher requiring drawing and illuminating products, a serious watercolourist searching for Schminke Horadam colours or merely an interested bystander in this wonderland of bright hues, silky textures and dusty aromas, you will surely be astonished by the sheer variety and depths to which Cornelissen & Son reach.

Bryan Ledgard
First published in Offline magazine

Great Uncle Bob was a street photographer

Mon, 17 May 2010 16:41:47 +0100

While sorting out a few old boxes I came across a packet of negatives. They are all taken in the 1920s and 30s and mainly of people at the seaside. The Punch and Judy show, above, looks like Morecambe about mid-1930s. It’s a calculated guess that as my mother had squirrelled these away they could belong to my Great Uncle Bob Lupton who married my Great Aunt Eva Louisa (Cissie), my mother’s mother’s sister. Keeping up?

Here’s a picture of my mother with her parents, my grandparents, along with Aunt Cissie (with the parasol), almost certainly taken by Bob Lupton at the bottom of the garden at Toronto, Place Leeds.

Some of Great Uncle Bob’s seaside photographs are stunning – not always in focus, but great composition and fantastic studies of the characters of the day.

Illustration at its finest

Fri, 30 Apr 2010 10:14:53 +0100

“They are grim and dispiriting, gloomy, sombre and cheerless...”
Charles Matlack Price on the works of the Brothers Beggerstaff, 1922
The brothers-in-law William Nicholson and James Ferrier Pryde joined forces in 1894, and for five years produced a series of posters which by their bold simplicity and clarity of design revolutionised poster art througout Europe. They presented the image in its starkest form; the background is stripped bare of unnecessary detail and the fullest use is made of the silhouette. Despite the brilliant originality of their work, or perhaps because of it, they received relatively few commissions and several of their designs never reached the hoardings.

Nicholson explained their choice of the name ‘Beggarstaff’: ‘Pryde and I came across it one day in an old stable, on a sack of fodder. It is a good, hearty, old English name, and it appealed to us, so we adopted it immediately.’ They signed their work ‘J. & W. Beggarstaff’; in due course some people started referring to the ‘Beggarstaff Brothers', but the artists themselves did not care for this version

Meanwhile ...

in Munich, Ludvig Hohlwein was producing a similarly stark approach with his watercolour posters quickly establishing him as one of the most important poster artists in Germany.   Hohlwein's high tonal contrasts and a network of interlocking shapes made his work instantly recognisable. He was employed by the German government during the First World War to produce propaganda posters. Ludwig Hohlwein died in 1939.

His work is some of the most inspiring I have come across.

Political incorrectness

Fri, 30 Apr 2010 09:38:29 +0100

We complain about ‘political correctness gone mad’, but it wasn’t so long ago we had products and advertising that nowadays would cause riots. Have a look at these, most of which were in common usage within living memory.

We supply all but the baby

Sat, 20 Mar 2010 15:44:30 +0000

This historic neon sign is an important part of Barnsley’s heritage and an affectionately remembered local landmark. It dates from the 1930s and was originally erected above Edward Bailey’s drapery shop in Cheapside. It was remodelled and installed at smaller New Street premises when Bailey’s relocated in 1968.

It finally closed down in 1998. I remember it well and still regret never taking any photographs of it in situ.

A complete restoration took place in 2006 by Neoncraft in Leeds who remade all the glass tubing and replaced all electrical wiring to conform to modern safety regulations. It’s now installed in the antiques unit at Elsecar Heritage Centre.

Illustrator in Wonderland

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 11:00:44 +0000

On a bit of a roll with illustrators at the moment. Just discovered the work of Michael Kutsche, a Los Angeles-based character designer. He’s just finished working with Tim Burton on the Alice in Wonderland film. Take a look at some of his brilliant drawings here.

Kutsche says, “This is the actual drawing (above) which got me the gig on "Alice". At the time I did it, I wasn't even aware what movie and director it was for. A couple of illustrators had been requested by Sony to participate in a pitch, and it turned out that Bobby Chiu, Kei Acedera and myself were hand picked by Tim Burton after Sony showed him the drawings.’

Of course, none of this have happened without the inspiration of Sir John Tenniel, whose well-known works for the 1865 edition stunned us first time round ...

and the subsequent 1907 edition illustrated by the wonderful Arthur Rackham ...

Make mine a McGinnis

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 23:11:49 +0000

The only difference between a fine artist and an illustrator is that the latter can draw, eats three square meals a day, and can afford to pay for them.
James Montgomery Flagg
From gallery paintings to film posters to avidly collected book covers, Robert McGinnis has created some of the most visible, influential, and alluring art of the past five decades.

Born in Ohio in 1926, McGinnis started his career as a teenage apprentice animator for Walt Disney studios. He studied art at Ohio State University and the Central Academy of Commercial Art in Cincinnati, and later moved to New York and joined the Freeman Chaito Studio, where he worked with artists Frank McCarthy, Bob Peak and Joe Bowler.
McGinnis painted his first paperback book cover in 1958, launching a career that would include over 1200 book covers. He virtually defined the noir style of classic crime fiction and created some of the romance novel genre’s greatest cover images. His paintings were the basis for iconographic movie posters including “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”, “Barbarella”, and numerous James Bond movies where he created the idealized “Bond Woman”. McGinnis’s illustrations have appeared in major magazines including “National Geographic”, “Time”, “The Saturday Evening Post”, “Cosmopolitan”, and “Reader’s Digest”.

In 1993 he was inducted into the prestigious Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame, taking his place beside such greats as Norman Rockwell, Maxfield Parrish, and N.C. Wyeth. He maintains a studio in Connecticut, where he has lived and worked for over 40 years.
McGinnis’s portraits of women display a mastery of tone, texture and detail.

The neon boneyard

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 21:52:26 +0000

Call me a geek but I like typography and I also like photography. So where else would I love to be let loose with my camera than in a place full of old used letterforms?

Spread over a three-acre site in downtown Las Vegas, gated behind chain-link fences, sit more than 150 pieces of vintage Vegas. The relics belong to the Neon Museum, which has been collecting old signs since 1996 and showcasing them throughout the city and at its Neon Boneyard. It is home to some of the most treasured and world-famous signs of Las Vegas—Caesars Palace, Binions Horsehoe, Golden Nugget, Silver Slipper, and, most recently the Stardust.

The Neon Museum is in the process of restoring the historic La Concha Motel lobby for use as a visitor’s center. In 2006 the building was saved from destruction and moved to the Boneyard site, and in 2007 the structure was reassembled. The La Concha, a swooping curvilinear example of mid-century modern architecture, was designed by famed African-American architect Paul Revere Williams.
I thank the various photographers whose shots feature here (note a tinge of jealousy) and will be saving up for a trip ...

Norman Rockwell’s photographic archive

Sun, 17 Jan 2010 16:37:43 +0000

Norman Rockwell’s rosy illustrations of small town American life looked so photographic because his method was to copy photographs that he conceived and meticulously directed, working with various photographers and using friends and neighbours as his models.
More about Rockwell’s photo realism, including an image gallery, is currently on NPR’s web site. The Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts is also hosting an exhibition, and will be putting Rockwell’s digitised photographic archive online very soon.

The cold snap

Thu, 14 Jan 2010 23:17:50 +0000

Apparently the temperature reached -22°C, and we had the worst snow for over thirty years. It was quite a bit of fun for the first few days, the sky was clear, the snow was deep and crisp and even. The car was embedded under more than a foot of the stuff and walking was our only option.

Hassall-free Christmas

Wed, 23 Dec 2009 15:55:16 +0000

Christmas never fails to remind me of the work of illustrator John Hassall (1868-1948). His paintings for Christmas cards, children’s books and advertising posters are legendary and have influenced my own work for many years.

Faces on the wall

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 20:09:44 +0000

Without getting into a whole illustration-versus-fine-art debate, I just want to flag up a few great examples of portraiture – however you want to label them.

Having picked my own favourites from this years’ BP Portrait Award at the National Portrait Gallery (namely Georgie by Mary Jane Ansell and her Mother by Sue Rubira), I began thinking about the current fashion for photorealism in portrait painting. Astonishing though it is in technical terms, I just wonder whether loose paint conveys character better.

Discuss.

The work of Lucien Freud is critically acclaimed the world over, and there have been others. Ilya Repin for one: a Ukrainian-born Russian realist painter (1844-1930). Both of these artists produced work of a startling character using strong and undisguised brushstrokes.

But I’m a photographer, what do I know?

I don’t know much about art, but I know what I like ...

Mon, 9 Nov 2009 21:13:34 +0000

There are some pictures that are more simply appealing than others. We’re never quite sure why, but the maths that dictate those aesthetically pleasing proportions have been providing an answer for centuries.

The Rule of Thirds is a widely accepted principle that is one of the long-standing rules of photography, art and architecture. It’s a basic premise that says you’ll get a more aesthetically pleasing image if you place the subject a third of the way into the frame instead of in the middle. This is a simplified form of the principle of the Golden Mean or Golden Ratio. What does that mean? If a line (A) is divided into two sections, one larger than the other (B and C), the golden ratio is achieved where A/B = B/C, which is 1.6180339887…

In the 12th century, Fibonacci (Leonardo da Pisa, 200 years before Leonardo da Vinci) produced a series of numbers by adding together pairs: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144 etc – each number is created by adding together the two previous numbers. It turns out that the ratio between each successive pair of numbers gets closer and closer to the Golden Ratio. If you keep sub-dividing it a logarithmic Golden Spiral is
produced which exactly matches the growth of the Nautilus sea shell. Photographs whose
composition follows this idea seems to be
visually harmonious.

This ratio 1: 1.6180339887… is the one that
determines the pattern in which a sunflower’s
seeds grow, it’s the ratio of the length of your hand to your forearm, it determines the path a hawk takes when diving at its prey, it is echoed in the breeding habits of rabbits and it even determines how the spirals in a spiral galaxy are laid out. It’s all very simple in its beauty.

If you want to get your head around it further then I’d recommend The Golden Ratio: The Story of PHI, the World’s Most Astonishing Number by Mario Livio.

The Golden ratio forms a fluid line for the eye to trace through the picture. Once you understand the basic form of the Golden Spiral, it becomes intuitive and easy to spot. You don't need difficult mathematical calculations to produce or appreciate a compelling picture. You should be able to amaze your friends about why one picture is more appealing than another.

This, of course, is only scratching the surface ... you could get hooked on discovering the patterns that make the universe hum. You’ve only got to look at a Romanesque cauliflower to get ever so slightly panicky and start having nightmares about the butterfly effect and the water going the other way down the plughole south of the equator ... woo-oo!

Steampunk

Sun, 1 Nov 2009 20:13:23 +0000

Just back from the Whitby Goth Festival having discovered ‘Steampunk’. Apart form the usual Cybergoths, Edwardian Goths, Dracula-inspired Goths and plain old Megadeath hoodie-goths there was an excellent group of be-costumed characters in the Steampunk style.

So what is Steampunk? It’s a sort of Neo-Victorianism, the amalgamation of Victorian aesthetic principles with modern sensibilities and technologies. Imagine a world designed by Jules Verne and H G Wells, full of typewriters, astrolabes, morse-code machines, glass and copper solenoid batteries, time-travelling compasses, and where airships rule the skies. The clothes include gowns, leather corsets, petticoats and bustles; gentlemen's suits with vests, frock-coats, spats and military-inspired garments. All accented with monocles, timepieces, parasols, goggles, gasmasks, altimeters and ray guns. There’s a tinge of Indiana Jones, Phineas Fogg, Ghostbusters and the Red Baron in there somewhere.

The jewellery is quite exquisite – cogs, watchparts, Victorian brooches, photographs and lace. Altogether rather super!

Here’s a few Steampunk links ...
www.etsy.com/shop/ProfMaelstromme
www.bruteforceleather.com
www.steampunkemporium.com
www.kinkyangel.co.uk
www.sharpe-designs.com/alchemy-steampunk.htm

Going for Goldsworthy

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 21:21:10 +0000

Inspired by the phenomenal work of sculptor Andy Goldsworthy, I set about taking my own photographs for a series of front cover images for the Sheffield-based Geographical Association (GA). Having decided on a variety of organic textures and settings, the task of actually shaping them into the GA’s logostyle turned out to be a bit more challenging than I’d thought.

Leaves blew away, berries rolled out of sight, and the wrong kind of sand left me with frustratingly mixed results. While trying to get the incoming tide to gently lap over the edge of one impression in the sand, a tiny tsunami soaked me to the knees. However, patience prevailed and here’s some of the final images ...

jeepers creepers

Sun, 4 Oct 2009 16:22:48 +0100

It’s 1974 somewhere in the east end of London not long after decimalisation. In a tiny shop, sandwiched between a butcher and poulterer and a wallpaper and paint emporium, you could buy quality men’s shoes at less than a tenner.

Fashion was in a transition between the old guard of the Teddy Boy and the modern tastes of the Bay City Rollers fans. I was never a BCR fan, in fact I found the tartan popsters quite insufferable. Living at the time in Provost Street, Hoxton, my stamping ground included the areas around Brick Lane, Shoreditch and Spitalfields. The West End was the place for the new wave of fashions, but the old shops of the East End had slowly moving stocks and bargains could be found. My favourite little shop had a range of full- and half-crepes with quilted ot latticed uppers – beautiful craftsmanship. I bought two pairs of ‘brothel creepers’ and regularly visited to drool at others in the window until the shop finally closed down. They were proper shoes, not the repro versions pumped out by imitator labels. The soles were solid crepe not a rubberised amalgam with a strip of darker stuff ironed on. My white leather pair just celebrated their 35th anniversary in a cupboard, but unfortunately, as I frequently rode my motorbike while wearing them, the soles of the navy suede pair disintegrated along the tarmac of Shoreditch High Street many years back.

Ah ... sweet rock ‘n’ roll.

lost in translation

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 00:44:32 +0100

I found this photo (courtesy of Erin Street) of a confectioners’ shop display in Okayama, Japan. Chocolates filled with bone marrow ... eeeuw!

I looked up ‘bone marrow - ideal fat food for children and invalids’ and found it was used as the marketing tagline for Virol in England around the turn of last century. Apparently bone-marrow was used as a children's food supplement because it was believed to be high in protein, and lowered LDL cholesterol in adults. Their maxim was: ‘Virol. The way back to good health.’ It was sweet and sticky.

I can only assume that Japanese confectioners lifted the phrase verbatim to somehow enhance their range of choccies!
Think I’ll pass on that, thanks.

sky art from the Red Arrows

Mon, 24 Aug 2009 19:31:58 +0100

I first saw the Red Arrows display team back in the 1970s when I took this picture (right). It was a perfect day with a clear blue sky.
I made my way through the crowds on Monday 24th August 2009 to see them again, hoping to repeat my shots from 30 years ago but this time with a digital camera. No such luck. It was a thoroughly miserable grey day with some intermittent drizzle.
The Arrows appeared with a roar and smell of kerosene and did what they could underneath the low cloud. None of the soaring displays I was expecting but instead, a great bit of sky painting. Every bit as dynamic.

Table talk

Mon, 17 Aug 2009 23:55:45 +0100

I don’t do those Facebook quizzes – your favourite top five all-time bestest books, your most-favouritest albums ever in all your life etc. My mate Bernard says Facebook is for nine-year-olds. However, just suppose I did, then ranked among my faves would certainly be something by A. A. Gill.

He’s a mate of Jeremy Clarkson but don’t let that put you off.
He writes the things we’d all like to say but are too English to. He claims to be a Scot so he can get away with it. He complains with the ebulliance of an American but with the wit of Oscar Wilde. His restaurant reviews are legendary and his books are among the very few that have actually had me guffawing out loud.

‘The mushrooms wouldn't have tasted wild if you'd soaked them in ecstacy and given them guns.’

Having recommended A.A. Gill is Away to a lot of my friends, I’m currently reading Table Talk, but having to take breaks to stop my face aching.

‘The baby back ribs were like eating the evidence in a war-crimes trial. Apparently they'd been buried in a peat bog for a month.’

Biba remembered

Sun, 16 Aug 2009 22:05:23 +0100

I’m afraid to say that I was a member of the rummaging hoardes who picked, vulture-like, through the jumbled leftover stock on the ground floor of the Biba building on Kensington High Street at its closure in September 1975. Only two years earlier, I was also one of the many curious art students who were delighted to see the small boutique move to the seven-storey Derry & Toms department store. During those two years the miners went on strike, the country was put on a three-day work week and abundant power cuts kept us all in the dark. The new store immediately attracted up to a million customers a week, making it one of the most visited tourist attractions in London. It looked like an Art Deco film set for Hedy Lamarr and Rudolph Valentino to pout and lounge in – all mirrors, chrome, leopard skin, plum velvet, ostrich feathers and black walls, and with dim lighting and Roxy Music and Ziggy Stardust thumping through the floor, it had a nightclub ambience. Their dark and exotic cosmetics range was perfect for that elegantly wasted look, Lou Reed and Freddie Mercury both wore Biba's black nail polish and apparently a young Siouxsie Sioux took the train into London to buy her red eye shadow there. I still have a set of playing cards and the famous ‘Welcome to the new Biba’ newspaper from my visits.

At the time I was a designer for Macmillan Publishing and had the onerous task of putting together a book for the Sunday Times fashion editor, Brigid Keenan. It had the snappy title of ‘Women We Wanted To Look Like’ and featured photographs by many of the top fashion photographers of the time. In one 1960s shot by John French, model Paulene Stone modelled a very early Biba creation.

Biba’s founder Babara Hulanicki designed her clothes for ‘...fresh little foals with long legs, bright faces and round dolly eyes. Postwar babies who had been deprived of nourishing protein in childhood and grew up into beautiful skinny people’. The famous black and gold Biba logo was applied to everything from fashion to furniture, make-up, toys, even soap powder and tins of baked beans, so that everyone could take home a bit of Biba cool.

I have had my Biba poster now for 35 years (right). It has been on a wall in every flat and house I’ve lived in since the 1970s. Its corners, punctured with years of drawing pins, are like paper doilies. Photographer Sarah Moon was a favourite of mine at the time and, more than any other photogrpaher, she shaped the visual atmosphere of London’s fashion in that period between the demise of the swinging sixties and the rise of punk. Her pictures of wispy, fragile models always had a look of slightly drugged and bruised delicacy.

On the top floor was the Rainbow Room restaurant and concert venue which dated back to the 1930s style of the original building. Here, David and Angie Bowie hung out with Mick and Bianca, the New York Dolls played two concerts there, Bryan Ferry made a video there and Suzi Quatro’s ‘Devil Gate Drive’ was filmed there.

In the 1980s, after Marks and Sparks had taken over the lower floors, Richard Branson moved his offices onto the middle floors and the Rainbow Rooms were opened for functions and events, I had the job to design the interior of the Roof Gardens function Suite on top of the Rainbow Rooms for my clients Morphy Richards. Somewhat enthusiastically, and rather foolishly, I’d proposed the theme ‘A White Christmas’ for their August ‘white goods’ product launch. I spent the entire night with a team of hired fitters, stripping out and replacing the decor with white carpet, white walls, rustic garden furniture (sprayed white) and forty 8-foot christmas trees for a 9 am start. The launch went well, but by lunchtime I was left with the problem of how to dispose of forty trees. A shredding machine was found and delivered to the street below and, with some help, I managed to drop the spruces over the walls of the Roof Gardens down seven floors to pavement level without alerting the police or damaging any passers-by. Rock ‘n’ Roll, eh?

Shooting stars

Wed, 5 Aug 2009 16:16:52 +0100

Apart from a thunderous downpour that left the Cambridge festival site under a neon pink sky, the weather over the weekend was pretty favourable for star-snapping.

As in previous years, I spent three and a half days trotting between the two stages, snapping away at anything that moved, sang or played an instrument. My brief this year included trailing presenters Mike Harding and Mark Radcliffe as they conducted interviews with a host of stars old and new. I shared a joke with Buffy St Marie, chatted with blues legend Susan Tedeschi, got up Lucinda Williams’ nose, bought ice creams with Eddi Reader, became pals with Imelda May, squeezed into a tiny OB studio with Ade Edmondson and got rebuffed by Booker T (he was having a shave and didn’t want disturbing).

But enough of the name-dropping. I had a thoroughly top time among The Pit Ponies (pictured right) – a house-trained bunch of regular Cambridge photographers who enjoy jostling shoulders under the searing lights and pounding speakers.

Great fun!.

James Hunter

Wed, 29 Jul 2009 11:44:38 +0100

Just packing my camera cases ready to go down to the 2009 Cambridge Festival and I remembered the shots I took of James Hunter this time two years ago. At the time he passed me by, and it was only when I heard a couple of tracks from his album, The Hard Way, released the following year, that my ears pricked up. Well worth checking out, have a look and a listen here.

Sons of the School

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 23:05:36 +0100

On the 13th July 2009 I was among a 100+ crowd of ‘old boys’ invited to revisit their school one last time before the bulldozers moved in. Gaudeamus igitur was never sung with as much gusto.

Opened for the first time in September 1882, the Matthew Humberstone Foundation School on Clee Road in Cleethorpes moulded a succession of shiny-trousered adolescents into upright citizens.

From 1962 to 1968 I suffered wet towel burns, stewed rhubarb, chemical explosions, cricket played in sea fog, Shakespeare in tights, and a myriad of other character-forming indignities. The art room was my sanctuary and led me to a career in the creative arts. Here’s to you Mr. Robinson!

Now the deal is signed on a demolition and rebuilding programme to develop the site into the new St Andrews College. Gone will be the parquet flooring, the brass gas taps, the tiled walls and the ancient battered woodworking benches. No more the metal window frames through which I gazed idly on the steaming playing fields in summer and gently the settling snow in winter. As the door finally closes, I bid farewell to an old friend.

‘May she shine brighter yet, may her star never set,
Long live the school of Clee.’

revolting recipes

Sat, 4 Jul 2009 21:55:57 +0100

Long before Bloomin’ Hestenthal thought up his snail porridge and bacon and egg ice cream, I’d started a book project called ‘Revolting Recipes’. One of the first recipes, was squid cheesecake (above). Others on my list to be researched and photographed included strawberry and kidney mousse, sardines in lime jelly, leek jam and ham and chocolate madras.

I abandoned the project, mainly because I thought it wouldn’t be of much interest, but also because I couldn’t get the fresh sardines to set in a swimming formation in the pyramid-shaped lime jelly.

But now, some twenty years later, I find that bacon martinis (above right) are popular ... "Lightly mist martini glass with vermouth, and rim the edge with bacon grease. In a cocktail shaker, mix 3oz vodka, one dash Tabasco, and one dash olive juice. Shake well and strain into cocktail glass. Skim excess bacon grease from surface of cocktail. Garnish with one slice of bacon."

And down in Bray at the Fat Duck, our Heston has queues panting for his snail porridge, sardine on toast sorbet and salmon poached with liquorice, asparagus and pink grapefruit (right).

How ridiculuous!

But this article below raised a chuckle ....

street life ... a portfolio of street photography

Wed, 1 Jul 2009 13:43:09 +0100

In The Mind’s Eye, Henri Cartier-Bresson, for many the king of the decisive photographic moment, wrote, ‘Photography is a spontaneous impulse coming from an ever-attentive eye, which captures the moment and its eternity.’ It was my early blinking and squinting to attempt to ‘capture’ a moment just like a camera that eventually led me down the photographic path. Compositional framing, discovering hidden detail, catching fleeting moments, juxtaposing elements and creating the extraordinary from the ordinary is an art that takes practice. During a BBC photoshoot, a young assistant once asked me what equipment I needed to make such dynamic pictures. I explained that years of looking, learning, thinking and seeing had developed a ‘compositional intuition’ and the type of camera didn’t matter. I think I failed to enlighten him. I wish now I’d remembered the well-reported quote from American photographer Ansel Adams who said, ‘The single most important component of a camera is the twelve inches behind it.’

Street photography, a recognised genre, has been described as ‘holding up a mirror to society’. Often ironic, it can be distanced from its subject matter and concentrates on a single moment, caught at a decisive or poignant juncture. Many classic works of street photography were created from 1890 onwards, coinciding with the introduction of the portable camera, by photographers such as Elliott Erwitt, Robert Frank, Brassaï, Alfred Eisenstaedt, W. Eugene Smith, William Eggleston, Robert Doisneau, Garry Winogrand and Henri Cartier-Bresson.

Apparently Cartier-Bresson used to wrap a large handkerchief around his camera and pretend to be blowing his nose while he took pictures, or would wrap the camera's body in black tape. There are many variations to the stealthiness theme, some involving long telephoto lenses and the use of waist-level viewfinders, but the general idea has always been to leave the subject unaware that they are being photographed. Some photographers thrive on directness like Martin Parr (who was at Manchester Polytechnic during the same years that I was there), who uses a hard-to-hide ring-flash unit on a large camera. I’d used a Hasselblad medium format for many years, but its weight and encumbrance didn’t make for speed or stealth. I ‘went digital’ in 2001 with a large Fuji pro SLR digital camera, and with the instant results it produced I was able to abandon the Hasselblad’s removable Polaroid back with which I used to take test shots prior to committing to film. I could now see my shots immediately: a good thing because ‘bracketing’ (taking lighter and darker safety exposures) became a thing of the past, but a bad thing because the unlimited capacity of re-writable memory cards invited copious over-shooting, leading to hours of sorting, rejecting and cataloguing.

Having studied the masters who used the first simple portable cameras, I realised that it’s the photographer who makes the photographs, not the camera. In 1921 master photographer Edward Steichen took classic pictures of Isadora Duncan at the Parthenon, Athens, using a Kodak borrowed from the head waiter at his hotel.

Currently I use a simple but effective Nikon digital SLR and four lenses – a macro, a telephoto, a multi-purpose zoom and an extreme wide-angle. Photographer Vernon Trent summed up equipment in his famous quote, ‘Amateurs worry about equipment, professionals worry about pictures.’

I’ve been lucky to travel, blinking and squinting, to many countries and have been amazed at the light, the colours, the terrain and the architecture, but find that the diversity of culture and the people in the street make the most interesting subjects. Taking photographs of strangers, candid or posed, is a great challenge. A few moments of concentration – getting exposure, focus and composition just right while keeping the subject at ease – can bring great satisfaction.

But things have changed. When I started asking individuals to let me take their photograph they often seemed flattered and proud. Now we’re all the new paparazzi with our digital phones and compact cameras, and taking a portrait has become a disposable moment: an intrusion or a chance to pout, pull faces and raise V-signs. We’ve become globally camera-conscious, and facial expressions of interest, pride and wonder are fast disappearing. A photographer in the street has become a threat and the laws on invasion of privacy in public places are hotly debated. While we can still enjoy the freedom to capture and record our surroundings, I continue to hunt and shoot.

gone fishing

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 15:43:49 +0100

Mike Harding is writing a book about how to tie north country flies and needed a hand in photographing the steps involved. I volunteered to take pictures of him tying the little hooky things but didn’t expect to be given a pair of outsize waders and told to get in the river with him. We drove out to a spot by the river Ribble near Settle where Pen-y-ghent could be seen in the distance and literally waded in. As it turned out we got a few shots worthy of the book’s front cover.

Then Mike spotted a pride of fish flopping about, or whatever the technical term is, and gestured that he’d catch one for the camera. I snapped a few shots while Mike snapped his rod! One section of his carbon-fibre rod completely broke away, but it didn’t stop him landing a brown trout.

We did a four hour session as well that day, photographing over two hundred step-by-step images for the ‘how to ...’ section of the book. The dining room of his house was rearranged to build a small desktop set with a colorama cove, a soft box over the top and a snoot to catch some highlights. I used a Nikon D700 with a 300mm lens over Mike’s shoulder to get in on the action.

plenty of lard

Wed, 3 Jun 2009 22:30:21 +0100

From a very early age I absorbed my own body weight in vegetable fat on a weekly basis. As you can see from this photo of me aged three, it was not without justification that I held the membership no. 000556 of the Trex Club. Tubby assured me that lard was just the best thing going, and I’m afraid to say I believed him.

Mother, a fine cook, utilised our favourite brand of lard in almost all her dishes: suet puddings, cakes, scones, and even custard. The manufacturers J. Bibby & Sons of Liverpool must have whooped with joy at the industrial amounts used in our small kitchen. Mother mixed and whisked so much that the collectable card albums that came as part of my membership had no empty slots. I did, however, learn lots of interesting facts from them, like ‘Why are black men black?’ and ‘Why can we see our breath on a cold day?’ I was also able to differentiate between an Airedale and a Bedlington terrier at fifty paces.

Others suffered similarly ... in a public toilets I once found the slogan ‘plenty of lard’ written in large red gloss paint letters.

Bad Dog

Mon, 1 Jun 2009 00:09:19 +0100

Five Days in May. It’s a series of gigs around Glossop and Bad Dog has performed for the past three years in the Moon and Sixpence. This year a photographer called John Mortimer took some live shots. Using bounced flash, I think he got some decent results. They’ll more than likely end up on the forthcoming CD sleeve. Watch this space.

simple studio

Thu, 14 May 2009 20:33:10 +0100

For almost twenty years I’ve battled with studio lighting, dragging large flight cases all over the place. But using nothing more than a simple reflector and a window, I recenty abandoned the cables, stands, snoots and soft boxes.

A series of publicity photographs of singer/songwriter Rosie Doonan were taken in less than an hour in her living room. Here’s a wide shot showing just how easy it was to set up.

button badges

Sun, 15 Mar 2009 16:28:18 +0000

If you grew up in the 1950s and 60s you’ll no doubt have a drawer somewhere with a couple of old badges buried at the back. Mine live in an old sweet tin. I got them out the other day and realised that they chart an era of advertising that’s long since gone. Foodstuffs, fuel and children’s clubs seemed to be some of the obsessions in the post-war years, A decade of rationing led to a glut of lard-based products, petrol and sweets for the kids – everything you need for a fulfilled life.

I continued collecting badges into the 1970s and saw the introduction of political messages
and the promotion of musical groups. I rummaged through my tin of over 350 badges
and found quite a few interesting pairs.

Comares

Sat, 14 Feb 2009 17:01:58 +0000

Brilliant week. I never really thought I liked Spain, well seeing the sprawl of tourist apartments along the coast confirmed that. Barcelona was a good trip two years ago, but tiny Comares in February was terrific. Sitting for the afternoon with mates on the terrace of Ivan and Nenno’s place should have lasted forever.

John and Rachel’s place was a perfect retreat and we did bugger all. No, I lie, we chatted, read, ate, played Triv and toasted our feet on the little pot stove.

A few more pics at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ledgard/sets/72157614192034561

One day without you

Fri, 30 Jan 2009 22:05:18 +0000

What an absolute bummer. Just heard on the radio that “the singer songwriter John Martyn has died at the age of 60 ...” Gutted. He’s been part of my life for forty years. I met him at a gig at Manchester University in 1971. Then, while our band was performing at the second Leeds Festival in 1983, John was wallowing about backstage in a brown suit as the rain turned the whole area to mud. He nicked my bright yellow sou’wester and borrowed Robin’s Fender twin-tub amp for his solo spot. Robin got his amp back a little worse for wear afterwards, but I never saw my sou’wester again! I last saw him at Cropredy Festival in 2007 where I took these photos. I was due to take his photos again at the 2008 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards, but I was in hospital following a heart attack. Double bummer!

Lots has been said about his versatility and talent by others more qualified than me, but I can’t imagine what my life would have been like without his music to guide me, to raise my spirits, to punctuate my journey, to get lost in. I’d rather be the Devil … sing it loud down there, John.

Wonky is good

Thu, 1 Jan 2009 16:48:27 +0000

Wonky Morris has apparently been the source of a marketing campaign for Lurpak. Never trust a symmetrical loaf? Wonky Morris has never been symmetrical ... but here’s a couple of his more symmetrical alter-egos and their passport photographs ...

Wonky Morris

Mon, 8 Dec 2008 21:03:40 +0000

No, don’t laugh. I know he looks like Gollum, but for a special needs cat he’s alright by me. Born with nerve damage to his head resulting in an ear that permanently flops and an eye that never sleeps, he’s made a good fist of life.

Dave reckons he rules the universe while we all sleep. He knows everything but isn’t keen on Brubeck.