The Phantom Band

Rock & Roll, they say, is all glamour.

It's a good thing that this is all lies and that The Phantom Band don't exactly fall under the simplified banner of rock. Them, their music and even their name have never been simplified, so why should a photoshoot be straightforward?

To coincide with the release of their third album Strange Friend,  The Skinny asked if I could shoot the band for the latest cover and in Dumbarton. Enter stage right: two car loads of Phantoms and myself, on the road west one sunny Sunday afternoon, what could be simpler? In the run up to shoots like this I always like to prepare. I pencil down visual ideas or a theme and check out artwork. I was sent a clandestine link to the new album which I listened to in complete darkness. I packed and repacked my gear like a sherpa. I even had time for some chakra vowel chanting before meeting the guys. The band though, were suffering from their side-project obligations from the night before and had used the morning to spontaneously move their entire studio.

Fifteen minutes later, we have bypassed Dumbarton looking for a good location, made every wrong turn and both cars are now totally separated in an Exodus scale downpour. Unimaginably, the only constant to the shoot is our original idea to eat some ice creams by the seaside. We career into the first sodden, seafront we find. A phalanx of Phantoms head off to find somewhere for ice-creams and to genuinely buy chips, priorities. As always, at the height of the struggle, from the wall of rain emerges the most enthusiastic local out for his Sunday rain walk who see's our head scratching as an opportunity for the chat of a lifetime. By the time the band are back, shielding their dissolving ice-creams with takeaway bags, we've been on the go for 2 hours. But we've had chips.

Fifteen minutes later, Helensburgh pier is littered with flakes of sodden cone wafer and streams of ice-cream runoff. The sky and the sea are the exact same colour and the rain has charmed its way inside my camera making all my pictures look like we are in a turkish bath. Except we aren't, and to our further disbelief Andy's car battery has died during the shoot. What a scene this must have looked from above as me and Iain push-start the car and it rolls to a halt in the centre of a lagoon of rainwater. A lucky set of jump leads at hand we wait wringing with monsoon, listening to the revs of a very low fuel tank from the other end wondering if we need to start thinking about something more substantial then chips.

Back on the road and soaking the upholstery, the guys all kick back and get talking about albums and afterpartys with no afterthought to the shoot as if this was as ordinary a day in the life of The Phantom Band as they come.

 

 

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BACK FROM THE LAB

Another blast from the past. Every time I collect new film I am stopped in my tracks. Every time a reminder of what this whole thing is about. Photography for me is still learning, still my main mode of discovery.

Over the last few months I have made lamentable starts at writing posts to apologise for the blog silence and account for the dip in updates. Really tragic writing actually. Some great apologia,and in the end I don't even have room for photos. In reality, it turns out, I've not had the time or the enthusiasm to write about what I work hard and enthusiastically at all week. This ol' blog has always been an archivist and diary to my heady, chaotic activity. But by the time I sit down to sift through my thoughts on a project, I have already moved on to the next two. Of the things I should always be writing about, is photography's great brotherly companionship showing us how to keep exploring. Not specific to any camera, or any format, the very act is still universally thrilling.

So hey! I am once again drawn back to earth. Not the commissions or work that I finished in the last two weeks, but small iridescent rectangles of emulsion that I shoot at important points on my search for new ideas. They document and promise nothing but humble, forgettable microseconds in my own travels. There are no stories, nothing to sell.What is here in these rolls, are the beginnings of a documenting of Glasgow's Southside. Something, I hope in time, I will talk a lot more about. Here is a place I am drawn to like gravity. Its latent, hidden colour and personality are heralding an adventure. For now, film still has a place at my side.

D U O

Finally finally, NEW work.

Last Friday, The Photographers Collective opened the doors on their annual exhibition, Collection 3, to a busy and earnest reception. Growing and expanding year on, this year they invited 3 photographers to showcase their work alongside them for their show. Earlier this year I was asked along and, only too flattered, set the wheels in motion to curate or shoot a new body of work for October.

D U O is what emerged from 2 years of colour film work from my small travels. Researching which project to hang for the Collection, I was in a new position. I had the opportunity to publish new work that had yet to be given a name, but I wanted something to engage with the exhibition as a whole. It has emerged nevertheless from small conspiracies. My relationship with travelling is intrinsically rooted in film in favour of digital, which I have written about already here and here. A growing archive of overlapping themes and styles from different countries has blossomed into this small study in unity.

The exhibition is open until Friday in Out Of The Blue, Dalmeny Street. An extended edit of the project is below for those who can't make the show. If it was me though I wouldn't need a reason to get my red gallery troosers out, come one come all.