Spencer Tunick at The Lowry, June 2010 © William Ellis

You may have seen an earlier post about meeting Spencer Tunick last year – he was in Manchester quietely doing a recce for the shoot. The Lowry had commissioned him to create the work to mark the 10th Anniversary of the superb arts venue – an excellent idea which has worked brilliantly for them in every respect and given the gallery a compelling body of work.

At the opening I was struck by the relaxed yet very purposeful feel to the images and how Tunick had captured the spirit of Lowry’s paintings of the people of Salford walking in another age. Exhibition

Congratulations to Clark Terry on his recent award recognising his great contribution to the culture. These photographs were taken at the IAJE International Conference in January 2004, so sorry I don’t know who the lady is but I do know who is sitting behind her – is that Maria Callas too, Nancy Wilson’s throne awaits.

I don’t normally use flash but on these two occasions it was needed, won’t tell what I was called at the side of the stage – it was a blinding flash.

I met Ed Thigpen backstage a few minutes before he was due to play with Benny Green and Russell Malone at the IAJE International Conference. The atmosphere was very relaxed so I asked him if he had a little time to spare so that I could photograph him, he smiled so I asked him to step over towards the stage manager’s lectern which a little shielded light on it bouncing the light up from the papers on it and made this portrait. We met up again at the Hilton in New York in 2006, it was great to see him, he was as busy as ever and chatted for a while about what we’d been up to – projects, gigs and it was such a pleasure to give him a large print of the picture you see here, he was so pleased and so was I.

A wonderful man and a real Master, we’ll all miss him. Bless.

Ran into Spencer Tunick a few weeks ago, I’m sure you’re familiar with his amazing works. He was intrigued by the 24 TS-E lens on my 1DS3 with which I was doing a few pictures at my exhibition, it was alot of fun and unexpected pleasure showing him around.

Spencer (R) and William © Sam Ellis