Welcome to the cheap jeans.

Image Justin Jin


As we all storm Primark and the like this weekend, keep these images in your heads.....http://www.justinjin.com/

Drains

urbanunderworld

Please take a look at this! Urbis's super tour guide and all round nice guy Mark Rainey, sent me a link to here http://www.urbanunderworld.co.uk/ These fellas make great pictures as well as being insane, (THINK OF THE RATS!) I wonder if Urbis will start running tours like this?

Pride

Robert MapplethorpeBrian Ridley and Lyle Heeter1979
© The Estate of Robert Mapplethorpe

When I was at college I went through a phase, At least one of my tutors told me I would grow out of it, well I never have. That phase was a love of the work of Robert Mapplethorpe. I had never seen anything so shocking or so technically brilliant. But it was more than that, it was that I believed his pictures. He not only knew his subject but also lived it . See more of his work here : http://www.mapplethorpe.org/index.html

Horses for courses

I have always thought it slightly arrogant, with shades of "Imperialism" for British And American photographers to go trapezing around the world when there are gifted photographers from those lands with a far deeper knowledge of their country and culture. And as if to prove my point one of the winners of this years PULITZER PRIZE, was ODED BALILTY from Israel. http://www.pulitzer.org/year/2007/breaking-news-photography/bio/ to read more.

Urbis V The Lowry

Two galleries two exhibitions, The Lowry, "THE MYTH OF THE NORTH" perhaps it should be preceded with "HOW TO PERPETUATE "cod terrace houses (even more plastic looking than Urban Cash) eeh bye heck it's Bloody Black n White up north! a fucking exhibit of a place of work........ A mock up of a factory, what was there no factories down south? or no offices up north? Coronation street, taste of "fucking" honey, no QUEER AS FOLK ?, CUTTING IT? COLD FEET? nuff said.

Urbis HACIENDA, something that put us on the map, made Manchester the coolest place in the world to live, for a while. Nothing else to say in connection to Wilson though Because I'm getting sick of it... next time Bernard Manning.....(joke)................... STOP PRESS.............NEW SHOW AT TATE BRITAIN "mabe it's because I'm a Londoner"..

James Nisbeck

Copyright James Nisbeck

I spend many hours looking at the work of other photographers on the internet and in various magazines, and every so often I see work by somebody that stops me in my tracks. I was lucky enough to be contacted by James (ain't the internet great). The great thing is that James is moving to our fair town soon. To see more of James work check out http://www.lightstalkers.org/james_nisbeck well worth a look.

Tony Wilson

Although everyone knew he had been ill for a while it still came as a shock when he died. I think everyone had an opinion about Wilson, love him or hate him I think we all had to agree that he loved Manchester. It is agreed that he was one of the architects of Manchester's revival, and It is agreed that in the eighties & early nineties he made it a cool place to live.

The trouble is that not long after The Hacienda closed Manchester started to lose that cool. It's been said a thousand times before that the Hacienda being turned into flats (I refuse to use the term apartments!) was symptomatic of the way that Manchester was going. Money men have moved in and made a killing on the back of that cool and in the process have turned the place into well I'm not sure what. I know that "town" now on the whole is dull. I know that we have the same shit shops as everywhere else, I know that most of the bars are banal, and I know that although a lot of city centre loft residents are having a ball, ten minuets down the road kids are still getting shot and little of that money finds it's way there unless it's to buy a house that some old couple have been forced to sell. So yes I will miss you Tony because if Manchester has ever needed a gobby bastard it's now...................

River Irwell Poem

Have been doing some reading lately about the River Irwell, and it has struck me how far it has come since the 1970s. A walk along it around Peel Park in Salford on a warm summer day is fantastic! Its the first time I have done this for almost a decade and I was stunned at how nature has took back great swaths of river bank, especially around Salford cresent. I hope the planners and developers take this into consideration when working there.

In my research about the river I found a poem from before the Industrial revolution it's funny to think how we have almost come almost full circle...

"Behold, behold with wondrous eyes

the towering hills that reach the skies

the fertile plain and vale below

where the lovely streams of Irwell flow.

Summer Salford quay's

Watched the local news last night and it must be that time of year again. Every year it goes something like this........ weather gets hot, kids jump off The big red in Salford, middle aged man from council does vox pop about dangers of jumping in the quay's water cold, hidden objects below water surface, blah blah blah, stern looking bobby is next it will not be tolerated, criminal offences blah blah blah, Manchester evening News does article, not condoning it but publish photograph of it happening as their photographer was lucky enough to be there at that time. And every year it happens, my girlfriends grandfather says he did it when he was a lad and he's now in his 80's. So sorry to the residents of the new quay's but it looks like you will have to draw the curtains to your quarter of a million pound pad and just get used to it. Here's to summer Salford style!

DO NOT REFREEZE

Went to DO NOT REFREEZE yesterday at the Cornerhouse. I'm not normally a big fan of the Cornerhouse, besides the bookshop and their beans on toast! But this is a fantastic show! without doubt the best one in Manchester for a while.. Featuring the photographs of Arno Fischer, Sibylle Bergemann, Helga Paris, Evelyn Richter, Maria Sewcz, Erasmus Schroeter, Gundula Schulze Eldowy, Ulrich Wust, and Ursula Arnold, It is a fine display of gritty classic, black & white photographs in the tradition of Magnum. Taken during The Cold War (hence the title) mainly in the former East Germany they give a glimpse of life behind the Iron Curtain over a forty year period.
Displayed over all three of The Cornerhouses galleries and showing work from the 1950s right though to the 1990s this is certainly an attempt by the curator Matthew Shaul to bring the work of these gifted photographers to a wider audience, and so he should! The work is both diverse and powerful, it will be a while before I can get the images made by Gundula Schulze Eldowy out of my head. And that, like the work of the best of the Magnum photographers is how it should be. No gallery gimmicks such as roundabout's or Kylie's knickers just visuals that burn the back of your eyes and get your mind moving......
DO NOT REFREEZE can be seen until 17th June and you really should........