Multiple Exposure

Multiple exposure- click on the images to view full-size.

 It was another dreich afternoon in Auld Reekie and I was drookit. Through the nebulous har I could make out the glow of a twisting barber's pole. Before I knew it I was peering through the salon window. Behind the precipitation and condensation I could make out a cluster of Oriental fashionistas.

 So, this is how my hair-brain logic went: I've got straight hair - so do they. Cool cuts are top of their hip list of priorities ergo they must know this is a good hairdresser. I was in need of a hair-whisperer with flair and this could be my man. I stuck my head in the door and and was greeted by deafening silence. I asked if I could make an appointment. A teenager translated my request into Cantonese and the hairdresser nodded. "Aye come back in an 'oor", she confirmed. For the next 60 minutes I kept wondering if there'd be anyone to translate. How would we communicate? The shop was empty. Jet tumbleweed floated across the floor. "Hi" I said, "Hey" he replied– we were off the starting blocks

 He was called Liam, a solid Celtic name. And that was it - we were now looking at each other through the language barrier.

On a table was a stack of hair menus. A trichological feast of mullet served with assorted mega-waffles, crimps and crinkles. The unwitting victims tried to hide their embarrassment under their hair-raising creations. Their clenched grins couldn't disguise the fact that they knew what we were thinking. Although tickled, I was not tempted by any of the specials.

  Liam guided me by eye. Locked on like a Sidewinder I tracked his trajectory to a red chopping block with porcelain basin. "Was" I followed his instructions to the missing letter. I submitted my neck to the basin where he proceeded to was(h) my hair. Sitting on his chair he lowered me to ground level. Gestures to the ready and noises in reserve, we set off. Liam is a Zen Master of the scissors. He beat my crown and calf licks into submission. Another was', a final cut and blow-dry and voila! The logic worked, the haircut experiment was a resounding success. 40 minutes out of the ordinary on a miserable day, all for just twelve quid.

 That was four years ago and Liam had just arrived in the UK. He was lured from his wife and son to work 60 hours a week in a Scottish side-street clip joint. In Hehehot, Liam led a team of 12 stylists in a fashionable salon. An ocean of hair has been swept under the linoleum of time and since that first encounter we have remained friends.

And the charge? Still 12 pounds.

What price a haircut?

Bunny Munro app

Something I've come across- a funky app with my photographs. Nick Cave's Bunny Munro is now available to download.

The Scotsman

The PR team at ActionAid contacted the Scotsman paper. Their 'Spectrum' magazine want to feature the HungerFREE campaign and run some portraits. My interviewer Ruth (Walker) turns out to be an enthusiastic and tenacious sparring partner. We met at a neutral location that serves the best flat white in town- Peter's Yard. Before she has a chance to whip-off the gloves I drag her outside and insist she does 'touch'. She puts up no resistance.

Over breakfast Ruth asks me why I loathe being tarnished with the title 'celebrity' photographer. Celebrity photographers are a recent phenomena- like WAGS, X Factor contestants and Labradoodles. They're a pernicious breed that hadn't been conceived when I started out. Me, I celebrate everyone in my own, idiosyncratic way.

I don't know what to believe anymore, but it's in print in the Scotsman so it must be true- I am "Scottish".

ActionAid Finished Poster Image

Finally finished the ActionAid campaign image. A week of preparation, three days shoot and three days in post-production. Within a couple of hours of the charity approving the image Design Week requested to run it. This came as a surprise as I hadn't anticipated acknowledgment from the design community.

Professional Photographer

  Grant(Scott) wants to interview me for an upcoming issue of Professional Photographer. I met him twenty years ago, back then he was a talented and courageous magazine art director who commissioned me regularly. I would always present Grant with images that would scare him witless, before pulling out the safety-shot. We had an unspoken agreement; as long as he got his photograph, I could, and must, do my thing. I kept smuggling out my booty under the hemline of a shot that would stop him reaching for the nearest bottle.



 Grant's career has gone from art director to published photographer and now he has been appointed Group Brand Editor/ editor of 'Professional Photographer' magazine. I've come to think of myself as an 'Independent' photographer and, although he agrees that the title 'professional' was tenuous, Grant thinks it's time got some exposure.

 The questions he conjured made me out to be someone with integrity and determination. Loaded terms like 'incredibly powerful' and 'without compromise' suggested I'd achieved a level of notoriety! I had to choose my words very carefully.

Click here to read the article...

ActionAid

 A couple of weeks ago got a call to pitch an idea for a charity campaign. On the 16th October, ActionAid were going to launch HungerFREE and needed an image to spearhead the campaign. They fired reams of facts and figures at me. Their goals and intentions were achievable and irrefutable. The challenge to communicate the severity of the crisis whilst satisfy the requirements of the many involved and associated parties was daunting.
 An image of hands holding a bowl containing chains of manacles in place of food, was chosen from the 14 ideas I put forward. A bowl of handcuffs, sounds simple enough, all I had to do was paint them, link them together and shoot 'em. Add a bit of digital alchemy, hammer home their slogan 'Free the Hungry Billion' in bold type and I'm done.
 The receptionist at the novelties suppliers thought she had taken a hoax call when I ordered a hundred pairs of cuffs. When they arrived I linked them together and piled them up only to find they lacked any impact. So I called back the suppliers. "I need more, another two hundred pairs should do it." She had trouble keeping her composure over the howls of incredulity coming from her colleagues in the back.

 Next stage; prime three hundred pairs of handcuffs in white, then spray them yellow. A colleague at ImagineArt (art-therapy service) kindly offered me the use of their recently acquired studio to make my mess in. For four days I joined the chain gang, sweeping up and down the lines of manacles with Roots Manuva's 'Witness' on repeat.
 My solvent trance was broken on day 2 when a señorita appeared through the mirage. She was a dancer looking for rehearsal space. Her smarting eyes squinted over a respirator made from a Hermes scarf. Through the manacle barrier she inquired “Do you know that in Spanish the word for handcuffs and wives are the same?” Before I had time to digest this paradox she blurted: "You must come and see my collection of handcuffs!" Did she mean her "harem" was my inappropriate repartee. She evaporated - a chagrined chica.

Last Stand

 My body's telling me it can't take anymore and submits to my pathological sense of curiosity. The Edinburgh Festival officially ended last night but the comedians want the final laugh. Making my way down the stairs to the club I'm struck by a back-draft of sweat and jocularity.

This is the last stand - a rare opportunity for the comedy kindred to convene at the Stand Comedy Club. Seymour (Mace) is on the decks and is spinning old skool toons while

Simon (Viz) Donald tears up the dance floor like a Bigg Market stag.

The elusive Daniel (Kitson) is playing photo ping-pong, returning the volleys of flashes from behind a fistful of cd's.

The bar is free and besieged. In the crush I eyeballed Reginald (T.Hunter). "Sure" he's up for touch. Outside in the the dreich dark we commandeered a lamppost and I listened as his mellifluous tones syringed my aching ears.

The arrival of a mischievously half-cocked Mick Moriarty (Gadflys) was my signal to split.

Fin - Edinburgh Festival 2009