Saltmarket Syndrome

Sodden sheep pin-down the Pyramids as the tarmac conveyor grinds to a crawl. 

Billy

The Saltmarket is exerting it's grip, I've become it's willing hostage; Saltmarket Syndrome? "Billy fae Fife" carries the wind on his back like a sack of coal. He tilted his head skyward and looked me up-and-down like a war-torn terrier. His eye gleamed like an sapphire on a butcher's apron. Billy took my hand as though he was going to lead me on a dance.

 

Frankie - Big Issue vendor support worker.

It turns out there's a soccer star at The Big Issue depot. You'd never know, Frankie's too modest to let on. It was his 5 goals against Poland that secured Scotland's 2007 World Cup victory in Copenhagen. The final score: Poland 3, Scotland 9.

Frankie was Glasgow born, Gorbals raised and delinquency bound until he signed-up with the Scotland Homeless football squad and the team at the Big Issue.

Neil

  A distress-flare bobbed above the counter bleating "been bullied, been bullied". Taunts and threats are a regular occurrence for Neil. His unquestioning trust can leave him vulnerable and exposed. He can't comprehend the retarded comments and jibes, he says "everyone gees me kisses an' cuddles." 
 Despite the danger and his fears, he keeps returning to his pitch. Neil loves his regulars, Neil loves everyone - unrequited. He takes the punches but could never deal them.
  Neil needs care in the community. Meanwhile the Big Issue Scotland Foundation will continue to provide Neil with the support that society ruefully neglects to provide him with. 

Stephen

  Stephen started vending a couple of weeks ago, it gives him "a sense of direction," but he's still nervous. "It's the youths you've gotta watch oot fer" he warned, pointing to a slit in his shewn crop. Stephen had intervened when a group of students were set upon by the Sooside (pronounced 'suicide') Cumbie. One of the Cumbies (Gorbals) gang drew out a "steakie" and stabbed him "in the heed." He recalled his amazement when the surgeons used super-glue instead of stitching him up.  
"Be careful" he advised, "that no-one thinks yer a pro-active". I showed him my id.

Impulse Buy

Impulse buy.

Grand Ole Opry

This gallery of in-and-outlaws was shot in '87.

I'd rustled together 20 rounds of 664 (Polaroid) and a beaten-up Mamiya Universal. At the time I thought nothing of the shots and laid them to rest. Like a case of Jack they've matured. These photographs weren't taken in a bar in Tennessee or an outpost of the Wild Frontier. They were captured in the Grand Ole Opry - the wild West -


West of Scotland!

  At the time the talk going around in the salons of Edinburgh was of gunslinging Weegies high on Heavy, ready to lynch the first Sassenach who dared put a foot over the boundary line. It sounded too good to be true. "Govan Gavin?!" was the baffled response to my invitation, apparently to a suicide ball. No one would come for the ride so I went on my lonesome.

I was welcomed with open-arms and over the winter of '87 I kept returning for a reality check-up.

Laredo gunslinger

  A stratified cloud of gun-powder and cigarette smoke hung over-head. Gunslingers danced as they slapped the burning embers on their thighs (in the race to beat their opponent they would often prematurely shoot-off before withdrawing from the holster). These urban cowboys were dedicated to detail - the get-up was got right. Who was going to argue with how they chose to escape? They had conviction, and six-shooters.

The Wanted posters had questions that needed answers. Where were the old-timers? What became of 'Jo Horner', 'Country Joe', 'Curly Bill', 'Bounty Hunter' and 'Cimarron'? Would I find ghosts where once stood a funeral parlour or would the image of bonhomie still play on in the former Picture House?

Kid Kamikaze and Cowboy Alec.

I deputised Kid Kamikaze who rode shotgun. The Kid was gonna cover me, armed with his pink compact and sharp eye. The fist-full of Polaroids was my passport to a magnanimous home coming.

Times have inevitably changed; there are too few cowboys and too many plucking hen parties. There's still a live band, bingo, line-dancing and gun-slinging (all for a fiver). Gone is the nicotine soused velvet curtain that hung like human fly-paper. The vista has been transformed by a prairie-panorama courtesy of STV's lawman - Taggart. Pretzels and cans of Red 'Sitting' Bull are a sobering change from the days of heavy and hard liquor. The memory of the old days still lingers in the air - the gunslinger's sulphur and salt peter making a last stand against the tobacco ban on the senses.

Outlaw (left) and Big Hoss (deceased).

Everyone gasped as I turned the shots. 'Deceased' was the word most used to describe the subjects.

John 'Kid Curry' McGhee (deceased).

John 'Cheyenne' Johnson (deceased) had attained legendary status before taking his life and with him the glory days.

Gambler (above) was run out of town after running-up bad debts.

John 'BJ' Duff (left) and John 'Doc Holliday' McCafferty (deceased). Blind DJ BJ has moved over, the new kid-on-the-decks is mos deaf DJ Rowdy Yates below.

DJ Rowdy Yates

Ian and Michelle (above) were on a roll. Michelle hit the bingo jackpot- a hundred pounds. Her and fiancé Ian (left) couldn't contain their joy- or their love for one another. Now they didn't have to worry about the taxi bill home - priceless moments.

The last of the die-hards was Archie 'Joe Horner' Buxton (above). It was unanimously agreed that Archie confounded convention, proving that looks could improve with age and tooth-loss! 

There are no pretensions here, just an honest celebration of culture and kinship. The spirit the of the Grand Ole Opry lives on...

 Thanks to all the kind folk of Glasgow's Grand Ole Opry, especially: JK, Big Bad John, Joe Horner, Cowboy Alec, Line Dancer, Bounty Hunter, Characo, Rowdy Yates, Peggy Sue, Nick Wray, Durango, Davey, Tony, Fiona, Night Rider, Donnegal Kid, Big D, Jake, Michelle and Ian, Duane, Bella and Cathie.

touch- a definition

touch: definition by Peter Ross- Anthropologist and Animateur;

 In his photo series touch, Evans explores the boundaries between subjects. He instructs them to take his hand and place it in the frame of the photograph and by doing so explores the cultural and psychological limits of connectedness. Some take his hand and keep him at a distance while others are prepared to take him into their bodies, literally. The viewer is invited to reflect on the limits of physical contact between strangers, both in its cultural and gendered context, and to explore their own thresh-hold of acceptable touching.

  touch also challenges the conventions of photographic portraiture. Evans is both subject and photographer as he invades the space of both the sitter and the image. His intervention blows apart the separation of the artist and subject, they can no longer be discrete, and the viewer must consider Evans' influence over the sitter. This work embodies Evans' belief that all his photographic portraits have himself as the central subject and that the images he produces of a sitting are a record of an event in which he is central.

 If you would like to contribute comments or texts on touch please email me at touch@gavinevans.com

British Journal of Photography

 Interview by the esteemed British Journal of Photography on the making of the 'iconic image'.