John Bulmer

On top of meeting the "Mod Father" I also went along to an exhibition of photographs by John Bulmer at The Royal Exchange Theatre. http://www.royalexchangetheatre.co.uk/page.aspx Some really interesting images shot in and around Manchester dating from the early 70's surprisingly in colour. Now I know John worked for national newspapers but I can't find anything about him online, which is a shame as he must have been a real pioneer shooting colour documentary work in those days. If you can, go and see his work, and if you know of any sites with his work on or more about him please let me know.

Sushi & Weller.

Was absolutely star struck today. My misses persuaded me to go to Yo Sushi in Selfridges for our lunch. Not at all my usual haunt but she's been a bit off colour so OK I agreed. Sat down and was just tucking into my first bowl when who should walk in and sit down next to me but only Paul bloody Weller! www.paulweller.com He must be in town for his gig tomorrow at the M.E.N which as it happens I'm going to. He was there with two of his kids and I think it must have been their idea to eat there as to be honest he looked just as confused by what to do as me. Anyway said hello shuck his hand, nice bloke and now I'm even more excited about seeing him play again. He's the man!

A Sunday Thought.

Image copyright Mark Page

I thought today that in keeping with the Sabbath we could get a little contemplative. This has come about because I have just rediscovered an old Victorian book I forgot I had called "A Sunday At Home" and also because of something a friend recently did that made me all thoughtful and to be honest a tad morose, so be warned. Now that I've set the tone for that whole Sunday service bit, I'll just give you a bit more atmosphere below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2GFfpgTBt0

Are them pews good and hard? Good then I'll begin.

This friend of mine who's an illustrator, was asking me where he could get some old photographs from, you know the sort of thing just a collection of "snaps" cool vintage stuff. I told him I thought he would be lucky to find anything like that nowadays as appropriating old photographs was a bit of a fad with both art photographers and artists alike.

He took no notice of me like most of my friends, and spent the afternoon rummaging around various secondhand bookshops around Shudehill. A few hours later and £400 lighter (I may be doing his funeral service when he tells his girlfriend) he turned up with a box of old photo's. We spent a while looking through several hundred black & white prints mostly on 8x10 fibre based paper. They were mainly landscapes of the Cheshire countryside in and around Hale. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hale,_Greater_Manchester There were also shots from around North Wales and some group portraits. Most had information on the back, neatly typed onto bits of paper and glued on. Place, season subject, F.stop speed etc. Annoyingly no dates though. There also appeared the same name. (I won't publish it here.)

It became apparent that they had all been taken by the same man, and had been printed by him. I imagine that he was a "serious amature" and this was his life's work. We treated them with more respect and both got a little melancholy. They were well made prints often different versions of the same subject. This was the work of somebody who cared a great deal about the images they were making.

I'm glad my friend made a rash decision to spend £400 on that box of old photo's He intends to sort through and maybe get them online for other people to enjoy. It made me think about what would happen to the photographs I've taken. I, like the man from Hale have spent time and effort in making them. I hope that if they end up in a cardboard box in the backroom of a musty shop somewhere in Manchester that someone like my friend finds them and appreciates them.

So that's it, just a quick thought on mortality and what not, fucking hell cheer up!

WWW (world wide work)

Image copyright Mikiko Hara

I am aware that this blog has been a little USA biased when highlighting the work of photographers. I personally have no leaning to the work of one country more than another. If I find someones work interesting I'll post about it regardless of the nationality of the photographer. Perhaps it's just that American artists are a little more sophisticated when it comes to promoting their work online.

So tonight trying to redress the balance I bring you two websites that promote the work of artists from other parts of the world. First up is photo.sittcomm http://www.photo.sittcomm.sk/ which showcases the work of photographers based in Central & Eastern Europe, although India is also included which I think is stretching the definition of Europe even more than The Eurovision Song Contest! http://www.eurovision.tv/

And looking at Japanese work, from outside Japan, which also seems to "hide it's light under a bushel" at least when it comes to the work of it's photographers comes japan-photo http://japan-photo.info/blog/
Two great ways to see stacks of bloody great photography.

Magnum Young Gun Wins

Image copyright Mikhael Subotzky

Magnum nominee Mikhael Subotzkyhttp://www.magnumphotos.com/Archive/C.aspx?VP=XSpecific_MAG.StaticPage_VPage&SP=photographers_list&l1=0&XXAPXX=SubPanel10 has been awarded this years Eugene Smith Award.http://smithfund.org/aboutfund/overview for his work on crime and punishment in South Africa.

So let me get this right. He's 27 a Magnum nominee and has now been awarded $30,000 by the Eugene Smith Foundation. I'm happy for him honestly I am. And over on the Conscientious bloghttp://www.jmcolberg.com/weblog/ Google group they've been discussing if traditional photojournalism has a future. http://groups.google.com/group/conscientious/browse_thread/thread/a3e7c7860eb28834

Gangs Of Manchester

We've all heard about Manchester gangs and "Gunchester" first coined I believe by The Guardian in a weekend supplement back in the early 90's. No doubt designed to sell papers and scare the shit out of the middle classes busy setting up home in Chorlton.


This Gangs of Manchester is a different kettle of fish (or kettle of Dahl if reading in Chorlton) It's a trip back in time to Victorian Manchester/Salford and charts the rise and fall of what is reputed to be Britain's first youth cult, The Scuttlers. This book is filled with fascinating stories not only about these Victorian "roughs" but also gives insight into other aspects of Manchester's murky past.


This book will show you that the "Good Old Days" are a romantic myth and we should forget the paranoia of the media and thank God the streets of this fair city are a hell of a lot safer now than then. Go buy it here:http://www.amazon.co.uk/Gangs-Manchester-Story-Scuttlers-Britains/dp/1903854814 read more here: http://gangsofmanchester.com/

A bloody good read.

Katarina Radovic

Images copyright Katarina Radovic

Another interesting angle on portraiture. Katarina Radovic's "A Husband in Paris" found over at Lens Culture http://www.lensculture.com/radovic-husbands.html?thisPic=3 More of Katarina's work here: http://www.photo.sittcomm.sk/radovic.htm

Richard Renaldi

Image Copyright Richard Renaldi

Featured in the latest edition of Fraction Mag www.fractionmag.com is "Touching Strangers" by Richard Renaldi. This work is all over the photo blogs. It really seems to have captured peoples imaginations, and it's no wonder. It's a bloody great bit of work!

Approaching complete strangers and asking to take their pictures is never an easy thing to do. Approaching different sets of complete strangers and asking them to "touch" each other and then if that's not enough ask them to wait while you set up a ruddy great 10x8 camera, well, respect. www.renaldi.com

New Fraction Mag

The latest edition of Fraction Mag is online www.fractionmag.com and yours truly has some work in it as part of the group show "Typologies" http://www.fractionmag.com/group1/group1.html go see. It's work from my series "25 Potential Weapons Descending in Order of Desperation" http://www.manchesterphotography.com/gallery_174768.html. I'm well pleased to have been included in this. Not only because it's the first time I've been published in anything outside the UK, but also because it's a bit of an honour to have such illustrious stable mates!

"Me? I'm tagged up to fuck" He said.

Image copyright Mark Page

Funny As F##k Friday.

The late, great Richard Pryor's "1st Black President".

Image copyright Mark Page

Free 10" Garlic Bread With Orders Over £10.

Images copyright Mark Page (kinda)

This is a new series I have uploaded to my homepage today. In a way it follows on from the last post, this is my attempt to look at issues about fast food here in the UK. At the moment I'm just collecting the menu's that come through my door. I want to expand on this by collecting fast food menu's from all over the Manchester area and maybe UK, as many as I can. Why? I just love them. I love their design the colours the artwork etc, bollocks I just think they're funny. And also for historic value. I would love to see fast food menu's from the middle ages.

I want to expand the idea and photograph the sites that the menu's come from. Take a look above and then tell me where the idea to call it Miami came from. I've never been to Florida but I did watch Miami vice and it looked fuck all like that. Here for more: http://www.manchesterphotography.com/gallery_186830.html

Susana Raab

Image copyright Susana Raab

Susana Raab's series "Consumed" looks at fast food consumption in the US. http://www.susanaraab.com/consumed.html

Purpose Magazine

Latest edition of this great webmag Purpose. This time taking childhood as it's theme. www.purpose.fr

I Hope All Your Dreams Come True.

I don't know many Americans, at least not in the flesh. I know a fair few though virtually, through photography blogs etc, and I know that most of them are routing for Obama. I hope they get who they believe will save America. I hope it's Obama, I believe that out of the two even though to be honest McCain seems like a decent man, I think it's important that America has a symbol of change and that has to be Obama.

A word of caution though. I get a bit of a sense of 1997. We in Britain longed for change after 19 years of Tory. As Americans you may not realise just how much us Brits longed for change and we whole heartedly believed that New Labour and Tony Blair would give us that change. Just a word to the wise.

Gustav Gustafsson

Image copyright Gustav Gustafsson

Gustav's website is a bastard to navigate which is a shame because there's some top stuff on there. Persevere my friends persevere. http://www.gustavgustafsson.com/projects/projects.html

New Web Things.

Wassenaar is a new webmag brought to you by the people behind We Can't Paint http://wecantpaint.com/wassenaar/index.html. That's another welcome addition to the photie web world. Also you probably know already but if not I'll tell you that good old Joerg Colberg has set up a Google Group over on his world famous photography blog Conscientious http://www.jmcolberg.com/weblog/ & here for said group http://groups.google.com/group/conscientious I'm sitting on the sidelines at the moment, but some pretty smart discussions going down, I think it may well turn into a virtual smokey bar which would be great.

Memorial Photographs

This post has nothing to do with the fact that Halloween has just gone! I found this article over on Photojojo which is a surprise as it's far from their usual fare. http://photojojo.com/content/photojojo-original/memorial-post-mortem-photography/ I always found this branch of photography fascinating, not least because we no longer do it. It is partly no doubt to do with our modern unhealthy relationship with death.

I last attended a funeral in 2007, it was my Grandads. It is the first family function I can remember in a long time where people knowing that I am a photographer didn't ask why didn't you bring your camera? I must admit I wanted to but was to scared. I knew that it wouldn't have been accepted and would have upset people, not something you want to do at a funeral. But why is that? why are funerals and death the one big life event that we don't feel we can/should record?

Noise Festival 2008

The Biennial creative festival that started down-under and moved north a couple of years ago is getting ready to announce it's winners. Billed as "The Olympics of Creativity" (I'm really not sure if I like that sentiment) it is, if nothing else a decent barometer for what the youngsters are up to when it comes to the arts including photography.

There is a mass of photo's on the website, perhaps too many to be able to do any kind of fair survey and it has got a bit of a flickr feel about it. However there is some interesting stuff on there, sometimes frustrated by the fact that some of these young pretenders still have no websites which stops you seeing more of their work. I find that, hard to believe in this day and age.

Anyway go see here:http://noisefestival.com/ Richard Billingham was the judge for the photography section and I'm waiting to receive an email letting me know his top five. I'll let you know.