Richard Billingham

One book I've been meaning to buy is Richard Billinghams "Ray's a laugh".  So I jumped on to Amazon and it's available for purchase for £220.  Now there's a thing!  I was in a discussion recently about the future of the book, surely there isn't a future is there?  I mean in this age of the Internet, iPads and iPhones is there any real call for books?  Shouldn't we be saving the trees and exploiting our advances in digital media?

I think "Rays a laugh" might have changed my opinion about the book.  I'm not a massive fan of reading but I do love a good photo book.  In my life I'm pretty sure I've read less than 10 books from beginning to end, I'm pretty sure I can name all of them.

James and the Giant Peach

Danny Champion of the World

The Hobbit

Beowulf

To Kill a Mockingbird

Bob Geldofs Autobiography

Alexei Sayle's Greatest Bus Journeys of the World

Carrie

Bravo 2.0

That might be embarrassing for some but I'm not in the least bit bothered, I find reading such a bore.  But saying that I own a numerous amount of photo books by a variety of photographic artists and there is something about them, something that the Internet can't provide.  Maybe we feel it's a more comprehensive portfolio, it has ISBN No's, Forewards (I don't mind reading them!), Images that reflect and move and no annoying pop-ups whilst looking at the images.

Maybe there is a future and I'm gonna keep an eye open for "Ray's a Laugh".

I was flying my favourite Christmas toy about the living room on Christmas night and decided to take a few images of it.  It's an I-Helicopter, very stable and amazing, I'm a kid again!  I'd normally delete an un-flattering image of Kerry like the one below but for some reason it reminded me of Richard Billingham.

"Richard Billingham - I think this is my favourite image"

"Ray and the Cat"

"Ray and Liz"

"Kerry and the I-Helicopter"