Book of Chris Yates Photographs?

[Hamburger]

Yes, please. A book of photographs would be something. Maybe the next Unbound project for the man? He should get enough pledges in no time. As for me, a collection of his best fishing pictures or all the waterlog pictures.

[The Bishop]

2 Chris Yates dust-wrappers from books I found on the shelf,can't for the life of me think where they came from, I have never read Dick Francis,and after trying one this afternoon will be keeping it that way.
Nice to see how The Honourable earned his crust tho

[Carp Artist]

Don't go a lot on those Dick Francis? dust jackets............Best he sticks to photo's of fish.

[Marc]

Good job he caught the Bishop if that's the stamp of his work, they're rubbish.

[Carp Artist]

2 Chris Yates dust-wrappers from books I found on the shelf,can't for the life of me think where they came from, I have never read Dick Francis,and after trying one this afternoon will be keeping it that way.
Nice to see how The Honourable earned his crust tho

Must change my glasses for that last inscription

[The Bishop]

Or I should leave the whisky alone.

[Trevor]

I wonder a) where he got all those tenners from, and b) how did he get the foal to stand on them?

[Marc]

I wonder a) where he got all those tenners from, and b) how did he get the foal to stand on them?

Never wanting to stick to convention, instead of putting money 'on' a horse.... Good old Yates...

[Skeff]

I wonder a) where he got all those tenners from, and b) how did he get the foal to stand on them?

Never wanting to stick to convention, instead of putting money 'on' a horse.... Good old Yates...

You have to remember that the images were all done on (or rather in) his Hasselbad, at a time (70's and 80's) when multiple layered imagery was novel and long before computer aided photo graphics existed.... So cutting edge for the time!

I watched him once create a cover which was a photograph of a rocket bursting out of a galaxy of stars (if I remember rightly?). Anyway, the process involved taking a photograph of a photograph of the Milky Way, rewinding the film, covering part of the lens with a piece of red plastic with an hole cut out of it as a filter, photographing the rocket, rewinding the film, retaking the original Milky way image through a hole in a bit of black paper..... etc, all done in the top drawer of a chest of drawers in his bedroom with only an angle poise lamp and scrupled up tinfoil for a lighting rig.... Simply brilliant!

[Colonelgsc]

Sorry I missed the original posting back in November. The honourable Snape is quite correct and I'm happy to submit the following extract from a piece I penned on the subject of how I became 'The Colonel'. Basically Chris and I were fishing Frensham Little Pond one evening for the resident Rudd.....................

Immediately I read the ‘Mirror Pond’ reference, before spotting the accompanying photo of ‘The Colonel’s rudd’, I knew the very pond Chris meant. Prior to the breeze rising from it’s slumbers and after it roosts at dusk, the water morphs into glass, becoming a place of surreal beauty. The evening, in particular, when the birds have ceased their chatter and the picnicking, frolicking folk of Farnham and further afield have fled, the pond breathes a tranquil sigh, welcoming any angler seeking solace in it’s company. The little pond became my friend; we got on so well, she allowed me to see and touch many of her precious jewels, the ‘blood fin’ rudd.

It was the time of the peanut!! Obviously, as the nut was taming some spectacular carp, more and more were being used; the result was other species took to the taste with some gusto. Surprise of surprises, blood fin too were among the nut lovers. They woofed them up from the bottom, dragging the silver foil to the butt ring in the manner of a contemporary carp run on a bolt rig. By George, did they give a darned good tussle too. Once I’d twigged what my main interest was to be, I’d scaled down my end tackle accordingly and used soft action rods, which made the playing all the more pleasurable. It was during one of these delightful evening sessions that the nutty photographer made a rather strange and uncharacteristic request.

Well known as Chris ‘One More Last Cast’ Yates, I was aghast when, as dusk approached, he muttered, somewhat sheepishly, ‘Can we pack up now? I could do with your help on a project. Got a deadline to meet……….tomorrow!! Blood fin feeding with some vigour, pond at it’s mirrored best and still half a pot of curried peanuts unused. Mmmmmmm? Well, a friend in need an’ all that. Anyone who knows Chris will realise ‘deadline’ is not in his vocabulary…….until the day before the deadline, that is; or even the hour, in some cases. Blood fin will still be there tomorrow and with high pressure in control, the weather was set fair for the week at least. We broke down rods, stuffed tackle in his creaking creel and my old canvas rucsac with the metal frame, making haste to Chris’s old Renault van.

A quick tug, the back door squeaked open and the nutty photographer burrowed into the amorphous mass of debris on the floor of the boot. He emerged, triumphant, clutching a brown paper parcel tied with string. ‘ Quick’, he urged, ‘ the light’s fading fast, take off your shirt and trousers please, then put these on’, mumbling something about ‘perfect sky’ and ‘lovely hue’. ‘He’s finally lost it’, I thought. ‘Did he sustain a blow to the head when he fell off his bike the other morning, whilst freewheeling down to the beach where I was already fishing?’ Nonetheless, I untied the string to reveal the parcel contents. A military khaki coloured officer’s peaked cap dropped onto the sand at my feet. The remainder of the parcel, a first world war officer’s uniform, matching the cap, was neatly folded in the brown paper. ‘Picked ‘em up at the theatrical costumiers in town this lunchtime’, he responded to my crooked eyebrow, ‘need a shot of a WW1 colonel on a hill surveying the battlefield at dusk, for the dust jacket of a book’. I can’t remember which publisher; the years have stolen that memory, I’m afraid, but it would have been one of the big ones certainly.

I acted on his bidding, sensing the situation’s urgency and, as a photographer myself (albeit of the amateur variety), fully aware of the lighting conditions. ‘Can you stand over there, Ray, on that little hillock’? ‘That little hillock’, when I stepped onto it, revealed it’s true identity; a ruddy great pile of manure. Freshly deposited that day, I’d wager, judging by it’s all pervading perfume. ‘Oh well, all in the cause of art’, I said to myself. ‘ I’ll get you at playtime for this, Yatesy, just you wait’.

‘Lean forward slightly and gaze intently across the pond towards the horizon; great’. Click!! ‘Cup your right hand over your eyes; that’s it’. Click!! ‘Left hand on knee; spot on’. Click!! Click!! Click!!‘Drats!! Light’s gone; that’ll have to do. Thanks, Colonel; job well done’. And thus, that very moment, as night washed over us, with me standing in an incongruous fancy dress uniform, balanced on a heap of manure, overlooking ‘Mirror Pond’, the Golden Scale Club acquired a ‘Colonel’.