hounddog49

I remember back when that was the 192 Club for technical and non-teaching staff and members only, students and lecturers needed to be signed in by a member. It was a great place back then, about the only one in the area where you could be sure of a quiet drink after work. Then the University decided it could make some money out of it so they took it away from us and turned it into a crap pub.

I'm looking for information about Mordex who were fishing tackle makers in Sheffield from the mid-50s to the mid- 80s. Mordex appears to have started out as a Mordex Precision Industries, a general engineering firm, in the mid 50's before going into making centrepin reels then branching out into general tackle including rods of all sorts: hollow cane with split top joints, all split cane float rods (the Popular and the De Luxe), solid fibre glass pike and spinning rods; hollow glass match rods with metal ferrules (like the Allcock's 'Billy Lane'), tubular steel rods very similar to the Taperflash by Accles and Pollock (they may have bought up the last of A&P's stock when they decided to stop making the rods and then rebadged them as their own) and finally spigot glass rods. They also put out such things as shot and hook lengths. It's possible that the reels, which were 'budget' versions of things like the Aerial (Merlin) and Grice & Young reels and whose names all began with 'M', were the only thing Mordex actually made themselves. They were notable for their distinctive decal badges. All the rest of the stuff they put out was rebadged, although they may have just got the blanks in for rods (I believe they used some from Sportex also based in Sheffield) and finished them off themselves. As you might expect Mordex tackle turns up regularly at Sheffield auctions, car boots and junk shops. Back in the early 60s Sheffield Anglers' Society had 40,000 members, almost as many as Birmingham, so they weren't short of customers. Later they used the logo Royle Seal, with a transfer picture of a black seal on a rock. They might have tried to use 'Royal Seal 'initially but would not have been allowed to register it as a trademark (as it would imply Royal Approval). The logo also incorporated a motto 'Flectes non frangas' which was a pun on a Latin motto Frangas non flectes often taken to apply to the law and meaning (more or less) 'I can be broken but not bent' whereas the reversal on Mordex rods means, of course, that the rods would bend but not break. Looking at business directories and the like it seems that Mordex started out in the early 50s, at a site on Petre St in Attercliffe now occupied by the English Pewter Company then moved in the lat 50s to share premises with Hill Brothers in the W W Laycock Silversmiths Works near Sheffield Station, here's what it looked like 12 years ago before partial demolition and transformation into student housing https://www.google.com/maps/@53.3758637 ... 312!8i6656 and here's what a bunch of 'urban explorers' found before then https://www.28dayslater.co.uk/threads/w ... 014.90272/. In 1968 they were on Andrew Street off the Wicker then subsequently on Snow Lane which runs from Scotland St down to Shalesmoor and area with a lot of light engineering works. Finally in 1985 they're in a building named 'Seal House' on Andrew Street which ran parallel to Stanley Lane down to Johnson St just off the Wicker which was and still is home to a lot of small scale back street engineering enterprises, they appear to have gone out of business in the mid 80s (a lot of companies did) and Andrew Street was subsequently demolished as part of the Derek Dooley Way development. I'm interested in anything anyone knows or remembers about Mordex, in particular about whose company it was and who worked there. If in doubt ask your Dad.

The Sheffield Canal by the Bernard Road Incinerator Plant has some good pike, the Don near East Coast Road Bridge has a reputation.

Are you sure about the second date? That's a Saturday and the Tesco boots are usually on Sunday.

Probably waiting for the result of the umpires' inspection.

Glad to see so many as me have a bad opinion of the Abbeydale Picture House sales. I arrived there the first day at the supposed opening time to find it already full. But there was nothing interesting on the stalls. When I asked one of the stakeholders why she said that when they arrived at 9.30 to set up, the organisers and their pals were all there to snap up anything interesting and anyone who refused to deal with them was told they had to or they wouldn't be allowed on site again. So these people had the best of the stuff, at knockdown prices, then they still charged pitch fees and then they charged people to come in and look at crap pitches. It's just about the greed of these people from the 'Antiques Quarter'. Avoid it and they might learn a lesson.

I think one of the things may be that Wertheimer actually invented some of the cliches, in the same way that Elvis invented many of the cliches of the white rocker but for them then they were original not cliches. For Corbijn they are cliches. You may not need to see the whole of AW's work to venture an opinion on him but it would help if you were more familiar than you evidently are. And so some of his and some of Corbijn's stuff use similar compositions? So what?

Thanks for this. Looks good.

We probably need to separate this into two separate threads, how to take live music photos and the merits or otherwise of Corbijn, Wertheimer, Wilmer etc.

A good example of why not to rely solely on Google. They are in the main dull because they're photographs mainly of dull pop musicians. It's her photos of blues and jazz musicians (many of whom were not at all famous) you need to look at. I'm surprised you don't know them. Though the one of Dusty in the NPG is pretty good too.

PS I forgot to add that agree wholeheartedly that composition is the key to any successful image and that's what you need to work on first and foremost. And going out and doing it is the only way you're ever going to get better. Plus working on the images afterwards and figuring out how they could have been done better. Also to recommend another aged fuddy-duddy: Val Wilmer.

Errr, I know that Corbijn rarely did concert photography but I was using him as an example of a style of photography that I think is best avoided. It may be recognisable but it is also boring, banal, pretentious and pompous (no wonder he found his ideal subjects in U2). Additionally, what I was suggesting was not that the original poster copy other people's styles (though some might find that a useful way to start) but that he/she should look at pictures they find they like and analyse what makes them work as images. What other way is there to develop your style? I'm tempted to agree about modern rock but surely it's possible to take interesting shots of even the most dispiriting of contemporary acts. The problem is, as I also noted, that rock photography itself has become cliched through relying on a small range of visual tropes. A recent anniversary reminds me that one of the best exemplars of how to do this type of photography, even after 50 years, is Al Wertheimer's photos of Elvis in 56 and 57. Even now the power of these images remains undimmed, even enhanced by the passage of time. Undoubtedly the quality of these derived in part from AW's feel for the pure excitement that Elvis brought with him when he first emerged from Sun Studios but they're also a very good example of how to apply technique which comes long before style on the road to success.

A friend of mine wants some prints from digital for framing (c 8x10). She's tried Jacob's but was unhappy about the service and quality. Any recommendations for either an online service or a local shop?

Not a member myself but, having looked at their stuff and been to a couple of events/exhibitions, they strike me as rather the traditional sort of 'Camera Club' set-up which you might find a bit conventional. Shooting live music performances is, in principle, no different from any mainly low light and high contrast subject where you can't reliably use flash: fast films (or high ISO settings), push processing (or underexpose a stop or two with digital and boost through post processing) etc etc. Aesthetically however it's a different area, start with looking at the work of photographers you like and think about what it is about any specific picture that makes you think it's a good picture. It's also an area of work that can be incredibly cliched and unoriginal and, a personal plea here, the world does definitely NOT need another Anton Corbijn.

That's OK, I'm used to having a numb mind. I'm a civil servant.