Rochester, NY

Here’s an good photography project I saw lately, 10 Magnum photographers have travelled to Rochester, New York, to photograph a ‘House of Photos’.

The theme is broad but the project intends to document the city & it’s inhabitants. Similar in style to the Postcards From America project from last year.

Among the photographers are Bruce Gilden:

Donovan Wylie:

Martin Parr:

and Alec Soth:

You can follow the project on the Photo Booth section of the New Yorker.

Dundas Castle

I was lucky enough to photograph a wedding at Dundas Castle in Edinburgh over the weekend, it was my first trip up there since I shot in North Berwick in late 2010.

 

Dundas Castle is definitely among the best venues I’ve worked at, with an interesting past, the view from the top of the keep was pretty spectacular:

 

I think it’s important not to force the moment, if you relax & pay attention, you’ll find them:

 

This is probably my favourite photograph from the day, for me it has the right blend of content & composition to work very well:

 

Here are a couple more from the evening:

£745 Wedding Photography

For a limited time we’re offering a special price of £745 to take your wedding photographs.

Using our natural style of documentary photography:

We will document your day truthfully & unobtrusively, finding moments & documenting them:

Throughout the last year we have photographed weddings at St. Paul’s Cathedral:

Hampton Court Palace:

and many others across England & Scotland, and even as far afield as New Zealand.

Available for a limited time the package includes:

• Full day coverage from 2 hours before the ceremony until after the first dance.
• Pre-wedding consultation
• DVD disc of the photographs (typically 400+ images)
• Online viewing & ordering system for friends & family

Our beautiful Press Books & Albums from Queensberry are available as an optional extra.

You can view my work in more detail on our website: www.simoncardwellweddings.com. There are multiple galleries on the site & you can view slideshows of entire weddings here.

Please visit our website & contact us through there to discuss your wedding day.

Up & down the A1

I first came across serious photography when I met Elliott Landy in 2001.

I found his work through the photograph on the cover of The Band’s 2nd album, with those five gloomy faces staring back at you:

I got the record after seeing a ‘classic albums’ documentary on BBC 2 late one night. That weekend I found the album in Windows in Newcastle.

I played it endlessly, and when I came across ‘The Last Waltz‘ on VHS in my Dad’s collection, I watched Scorsese’s ode to the road over & over.

A couple of years later I found out he also took the photograph which made the cover of Bob Dylan’s Nashville Skyline:

After stumbling on his website one night, I emailed Elliott about buying a print, at that age I’m not sure why I was thinking about that, but he got back to me saying he was in London & had prints with him.

My parents were away, so I made a snap decision to drive to London & meet him, in my Mum’s car. The next morning me & my friend Ali set off down the A1, with a stack of tapes for the ride.

We parked in Tufnell Park & took the tube to Kensington to Elliott’s hotel. We met him there & talked about Dylan, the Band, Woodstock (he had been the official photographer) & Hendrix. He was gracious in the face of questions he’d no doubt heard before, from a couple of teenagers who didn’t know any better.

I took my 2 prints & we took the no. 4 bus all the way back to Tufnell Park.

We made the return journey with the same soundtrack as the outward leg. Stopping at a Little Chef near Castle Donington, we trickled back into Darlington late that night.

My print is dated 6/23/01:

They were the model band, man for man you wouldn’t change a thing, the blend was perfect the way it was.

There have been some beautiful tributes to Levon Helm from Bob Dylan, Garth Hudson and fellow Arkansas native Bill Clinton in the last few days. But his music always reminds me of that drive down the A1 & back.

 

 

Hazy Days

Paul Slattery photographed Oasis from their first tour in early 1994 until their first large gig at Sheffield Arena in 1995.

The result is ‘A Year On The Road‘, a beautiful & intimate collection of photographs.

Befriending the band allowed Slattery to get photographs such as this, just as they were on the cusp of becoming the biggest band in the world:

and there’s an innocence to the photographs that disappeared once Liam & Noel became the most famous brothers in music:

 

The bands first tour of America took them to New York:

Where the rest of the band buried Tony McCarroll in Central Park in the Live Forever video:

 

Back in England, Noel & Bonehead played the Creation Records 10th Anniversary gig at the Royal Albert Hall:

Where they played a beautiful acoustic version of Live Forever, which I’ve always preferred to the cut that made the album:

 

There was an excitement that buzzed around Oasis in the early days, it disappeared when they became too big, everyone had the record & the songs were played wherever you went. But in the beginning, you knew they were the most important band in the world, you didn’t need to say it, it was just in the songs.

They gave you something to believe in & got you through each dreary day. Each single brought you a couple of precious new B Sides, often better than the single itself.

 

Everything that became familiar was still fresh, from Liam’s stance:

The cocksure swagger:

and the broody stares:

 

Oasis went from gigs in empty pubs to selling out the 13,000 capacity Sheffield Arena in a year, Slattery saw everything, from the dingy hotel rooms:

To Bonehead’s living room, famously featured on the cover of Definitely Maybe:

 

Disappearing Sleeves

Came across this for the first time last week:

This early tour began as a co-headliner with Scottish band Whiteout, who made one pretty decent album then sharply faded away:

Seeing it reminded me how much I loved the early Oasis sleeves, designed by Brian Cannon with Microdot.

The cover of the first album is almost like a painting in composition:

Only the albums featured any text on the cover, the singles all simply had the Oasis logo:

I leafed through the Definitely Maybe sleeve over & over, and made a tape with the album on Side A & all the B-Sides from the early singles on the flip side.

The Microdot website shows the original design for the logo text:

The sleeve of the record featured some beautiful black & white photographs by Michael Spencer Jones:

I pored over the sleeve endlessly, learning the words & gazing at the photographs. The music could take you out of the dreary days you lived in.

By 95 going to Solid Sounds or Our Price in Darlington early on a Monday morning had become a familiar routine, Roll With It probably had the nicest cover from the second album:

Shot on Weston-Super-Mare beach, while the band toured English seaside towns:

Charlotte Road, off Old Street in London (round the corner from my old flat), was considered for the front of Morning Glory:

Before Berwick Street was chosen:

By the time ‘D’You Know What I Mean‘ was released in 1997 the sleeves had become quite elegant & this is maybe the best Microdot design:

I remember walking into town for 9am to get my mittens on it as soon as possible. You wouldn’t even think about it, it was automatic.

There’s a nice picture of Liam taking a snapshot on set:

Then they made this record & suddenly Oasis weren’t invincible anymore:

There’s something innately overblown about the cover, it matches the music somehow, cluttered & busy, never quite being what you hoped it might be.

Still, the montage from inside the sleeve was pretty nice:

The Sound Of Two Songs

I got the chance to see Mark Power‘s The Sound of Two Songs exhibit at the Impressions Gallery in Bradford last week.

I’m lucky enough to own the book already, but it looked very impressive in a gallery space.

While his last major project, 26 Different Endings, was very specific, this work follows a much broader theme. Power photographed in Poland over a period of 5 years, & about 20 visits to the country.

It’s a personal & subjective series of photographs, & interestingly there are anmuber of portraits included:

You’ll be very lucky to find the book now, but it’s beautifully printed & presented by Photoworks.