Douglas Corrance Photographer

27/07/2024

I was pleased to see my photograph of Madame Doubtfire being the first picture on show when you enter the National Galleries of Scotland: Portrait. This picture was featured in the BBC One Show in connection with the West End musical 'Mrs Doubtfire'

16/06/2024

A REAL LIVE MERMAID at Leamington Lift Bridge during the Edinburgh Canal Festival yesterday.

04/06/2024

It has been eight years since I last saw Richard Hawley live in concert, now with a great enlarged band, although here only showing an acoustic encore with the core members. Also the Usher Hall made for a brilliant gig last night, but Richard Hawley deliberately wound up the audience with reference to the previous night's concert at Glasgow's Barrowland, knowing of the cities' rivalry.

01/06/2024

A fiddling busker in front of Trump Tower, 5th Avenue, New York. I shot this in the late 1980s. Not realising that it was to become a prophetic picture.

03/05/2024

The Inverness band The Joshua Hotel played a stunning gig at Wide Days 2024 showcases at La Belle Angele, Edinburgh on Wednesday night. From left to right: Joshua Mackenzie, Joshua Gilbert and Louis Slorach. Music venues like this one are crucial to the future of live music. Pictures by Douglas Corrance.

29/03/2024

This was a tiny newspaper kiosk close to Glasgow's Queen Street Station on Dundas Street in the late 1970s. Most of us had after school jobs, mine's was delivering groceries in all weathers, by bike up and down hills around Inverness. I would have been much happier in the comfort of this kiosk.

03/03/2024

After the success of the Café Royal Books exhibition at Stills gallery in Edinburgh, the show has moved on to the Photographers' Gallery in London. This is a great accolade for Craig Atkinson and for the work of all of the photographers he is highlighting in these 600 books. I am glad to see that my 'Glasgow Wean' picture is featured on this wall. The show continues until June alongside an overdue retrospective exhibition of one of my favourite photographers, Bert Hardy.

Café Royal Books at the Photographers Gallery, till June

31/01/2024

The brilliant and influencial photographer, Brian Griffin passed in his sleep on the 29th January. I first met him in the 1980s while he was giving a presentation in Edinburgh when he pulled open a large curtain to reveal Elvis Costello's band The Attractions, who played for the rest of that day's event.

I took this shot just outside Street Level Photoworks where Brian had his 'POP' exhibition in 2018. There he spoke about his famous shots of Depeche Mode, Kate Bush and others. My picture shows Michael Prince (centre) who made the documentary film, "The Surreal Lives of Brian Griffin," here surrounded by his colleagues and including Brian himself striking a pose (second on the left).

22/01/2024

Ross Fountain in West Princes Street Gardens was refurbished and painted in a more sympathetic way as it would have looked originally. Seeing it covered in ice, the other day, it took on a completely new look to the delight of visitors and locals.

The Café Royal Books exhibition at Stills continues until 10 February (Tues-Sat). Four zines of my work have been included - if you haven't already seen it, don't miss out.

12/12/2023

Landseer's 'Monarch of the Glen' beautifully displayed at the new Scottish Gallery at the National Gallery in Edinburgh.
Go see it and enjoy the whole picture over the holiday season.
Happy Yuletide
From Doug.

24/11/2023

It was so good to have such a great turn out on a cold night for myself and Craig Atkinson's talk/presentations. Thanks again to Stills and Café Royal Books and to everyone who came along.

22/11/2023

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2023/nov/22/glasgow-new-york-ice-cream-douglas-corrance-best-photograph
Here is a link to a Guardian article on my work. Hope you get the chance to see the Café Royal Books exhibition running at Stills gallery in Cockburn Street until February.

‘It was the 1980s and the city had a New York feeling. I enjoyed the orderliness of this queue – then this dog came haring past with its tongue hanging out, as if it wanted an ice-cream, too’

11/11/2023

I'm delighted that Café Royal Books and Stills are giving me this opportunity.

10/11/2023

Thank you to Craig Atkinson of Café Royal Books and Ben Harman of Stills for the great preview of a great show. I'm fortunate enough to have 4 photozines and 3 prints on display.
Whatever you do between now and 10th February make sure you get to see this fascinating show at Stills Gallery, 23 Cockburn Street, Edinburgh.

08/11/2023

This should be a very interesting exhibition, I hope you can make it. At Stills Gallery, 23 Cockburn Street, Edinburgh.
Exhibition runs from November 10th 2023 - February 10th 2024.
Article courtesy of Edinburgh Life magazine.

06/10/2023

26/09/2023

I'm looking forward to the launch of the Café Royal Books exhibition at Stills Gallery, Edinburgh on the 9th November. Craig Atkinson has published 4 titles of my work (Glasgow, Scotland, New York and soon to be published Edinburgh). I'm delight to see him use my picture here.

🌟Upcoming Exhibition🌟 CAFÉ ROYAL BOOKS 10 November 2023 – 10 February 2024 Preview 9 November, 6-8pm Stills Gallery Edinburgh

We are delighted to announce CAFÉ ROYAL BOOKS, an exhibition celebrating the work of Café Royal Books (), an independent publisher dedicated to post-war photography from Britain and Ireland with a particular interest in unseen or overlooked work. Since 2012, they have been producing weekly publications in an accessible and affordable zine format. Now spanning more than 600 issues, they have built-up a large, unique printed archive of documentary photography with historical significance.

We will offer visitors the chance to browse the first 600 issues of Café Royal Books, offering an extraordinary range of subjects and pictures that include work by well-known photographers such as Chris Killip, Daniel Meadows, Shirley Baker and Martin Parr as well as many others. Included are publications on photographers based in Scotland such as Douglas Corrance, Sophie Gerrard, Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert and David Williams. The series also includes issues on photographers that have been the subject of past exhibitions at Stills including: Jo Spence, J***y Pitts and Markéta Luskačová. The zines on display are accompanied by printed posters on the gallery walls to highlight a variety of the pictures featured within them.

At the end of the exhibition, all 600 publications will be added to the Stills reference library where they will continue to be available for public access. A printed exhibition catalogue and a selection of Café Royal Books with connections to Scotland are available from the Stills gallery shop.

Café Royal Books was founded by Craig Atkinson in Southport in 2005. The publications he has produced have a broad appeal for their photographic, social and historic interest. Amongst those that collect Café Royal Books are universities and collections including MoMA, New York, TATE and V&A, London. The exhibition, Café Royal Books: Documentary, Zines and Subversion, was held at the Martin Parr Foundation, Bristol in 2022.

Image: 'Bubble Boy' from Glasgow 1970s – 1980s © Douglas Corrance

29/08/2023

Surely this is how football should be: Dunfermline supporters in the early 1980s, a far cry from the histrionics we see today from players and fans, which add nothing to the game.
Peace, Love and Understanding, Doug

22/08/2023

Almost thirty years ago I spent a fascinating month in Sri Lanka, a true paradise on Earth, in spite of the civil war that raged while I was there. I took this of a father and child who lived on the beach at Unawatuna. When I look at this now I can't help but think of the 2004 Tsunami and the impact it must have had on their lives. The civil war may be over although the island continues to have serious economic problems.
Peace, Love and Understanding, Doug

02/08/2023

While working through 60 years of archived images I'm coming across photographs that still resonate with me. This one was taken in the Scottish Borders in the 1970s. The topiary was obviously practical in terms of access on the farm but it also creates a pleasing composition.

21/07/2023

I shot this one outside Edinburgh's 'Modern 2' gallery recently. Most street scenes these days would have to include people using their mobile devices, here it became the subject of the picture. Many thanks to those who left comments on my 5 minute bio film and my appearance on the article about Madame Doubtfire on BBC's One Show.
Peace, Love and Understanding, Doug

27/06/2023

It has been a while since I've shared on Facebook as I've had some technical issues lately, but now that's OK. I thought being on the BBC's One Show was worth relating (link to the show below). It contained a feature on Edinburgh icon Madame Doubtfire (Annabella Coutts, who ran a secondhand shop in Stockbridge) became the inspiration for novelist Anne Fine's book Madame Doubtfire which inspired the Robin Williams movie Mrs Doubtfire which has now inspired the new West End musical in London's Shaftesbury Theatre. The star of this show Gabriel Vick interviewed me about Annabella on the steps of her shop. I had a fun afternoon being entertained by Gabriel's great wit and mimicry. Go straight to the clip between 19.00sec - 23.30sec which is available for another 17 days.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001mx45/the-one-show-14062023

23/05/2022

I'm very pleased to see three pictures of mine (in the top right corner) - two Glasgow kids and a Halloween party in Greenwich Village, NYC as part of an exhibition of Cafe Royal Books at the Martin Parr Foundation in Bristol.

29/03/2022

Having had a rest from Facebook, I now would like to share the news of an upcoming exhibition at the Martin Parr foundation in Bristol, where I will be one of the photographers representing Cafe Royal Books with three of my pictures (Bubble Boy shot in the late 1970s, shown below). Peace, Love and Understanding, Doug

02/08/2021

Salvador Dalí’s 'Christ of St John of the Cross' in Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum in Glasgow. The painting was bought by the city for eight thousand and two hundred pounds in 1952. The price was considered a lot at the time, but currently is thought to be valued at around sixty million pounds.

26/07/2021

Two boys in a boat in a safe harbour, with a fishing rod and a tin of bait – paradise when you are ten years old and on holiday. St Abbs still reminds me of my own childhood holidays in Arran and Ullapool, where freedom and independence were the norm. We tend to romanticise some of these times and carefully forget about the sand in the sandwiches, 
rainy days stuck inside with boring board games and calomine lotion to put on our sunburn. 
We didn’t know about factor 25.

19/07/2021

Yesterday, I was given a six-page feature in the Sunday Times magazine. For those who aren’t subscribed to the on-line magazine, I have attached the text and some snaps of the spreads.

Over his six-decade career the Scottish photographer Douglas Corrance has visited New York City numerous times, often on assignment for travel guidebooks, and has watched it gentrify. “When I first visited in the 1970s, there was still a bohemian ‘artists in lofts’ scene in places like Soho and Greenwich Village, but as the real estate companies got wise, the artists moved elsewhere and the Yuppies moved in,” he recalls.
He captured his most memorable images in the late 1970s and 1980s, putting everyday New Yorkers centre stage. Despite being brusque, many were happy to pose. “I’m a natural-born flanêur and the public spaces and parks of New York are perfect for a people-watcher like me. The NYPD were very accommodating.”
Yoko Ono even sent him a John Lennon drawing to thank him for photographing the popular Strawberry Fields in Central Park. But his experiences were not always so enjoyable. “Much as I love New York, I certainly don’t look at it through rose-coloured spectacles,” he says. “I have experienced its grittier realities and I survived a mugging, although a camera wasn’t quite so lucky.” Nothing could put him off his love of the city. “It’s like that Stevie Wonder lyric: ‘Wow, New York, just like I pictured it. Skyscapers and everything.’”

12/07/2021

Having to be at a certain place by a certain time and not yet knowing my way around New York I decide to grab a yellow cab. I bundled myself inside with my gear, stated my destination, only for the driver to announce, “You’re already here sir, it’s just across the road.”

A six-page feature, based on my new photozine for Café Royal Books, will be in The Sunday Times magazine next Sunday (18.07.21).

https://www.caferoyalbooks.com/international/douglas-corrance-new-york-1980s

Thank you Craig and Russ.

08/07/2021

Out today a new photozine of my work on New York in the 1970s and 1980s. Published and edited by Craig Atkinson of Café Royal Books. Many thanks yet again Craig.

05/07/2021

From the age of twelve, after school and all day Saturday, I was the message boy for the local grocer. The bike had no gears, and pushing it up the Inverness braes was a real challenge. Seeing this butcher’s boy in Golspie on a similar bike in the mid-1970s transports me back to that time. This job helped me save to buy my first scooter on my 16th birthday.