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

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.