Property is theft

I‘m very flattered to say one of the comrades at the Convention of the Left (see Exhibition moves on below) liked the pictures so much, they nicked one! Honestly with all them police hanging about with an overwhelming interest in photography (see Hard labour below). The organisers might want another selection of snaps for their recall conference in November – I think I’ll nail them to the wall this time (or install cctv).

Sell out

My exhibition “showing the sinister side of advertising” has barely finished and it’s me who’s sold out and become an advertising photographer. This months issue of Professional Photographer features a two page Olympus advert featuring a shot from my cctv series. I used to have cards with “Not an Advertising Photographer” – now I’ll get some printed with “all talk and no trousers”. Ta to Olympus for the continuing support!

Hard labour

Thought I’d exercise my democratic rights today and photograph the Labour Party Conference. Anyroadup, turns out the police had been told to stop and question anyone taking pictures. Earlier in the day they tried to delete video footage taken by a visitor to our fair city. Thankfully they were as baffled as I am by the controls of the average video camera and gave up. I was stopped 4 times in 300 yards and told I was not allowed to take photos. Thankfully I was able to show them the Stop and Search form from the first time, which saved them the trouble of taking down my particulars. I was very flattered to read on the form I am of medium build and have short hair, rather than the fat and bald disguise I usually use.
The NUJ have a video on their website about the police harassing photographers.

On holiday with Martin Parr

Had a nice (if slightly surreal) weekend (as you can imagine) on the Isle of Wight with Martin Parr and the nice people from the School of Life. I’ve always been a bit ambivalent about Martin Parr’s work – and probably still am – but he’s certainly got a work ethic and has created a distinctive and important body of work. I went because I love the English seaside and his book The Last Resort is probably the most important set of photos about the subject.
Here’s a photo from the holiday that shows why it’s important never to get a photographer to change a light bulb. There’s also a flickrstream from people who were there.

M/cr photography blog

Assuming you’re not all blogged out, you can visit fellow Mancunian (even if he’s moved to Salford) photographer Mark Page, who selflessly devotes his blog to highlighting work by other interesting photographers (certainly saves you the price of subscribing to all those magazines in Borders). Mark’s blog is here.

Len Grant

Len Grant gave a talk about his career last week at Manchester’s Creative Industries Development Service. He showed some new work which is a lot more about people than the architecture and regeneration he is known for. I’m not the only photographer who owes Len a lot for his encouragement. A few years back I won a competition (pictured) he’d organised for the Imperial War Museum North and the now defunct City Life magazine. He told me about RedEye and got me to take photography more seriously. 

P.S. He didn’t mention A Way of Life – his book about the funeral trade which is my favourite.

Tree made of real wood

 

Is a series of colour (rare for me) photos about urban trees. The series got a brief outing as part of the Kiosk Gallery / Comma Films ‘Spectangular’ event which was part of the New Islington Festival held last week in a damp Ancoats. Spectangular was held inside a shipping container and featured projections of short films and slide shows from different photographers. The title of my bit comes from an Ivor Cutler song. The series says trees in cities are just a way for developers to hide the concrete – nature never looked so unnatural. Anyroad, the whole lot might get a second airing at Manchester’s Urbis on Saturday 27 September 12pm/2pm/4pm.

Exhibition moves on

My exhibition ‘Sold Out’ has just finished a run from June at Kiosk Gallery in Manchester.  It gets a brief resurrection at the Convention of the Left in The Friends Meeting House, Manchester from Saturday 20–25 September. Metro News said it: 

“…uses advertising as inspiration for a series of humorous but unsettling images. Dunnico is interested in situations whereby advertisements in public spaces inadvertently interact with their surroundings, losing their original meanings and conveying very different messages from those intended.”

Which almost makes it sound like I knew what I was doing.

Aye up

Hello and welcome to my photography blog.
I’m a documentary photographer from Manchester  in the UK.
You can see my work at my website: www.dunni.co.uk
There’s a short film or three here on vimeo, or see my project about cctv on it’s flickrstream: www.flickr.com/photos/ddtv
Or get the free pdf magazine that goes with it by clicking here.