Time Magazine, issue dated 1 January 2000

Ten years ago and the New Year 2000 celebrations in London were being billed as the biggest ever fireworks display. Thousands of people were  expected along the embankments of the River Thames from where the display would take place.

Ten years ago the New Year 2000 celebrations in London were being billed as the biggest ever fireworks display. Thousands of people were  expected along the embankments of the River Thames from where the display would take place.

New Year firework display over the RIver Thames, London

Having already scouted along the Thames looking for a vantage point to photograph the “River of Fire”, I was offered an assignment from Time magazine. Now I could forget about standing around in the cold for hours,  Time had had a room with a view!  The Picture Editor secured a position in Brettenham House, Time’s London office building.  From a balcony on the seventh floor where the style magazine Wallpaper was produced we found a view looking over Waterloo Bridge. Here where the River bends around on itself we could see from from St Paul’s in the east to Westminster in the west. A few days before I prepared by shooting a few frames to get an idea of the scene and work out which lenses would be needed on the night.

On Hogmanay I had the luxury of being able to wait in the warmth of the office. More than two and a half million people had come into central London so moving around was going to be difficult. Occasional expeditions through the mass of people were made to photograph the big party – much of it happening underneath Waterloo bridge – and the throngs of people from my vantage on the balcony.

Party, cos it's 1999. Shot on film, so last century...

My agent at the time, Sygma, had arranged – at no doubt great expense – for a lab to remain open all night to process my and their other photographers’ films. A couple of rolls of the partying under the bridge were sent off early so they could be  scanned and transmitted to awaiting newspapers

As the bells tolled in the New Year I started photographing the firework display. I set up two cameras on tripods and shot four rolls of film – around 140 pictures in 15 minutes. But it was the sixth frame on the first film everyone was raving about when I eventually returned to the Sygma office, tramping across town on a carpet of broken champagne bottles.

Double page spreads from Time, "Birth of a Century" (1 Jan) and Hello!, "London lights up..." (18 Jan 2000)

That picture was used as a “double truck”, a double page spread, in Time and also appeared as a double page in Hello! and was used by the Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers. Other photographs from the night were used in The Observer.

The Sunday Times, 31 December 2000, things would only get worst...

A year later and the Sunday Times seemed to think it had all gone wrong. “It should have been a time of hope an renewal…” reads the headline going on to list a year of “farce and disaster” from the Concorde crash to child murder, from floods to the fuel shortages as reported on 11 September .

How could 2001 be any worst?

Isle of Lewis and Muirneag ferries at Stornoway

Typical of our times it is an amateur columnist who breaks the news that there will be a Sunday ferry to Stornoway. The MV Isle of Lewis will no longer sit at rest quietly with the rest of the Isle of Lewis. CalMac, in the wisdom of their counsel, have decided that to deny non-believers the right to travel is inequitable. The ferry is available for Muslims to travel (or not if they don’t want to) on Fridays, for Jews on Saturdays but atheists don’t have the choice not to travel on Sunday even if they don’t want to. The Lord’s Day Observance Society reacted in an expected way suggesting this might be a bad idea and that they wouldn’t “lie down and take this”. At least that’s what I thought they said – but maybe they didn’t as all reference to that ironic quote has been expurgated from the interweb. Perhaps it was wishful thinking on my part, hoping someone would point out lying down was exactly what was expected. It was after all the method of protest undertaken by the ‘Ferry Reverend’ Angus Smith when the first boat sailed to the Isle of Skye on a Christian Sabbath day in the 1960s.

Its easy to make fun of fundamentalists but many people have sympathy with their fear for the loss of a genuine day of rest. While these days it is possible to obtain a curry and a pint of lager on a Sunday you still can’t buy a loaf of bread, a pint of milk or a Sunday Post until Monday.

From the series ‘Unfinished Triptychs’, Stornoway, Sunday 10 September 1978 and 2006.

But the romantics for another age have probably been away for thirty years and forgotten the endless, monotonous day with nothing to do unless you wanted to be told what a miserable sinner you are and how soon you’ll be in a different hell. Or perhaps they haven’t fully thought through why there are so many abandoned crofts and croft houses in Lewis, why the population is declining, why all the clever kids leave and aren’t coming ‘home’.

Deck 6, Isle of Lewis ferry to Stornoway

While the joyless Wee Frees think non-Christians are heading for hell, for many any day of the week on board the Isle of Lewis ferry is hell. I usually spend the endless hours on deck taking endless photos of Deck 6. Its become a habit started in the vain idea that I might be able to recreate an earlier image (taken on board the Suilven), only better. I now realise the error of my way, but its too late and I’m doing nobody any harm. Maybe if I hadn’t gone to see the Poseidon Adventure in the Stornoway Playhouse all those years ago I’d be down below with all the other passengers scoffing macaroni cheese for tea. Anyway, I enjoy the change from working as a professional photographer on assignment to being able to take pictures with no pressure and in any style I fancy. Which, of course, means while I believe the photos are interesting and exciting others might say they’re an example of how not to photograph.

Chips or potatoes with your macaroni, a’ghraidh?

Tony Blair waits to speak to Labour Party members in his local constituency of Sedgefield on the eve of the General Election.

Doesn’t time fly when you’re enjoying yourself. Or not, if your New Labour D:Ream didn’t work out exactly the way you had hoped.

The night before the 1997 General Election I photographed Tony Blair at his local Labour Party club in Sedgefield in the north of England. The slogan, “Britain Deserves Better” may have changed in its meaning by the time his premiership came to an end.

Thursday the First began back in London with an assignment for Time magazine to photograph a silversmith at the Crown Jewellers, Garrard and Co. Not, by the way, at their swanky Mayfair mansion, but in an anonymous Southwark shed so well hidden even the cab driver had trouble finding it. Garrards were rebuilding the America’s Cup which is something to do with yachting and, as I don’t do sport, all I knew was it had been vandalised and needed repair.

A silversmith works on rebuilding yachting trophy the Americas Cup at Crown Jewellers Garrard and Co.

Much later in the day it was off to the Festival Hall on London’s South Bank to find a position outside what the world plus dog expected to be the Labour Party’s victory party. It was a long night being tortured by the repetitive playing of the “things can only get better” theme. Blair appeared and said something about the new dawn being broken. I may have misremembered that, I was trying to take photographs, it was late and early at the same time.

By nine, cross the river to Number Ten Downing Street, it’s the next day now and nobody’s been to bed. I positioned my self directly opposite the door to Number 10, two other photographers also on assignment for Time were amongst the mass of Her Majesty’s Press.

At some point – film didn’t record the exact time of exposure in ye olde days – Tony Blair appeared at the end of the street, walked up shaking everyone’s hands (HM Press excepted). He eventually turned and waved before stopping on the steps of Number 10 for the tradition Prime Minister photo op.

Tony Blair in Downing Street about to enter Number 10 for the first time as Prime Minister after leading the Labour Party to a landslide General Election victory ending eighteen years of Conservative rule.

How many photographers does it take to get a cover for Time magazine?

It certainly wasn’t my idea. Allen Murabayashi put me up to it. He’s the clever punter who runs PhotoShelter. Being as PhotoShelter still runs while Digital Railroad doesn’t: he’s worth paying attention to.

David Gordon Archive at PhotoShelter

Have I lost you already? PhotoShelter is where professional photographers store their photo libraries, upload their images for safekeeping and clients to download. Need a picture of Glasgow, Alex Salmond or Stornoway by night?, I have PhotoShelter look after them for you to view (and buy!). Feel free to click over to my photo archive pages and see for yourself.

Anyway, Allen says I have to have a blog, but nobody has to read it.

So don’t expect anything interesting, dear imaginary reader. On the other hand, you never know what sort of interesting uninteresting articles will appear here. So stand by and add this photojournal to your RSS reader.