The Manchester Mafia presents.......

The Manchester Mafia are once again bringing us The Manchester International Festival! Reuniting chums Hans Ulrich Obrist, Maxine Peake, Bjork, legendary Mancunian Damon Albarn, Peter Saville (no relation to Jimmy) and the oldest swinger in town Dave Haslem. All together again for another money spinning year.

Gabriel Orozco: "Mirror Crit"

Following on from the last post... This seems more useful than a shitty boring portfolio review, and I bet you could still make a quid out of them.

Portfolio Reviews Are Fucking Nonsense.

Save your money..

LEGACY

I know it's been a bit on the quiet side around here but I've got a bit on what with working on other folks shows, and working on my own stuff....  and the nice weather. And well there's more to life than computers right? Take for instance the OLYMPICS and how it's going to be just brilliant. So I'll leave you with a message from the above official Olympic sponsor. Giz a couple of days and I'll start plugging the local student shows.

WARNING! fotosense are shit.

I should have known better they can't even spell fucking photo and then Mavis the tea lady answers the phone or should that be fone when I ring the sales hotline. I was getting nowhere with the hotline. "Shall I order online?" "Yes luv" So I order my printer Epson r2880 the website says it's In stock! I've got the next day off work so I pay another £15 for before 12 nextday delivery and order online. They ring me to say not a chance. They've not got any in stock and are not sure when they will have. They have of course taken payment first though. Wankers.

Keepy Uppy

Just as I've managed to finally get my hands on a snide copy of CS3 (In Manchester snide is slang for official, proper, legitimate fully paid up) ADOBE are due on April 12th to release CS5. Above image from the always piss funny PHOTOSHOP DISASTERS.

Come and get yer............

Image Copyright Jason Knott

Brian Morrison who's studying photography at Blackpool emailed me a while back to say that they were having a print auction to raise money for their third year show. I love Blackpool college. Not only do they turn out some great photography they also come up with genius idea's like this and persuade the great and the good to donate prints for them to sell. Participants include Stephen Gill. Bid on a Gill print only a tenner so far! Go buy some Art........

Fake shops

Obviously THIS would fool me like it has the clampit in the picture but would it fool business leaders? Surely that should be the question.

Why not just invite 'not for profit' organisations to come up with uses for them and reduce the rates for everyone else? Although of course fakey shops is also an idea.

Eugenie Scrase Is The Winner Of This Years Arty, Saatchi X Factor!

Pictures courtesy BBC

And so the posh pretty girl WON. Never saw that coming. "But I'm only twenty" gushed Urinal or Eugenie Scrase or what ever the fuck she was called. Her work, a log on a fence removed and taken into a gallery. I wonder how many photographers must have walked past that scene and gone na that's way too cheesey? But heyho the Simon Cowell of Art liked it.......

ICO GALLERY.

DAVID CHAKO & CO

Following on from the last post regarding ICO Gallery Our Kid sent me THIS link. I was getting really pissed off with this numpty and then I read all THIS psycho babble and realised that I had come across, and fallen for another nutter that from time to time one meets online (Why not SEND me your portrait?). David I'll add you to the "Delusional" link section as soon as I create one...........

Tomorrow less time wasters more photography.

Topshit.

Topman the children's clothes shop have recently made bigger arses of themselves than the gelled up skinny jeaned lady boys who shop there. They have decided that this years trend is called "The Salford Lads club" look! You couldn't make this shit up. Anyway they have photo's of The Smiths Door and changed the sign to read Topman Lads Club. Being self important fashion types they never thought to seek permission and then got some photographer (and I use the word loosely) to shoot some gimps dressed like a cross between the big dancer with the moustache from Frankie Goes To Hollywood

and George Formby.

Apparently it's inspired by the 80's Northern Towns and working men's clubs where Young lads would go to listen to The Smiths.
All photo's shot in London and converted to B/W to give them that authentic gritty Northern feel........... twats.

Pull The Other One.

Apparently THIS is going to be "beneficial" for Manchester. Yeah and "beneficial" to Dickie Leese sun tan no doubt........

I'll be spending a couple of days doing summer stuff. Days out, picnics, visiting galleries, Tatton Park Flower Show, (no no honestly) stalking people at Old Trafford with my camera, pretending I give a flying fuck about cricket, that type of thing so no posts for a couple of days.

Gis Ya Money........

Fuck, if you can't beat em!

On The Blag.

Image copyright Susana Raab

Funding. It's a bit of a bastard. I've always been spectacularly shit at it. Some people thrive on it. Jeez I even know people who make a living doing it for other people! Me, I've always been shit at it. So I'm going to study this article by Susana Raab (love your work) over on PDN and see if I can pick up a few tips and maybe some application form filling mojo.

99.

99 Cent by Andreas Gursky

As you know, Just before Christmas the government in a vain attempt to kick start the economy reduced VAT from 17.5% down to 15% One of the side effects of this gesture was that the shops had to reprice their goods. All of a sudden £9.99 became £9.97. It was peculiar. There must have been a public out cry, we want 99 back we love it, perhaps people shouted, we are stupid and gullible and believe that something that costs £9.99 is soooooo much less than £10.00. Anyway thank goodness for all the kind shop owners, concerned with our confusion and bad arithmetic, they have kindly crept the prices back up to .99p.

Hey Hey Have A Shot for $60

Jen Bekman is calling for submissions for the first round of 2009 Hey Hot Shot! Now this competition does get a lot of coverage, but $60 entry fee? come on Jen ain't no one told you times are hard? Fuck knows how they justify that. No doubt "admin" will be the excuse but knowing how many submissions they'll end up getting x $60 "Nice little earner" as our Del Boy would say.

In fairness to these NY wideboys the style of photography that they represent is pretty wide compared to the current narrow derth that gets peddled stateside, so fair play for that. I guess after this post I may as well save my 60 bucks..............

Call For Submissions?

"Gallery is calling for submissions for its continuing artistic programme based in the visual media. Proposals will be considered without restriction. The University are looking to potentially fill a fractional 0.4 post. Submit a personal project of themed images designed as a precursor to the Final Show project. Academics who might be interested should the approval be granted. They seek a photographer. What?

Is it me or is a lot of art talk and "calls" like Stanley Unwin?

Manchester Criminal Masterminds Caught on CCTV!

http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1138237012/bclid1137745824/bctid1871011335

A Free Gift.

After the last post here's a picture. You can have that. It's yours. Print it off as many times as you like. I would make it bigger but Blogger limits me.

This of course is just another piece of cynical marketing, this time on my part. That picture is from a new series of pictures of have just put on my website called "25 Potential Weapons Descending in Order of Desperation" along with a short statement about the work and I want as many people as possible to go and see it. Here: http://www.manchesterphotography.com/gallery_174768.html