Beltane Portraits.

In keeping with the natural style of this event, I shot all the portraits on 6×4.5cm film (also because I hate digital at the moment) I used a Mamiya 645 Pro ttl. Colour – Kodak Portra 400 and Fuji Pro 400H. Black and white – Kodak Tri-X 400

Helen, my wife, was very clear, very precise with her instructions – “Drive the camper up first thing Friday, get us a good spot, save the Campbell’s a good spot and then just chill-out until I get there at five ‘o’ clock. Do not start drinking until I get there…Phil, promise me…”

I negotiated the camper through the tiny gate entrance  at 9.30am, organiser and host, Quilly, was there to take my invitation and a small donation. I parked-up in exactly the same spot as we’d been in last year, unpacked a few things, crisps mainly, and then attempted a little snooze. I cracked open my first beer at 9.55am, by 10pm I’d quaffed 12 cans of Budweiser. None of the photos that I took on Friday were in focus.

Beltane is traditionally a festival that celebrates the arrival of summer, although this year I think we were celebrating a bit prematurely. I woke-up on Saturday morning hungover, with borderline hypothermia, temperatures had dropped well below freezing during the night, even sharing my bed with Leica, our pet spaniel, hadn’t stopped the violent nocturnal shivering. The hangover made things ten times worse. I should have listened to Helen.

You can’t just turn-up at Beltane, you have to be invited. Hosts, Sue and Quilly, are keen to point-out that the piece of paper you have in your hand when you arrive is an invitation, not a ticket. It’s a great idea, it’s a private party, a gathering and when you’re throwing a party you don’t want twenty Vauxhall Nova’s full of Chavs, high on plant food and cans of Monster energy drink turning-up. So, if your name’s not down, you’re not coming in.

Beltane is a great event, my favourite of the year. Sue and Quilly do such an excellent job, and despite Sue saying she won’t, a thousand times, they’ll do it all again next year…

Six by four point five.

6×4.5cm film has always had a bit of a bad reputation, it’s too big to have the convenience of 35mm, but too small to be a ‘proper’ medium format. But this is why I like it – most 645 cameras are no bigger than a professional size 35mm slr, but they produce a negative that is three and a half times bigger.

I bought a second-hand Mamiya 645 Pro tl a couple of weeks ago, in an as new condition for £350 – an absolute bargain. I love the camera. I’ve had it in my bag with my Mamiya 7II, which I’ve hardly used, it’s so much easier to use the 645. I use the spot metering 99% of the time, which seems to be very accurate. The standard 80mm 2.8 lens is razor sharp.Here’s a few images that I’ve shot over the last couple of weeks. All images made with Kodak Portra 400. I already have quite a long queue of photographer friends who want to borrow this camera…

The Andy Kershaw ‘incident’

Copyright Phil Kneen

On the 17th of September, last year, I photographed BBC radio presenter, Andy Kershaw, outside his home in Peel, on the Isle of Man, easy enough as I live about 10 houses away from him. The shoot was pleasant enough, Andy brought out some excellent fresh coffee, chain-smoked cigarettes and showed us photos of motorbike racing that he’d shot years ago. With me on the shoot were Simon and Angela Campbell, very close friends, Simon also acts as my agent.

I was shooting with a single studio flash, on digital, trying to balance the artificial and daylight, but the sun kept going in and out. I wasn’t getting the results I wanted, so I took Andy off on his own, down into the shadows of the promenade wall. I took the Canon 5D and a single 50mm lens and grabbed a Nikon FM2 35mm film camera. I took 15 images on Kodak T-Max 400.

Now then, I can not imagine anyone being less happy with a photo of themselves as Andy Kershaw was, he went MENTAL. I posted this image on Facebook, a lot of people liked it, but it attracted a couple of negative comments about Andy’s personal life, a personal life that is well documented by the press, so I’ll not bore you with it.

The shit hit the fan – lots of shit, big fan. Simon took the first wave of vitriol in a 20 minute phone-call. Andy claimed that I’d made him took like a “down and out” and that by posting the image I’d invited people to trawl over his past. I deleted the image, but the shit-storm continued.

Three days later I came face to face with Andy outside my own house, he refused to discuss the issue and I was told to meet him at his house later that day. When I arrived I was offered a glass of ginger beer and a cigarette, I took both. Andy then launched into me. I was subjected to a 5 minute stream of temper, something I’d not witnessed since the visits to my headmaster at school, 25 years earlier. When he’d finished I apologised, said that I’d never meant to upset him and asked if he’d like me to photograph him again, to my amazement, he agreed. Andy then shook my hand and thanked me for coming to apologise ‘face to face’.

I didn’t photograph Andy again, I never quite had the stomach for it. He’s left Peel now, gone off to see the world, I think?

This image was shot on film, I can’t help the way people look. To this day I’m not sure whether it was the photo that Andy didn’t like, or the comments that went with it?

What people want.

I took this shot of my good friend, Noah, two years ago. In 24 months, over 5 different sites including Flickr and Getty Images, it’s had nearly 1.2 million views, received 598 comments (good and bad) and 585 likes on Flickr. It also sells like hot cakes.

One thing is obvious – it’s not the kind of image I take now, but it’s what people want!

Rubber Band Face (copyright Phil Kneen)

*********I have about 480 followers now. I’ve decided that when I have 500, I’m going to get a book printed of my latest film photos, the images I like. I’ll keep the print run to 150 one-off limited editions**********

We are family.

My offspring – Matt, Ric and Jess.

We were out for a very rare family walk last week, it’s not often you see all the Kneen’s in one go! I shot two rolls of Kodak Portra on my Mamiya 7II. When we got back I noticed that I’d knocked the exposure compensation dial to  -2 stops, but I wasn’t sure when it had happened? I almost dumped both rolls. I’m glad I didn’t!

I’m not doing much in the way of commercial work at the moment, I’m working on personal projects, collaborating with writers and doing what I want to do, shooting what I want to shoot. Because of this, my compositions are less ‘safe’, less crowd-pleasing. I’ve had negative feedback, some of it from close friends, but for every negative comment there’s 30 positive responses.

These are the photographs I like to take.

The People’s Palace (Morecambe waits, part 4)

Words by Liz Corlett. Images by Phil Kneen

It’s easy to sentimentalize Morecambe’s past and poke fun at its shortcomings; more difficult to envisage a positive future for the town.

During our visit, we encounter no shortage of people who agree that the town needs ‘something’ but rather fewer able to identify what that might be. Local authority initiatives are given short shrift, and there’s a recurring sentiment that Morecambe has been left out in the rain by its guardians. This feeling has been simmering since 1974, when a reorganisation of local government handed Morecambe to Lancaster City Council, an awkward move which, as Evelyn Archer puts it, saw “a historic city saddled with a seaside town” and made a poor relation of the latter.

This said, there’s a buoyancy in the air quite at odds with the popular perception of Morecambe as the doyen of moribund coastal resorts. And I suspect that the ingredients the town needs for revival are already within its range: Morecambe has pride, and it has friends. Perhaps I’m suffering from chronic romanticism but I feel that the British weakness for the underdog, for a comeback against the odds, could be as much Morecambe’s trump card as its heritage.

The momentum began with The Midland Hotel, the Modernist beauty rescued from dereliction and reopened in 2008. Upon the hotel’s original launch in 1933, Lord Clonmore wrote in the Architectural Review, “it rises from the sea like a great white ship, gracefully curved…as comfortable as if it were on the Continent” and its most renowned guests – Coco Chanel, Dusty Springfield, Laurence Olivier – vied with their surroundings for style and glamour.

Ian Pashley, barman, The Midland Hotel

The combination of social history and aesthetic finesse – not to mention the extraordinary sea-light which floods the interior – make for a powerfully affecting cocktail, especially if you allow the spectre of wasteground or executive apartments to haunt you for a moment. Now gaze up through the floating staircase at Eric Gill’s Triton medallion while the pianist plays ‘As Time Goes By’ (no, really) and you’ll see that The Midland is a temple not just to nostalgia but to optimism. Its rarified air might seem at odds with the frowsy town but The Midland is how Morecambe dares to dream of itself, and it works.

In the resurrection of The Midland is a powerful message: not all decline is terminal. While goodwill halts its progress, perseverance and love can turn it around, and just a short walk from The Midland, that’s the story unfolding at another landmark. The Winter Gardens began life as the Victoria Pavilion in 1897, changing to the King’s Pavilion in 1909. Behind its bold grandeur were Mangnall & Littlewood, who also designed Blackpool’s Empress Ballroom. Its stage was once a galaxy: The Rolling Stones, Laurel & Hardy, Shirley Bassey, Elgar, Tony Hancock, Morecambe & Wise. In 1977, the doors closed – but the curtain which came down on the life of the theatre is now rising again, thanks to a singularly tenacious group of people.

The Friends of the Winter Gardens – of whom Evelyn Archer is a founder member – formed in 1986; in the demolition of the ballroom adjacent to the Pavilion, they saw the writing on the wall. Twenty years later, a Preservation Trust was also founded and together, the groups work to protect the building and raise funds, so that the Winter Gardens might have a future as a multi-purpose venue for the whole town. The scale of the theatre and its state of neglect are such that it would take £12.5 million to restore it completely. In the meantime, the undaunted Friends press on with gradual repairs and, through a variety of events, usher in life, although the paranormal investigators with whom the Winter Gardens is popular (the Most Haunted show has filmed here twice) might say that life never went away.

Our tour guide, David Chandler, believes he has “found his calling” in the Winter Gardens: “If I’m not in the building, then I’m thinking about it 99% of the time. I still get a feeling of wonder every time I walk into the auditorium”. You soon realise why. Only metres away from the pound shops and the tired arcades, we’re in a profane cathedral of stained glass, dark wood, carved marble and tiling that still gleams. Layers of dust and old nicotine, fire damage and faded colours can’t diminish the impact of the main auditorium: it’s like stepping into the thoracic cavity of a colossal beast, one thought to be extinct or even mythical. Hold your own breath, and you can hear it breathing. And waiting.

David Chandler

“It’s a space designed for people to enjoy themselves and for extraordinary things to happen”, says David. “It’s been done in the past and it can be done again, we just need to put the right mix of committed people and fresh ideas together. I want the building to once again become somewhere where people will be entertained, awestruck, moved, thrilled, fall in love – I strongly believe that if we keep the integrity of the building, then people will come and great things will happen.”

This was the final part of the Morecambe project, thanks for reading! Words and images copyright Liz Corlett and Phil Kneen, respectively.

You Could Be Anywhere (Morecambe waits, part 3)

Words by Liz Corlett. Images by Phil Kneen

“Boundless and bare, the lone and level sands stretch far away.”

The beauty of Morecambe’s body may have been in a protracted decline but its soul is replenished twice a day. Morecambe Bay, and those tides which come and go in long, deep breaths, are genuinely remarkable. Covering over 120 square miles, the scale of the bay in relation to the town verges on epic; it’s like stepping through the back door of a small terraced house to find, not an equally modest backyard, but a prairie stretching to the edge of sight. Morecambe’s loss of vitality has somehow served to magnify the actual and symbolic dimensions of the bay: on an overcast day, all life seems to leach into its expanse; when the sun comes out, the same expanse gleams with a sense of possibility.

Despite its lunar starkness, the bay supports teeming populations which in turn support the town: for centuries, shellfish have provided livelihoods, the dangers of which have also, notoriously, taken lives away. The area’s rich birdlife brings visitors to the town, which honours its seabirds, endearingly, in a number of sculptures.

Reminiscent in hue of cold tea and wet cardboard, neither the waters of Morecambe Bay nor its sand and mud flats – wetly exposed when the tide withdraws like a coverlet dragged from a bed – are classically alluring. But Morecambe people (‘sand grown ‘uns’) love and take pride in their bay, in the same way that people who live in flat landscapes feel attachment to their big skies. For one, there are the sunsets: lavish, cinematic affairs which demand to be watched until the last ember dies. Passing a care home on the seafront one evening, I see an elderly lady doing just that: standing at the window, her face saturated in the glow.

And then there’s the view of the Lakeland fells, uninterrupted and often startlingly clear. It’s that view which anchors Tony Vettese, who has run The Old Pier Bookshop on Marine Road Central for nearly twenty years. Despite the impression of magnificent disorder – the shop appears to be made of books, crammed together in self-supporting, higgledy-piggledy structures – Tony knows the whereabouts of every book for sale. But it’s his familiarity with the territory outside which gives him the greatest pleasure: “Where else would you get a view like that? I wouldn’t be anywhere else. That’s why I’m here, seven days a week. On a clear day, you can see every single peak – all 199 of them”.

Tony Vettese

On West Promenade, there’s a memorial to Commander Charles Gerald Forsberg OBE, RN, a long distance open water swimmer of some distinction. He notched up 29 crossings of ‘his beloved bay’ and the memorial represents his retirement wish to ‘sit facing wonderful Morecambe Bay and imbibe the matchless view’. However, it far from honours that wish to the letter: captured in the throes of front crawl, he’s imbibing more water than view. The statue of Eric Morecambe also faces inland, presumably so that visitors can corral the town’s most celebrated son and one of those famous sunsets into one photograph.

The irony in offering the sunsets and the views as reasons to visit Morecambe is that they’re attractions which are ‘happening’ elsewhere, on the horizon. What’s more, the proximity of Morecambe to the Lake District – a mere 30-40 minutes’ drive – is regarded as one of the town’s selling points but it could just as easily be an incentive to, well, keep driving. And yet, that’s somehow to miss the point: Morecambe, curiously gentle and passive, feels well-suited to watching and dreaming, longing and waiting, focused on some vision which seems close enough to touch while remaining teasingly out of reach.

In its golden age, Morecambe was once pitched to visitors as ‘the Naples of the North’ and, for several people I meet, the appeal of that immense view is that “you could be anywhere. Switzerland, Italy….anywhere”. You could be – but you’re not: you’re in Morecambe. And on this front, I happen to agree with Tony Vettese: you won’t find better than this.

Beyond Frontierland (Morecambe waits, part 2)

Words by Liz Corlett. Images by Phil Kneen

Seaside resorts give you everything up front; there’s no waiting game or charms withheld. This can lend their ‘off duty’ quarters a curiously unfinished quality: leave Morecambe seafront and walk three or four streets deep into the town, and the quietness is singular, as though there’d been an emergency evacuation only moments before.

In the East End, time itself has been ushered out of town: a detour through the side streets leads directly to the 1950s. There’s a general store called Vittles, a no-frills tobacconist, two handsome Methodist chapels within a shout of each other and a tiny Shrimp Shop, which closes at 1 o’clock so that its proprietor can carry on shrimping.

Morecambe’s bane is that there is very little in the way of contrast to this hush. There is no shortage of cafes, shops and bars but the town is haunted by absent splendour. In its heyday, Morecambe had eight cinemas, five theatres, two piers, a funfair and one of the largest outdoor swimming pools in Europe. The Olympic-sized Super Swimming Stadium, which opened in 1936, accommodated 1,200 bathers and, at one time, the glories of Miss Great Britain.

 

As the crowds moved on, the landmarks which made Morecambe were either demolished – like the pool – or claimed by the elements. The hungriest by far was fire: the Central Pier suffered two blazes in its lifetime before being dismantled in 1992; the Alhambra Theatre was gutted in 1970; even the Victorian schooner which starred as the Pequod in ‘Moby Dick’ before being retired to Morecambe, went up in smoke. Frontierland fairground staggered on as far as 2000; the site is now a retail park. As local historian and councillor Evelyn Archer says with brio, “Morecambe’s had it rough”, and it sounds as though the town’s arm just fell in a wrestling contest.

So what can you do in Morecambe, now that its gilt has all but worn off? If you had a mind to send a postcard home, how would you fill it? You can truant in the arcades and browse old-fashioned pranks – hot sweets and exploding cigarettes – in Mr Santa, if you can withstand the glare from the man behind the counter. You can buy a five-sausage bap for £2 in the West End and count how many Staffordshire Bull Terriers go by in the time it takes to eat it.

You can insinuate yourself into the thick of a Mod rally at The Ranch House, hit the bingo hall or sing Meatloaf at a karaoke night. I got a taste of paradise, I’m never gonna let it slip away. The cemetary should not be missed. And don’t overlook the potential inherent in the great stretch of promenade: you can walk, cycle or run for miles and miles – until you’re in another place entirely.

Morecambe waits…

Liz Corlett, Writer.

Words by Liz Corlett

If ever there was a town which looks for silver linings, it’s Morecambe. And just occasionally, that delicate gleam is not the promise merely of more rain. On my first stay in Morecambe, I’ve only been in town for half an hour when Ian Pashley, who works at The Midland Hotel, tells me how the West Pier was swept away in storms in 1977. It wasn’t all bad, he says: unfettered one-armed bandits disgorged money all over the beach, to the delight of hordes of salvagers in short trousers.

Time and fortune have not been so bountiful to Morecambe as a whole. It’s commonly defined by what it used to be, what it lost and can never recover. In less than half a century, the town has been demoted from a seaside Shangri-La for hundreds of thousands of holidaymakers to a magnet only for faint distaste and amusement. You’re going to Morecambe? people say. But why? Curiosity. A certain perverse pleasure in the downbeat, even the seedy. And lastly, politeness – it’s just not the done thing to judge a book by its cover.

Morecambe’s sea front is actually not unlike a book. East Promenade, with its flowerbeds and chin-up guest houses, is the front cover; turn over to West Promenade and another tale is told in charity shops and boarded-up windows. And the spine? The lovely Midland, which has borne the freight of Morecambe’s hopes for regeneration since reopening in 2008. Its Deco curvature – swelling out towards the bay, embracing the town – is as eloquent a vow of resistance as you’re likely to find.

Revisiting the town with Phil, we’re told by a man in the Joiners Arms that “Morecambe is dead, man. Oh, it’s dead”. I’m not convinced, not least because the vivacity (or otherwise) of a place is sometimes in the mind of the beholder. It’s fairer to say that Morecambe’s tide simply went a very long way out, for this at least admits of the possibility that it could be due to flow back in – any day now.

Words and images copyright Liz Corlett and Phil Kneen, respectively.

Bonzo

My new Epson V750 scanner arrived yesterday. The first thing I did was take to the negative carrier with a hacksaw and a file. These carriers are never quite big enough to scan full frame, so a bit of DIY is always required. This image of Bonzo was shot on a Mamiya 7II with 150mm lens using Kodak Tri-X rated at 800 ASA.