Ray's a laugh, well thank god someone is!

A month or so ago I got an email from Redeye informing me that Richard Billingham was giving a talk at the Manchester Art Gallery, "Fuckin Brilliant", I thought.

I've mentioned Billingham before in posts. His publication, "Ray's a Laugh", in my opinion, and quite a few others, is one of the greatest documentary portfolios of the modern 20th century. I have a tatty copy and I'm very proud of it.

I didn't know what to expect really. For some unknown reason I thought he was Scottish and I was expecting a down to earth sweary character with lots of tattoos. I wasn't expecting a Brummie! I went to see 'The Cure' in the early nineties. I loved the very popular songs, "Boys don't cry", "A Forest", "Lovecats" etc. but they didn't play any of those songs. All they played was dirge from a new album coupled together with obscure B sides. Who want's to hear that shit? "Play summat we know!", I wanted to shout. I was hoping Billingham wasn't going to do the same and brush over "Ray's a laugh", and much to my relief he didn't.

He started by showing a whole load of images of Ray and quite a few yet unpublished. They show love and pain, they unashamedly show an ordinary working class family living life with working class issues without being devoid of smiles. His used the cheapest film he could get his hands on at the time in a variety of cheap cameras and the images are brilliant, in both colour and subject.

After "Ray's a laugh" Billingham tried his hand at landscapes and animals. What an anti-climax! Brummies don't have the most exciting accents, but when you're coupling the accent up with dull images in a darkened room then this becomes a proper recipe for tedium. He then ended the talk by saying in his melancholic tone, "I haven't taken a photo for about 3 years now". Fucking Hell, what's the opposite of inspirational?

It made me think that maybe Billingham isn't the great photographer my mind had built him up to be, right place, right time maybe?