NECKLESS
Neckless, Leicester.
I’ve just been up into the archive (read loft) to have a look for a pic which I will post in a while. When rummaging around I came across¬†a favourite pic of mine, and one I had forgotten about..and one that reinforces the old snappers rule that you should have a camera on you at all times.
In this case it was an old Nikon F2 with a 35mm f2 lens wedged on the front. I was on my lunch break from working as a staffer at the Leicester Muckrake (oops..sorry..Mercury…) As usual with that camera I had to guess the exposure as there was no meter, but that was no problem because I had used the same film in all my cameras for donkeys years..tri-x, at 400asa.
I only wrote all that about kit because I know lots of you are obsessed with cameras…has anyone ever asked a journo what pen they use?¬† Anyway…I digress…This old dear was rummaging about for something in her shopping bag. Her head seemed¬†to disappear…it was there, honest…and no, there is no photoshoppery…hadn’t been invented, and I’ve got the bleedin’ neg if you don’t believe me…After I first printed the pic I realised she was outside a jewellers, so the neckless / necklace title it was.
Hope it makes you smile, ’tis a hard thing to do with a still image.
STUPID FASCISTS
That is not you, dear reader. It is the subjects in this pic.
They were all at a BNP demonstration somewhere in Leicester, in the late 1980’s. I was working as a snapper for the Leicester Mercury, and had been sent to cover their meeting. That was quite a hairy job, in lots of ways. The back half of the hall was full of anti-Nazis (Yeah!), whilst the front was full of the BNP members.
I think the fascists managed to scrape together about 6 brain cells between them, apart that is from John Tyndall,their leader, who unfortunately was quite intelligent, and who managed to stir the morons up into a right frenzy.
Ten minutes after this, it all kicked off…chairs came flying over from the back, coppers started piling in..When the police were distracted, Tyndall slid up to me like the snake he was and elbowed me as hard as he could in the bollocks, making sure no one else saw, the sneaky git.
I don’t mind saying that it bloody hurt.
He didn’t like having his picture taken. I don’t blame him..he was an ugly sod, with an uglier soul. I had a Metz hammerhead flashgun on my Nikon F3 at the time, the photographic equivalent of a steel girder with electronics, (mmmmm…cameras….), and I SO wanted to smack that outfit back into his poisonous frame. I didn’t ‘cos I would have lost my job, and I liked it…Instead I decided to make them look like the morons they are by getting pics like this one in the ‘paper..
PARKY!
The pic below was getting a lot of laughs at the AOP portfolio exhibition in London last week..
I love to make people laugh with a photo..this one shows a trio of Russian sunbathers in St.Petersburg, their backs to
the walls of the Royal mint, alongside the frozen River Neva. The bloke in the middle is rubbing himself down with a block of ice…
And for all you camera lovers out there….it was taken on a Leica M6 0.85 ttl, with a 35mm aspherical summilux, kodak tc-400cn film,
printed by me on my old enlarger with a ground out neg carrier.
DUCK UNDERGROUND
Out of the ether comes a strange request….can I find a someone in a duck suit, looking peeved, on the underground?
Of course. Anything for the loyal duckrabbit readers. Should be easy.
Well, what do you know. Success 
Duck on the London underground
This little favourite was taken at ,er, Regents Park tube station back in the day. I was using film…FILM you know. Tri-X, naturlich. Camera bit: Nikon f3, 24mm nikkor, 15th @f2.8, 400asa. I can still remember. Sad eh?