“I have been carefully restoring my Rock Photographs and you have seen many posted here on my page. Snap Galleries has just announced my first Exhibition in 33 years. It runs from March 15th to April 26th at their Gallery in the Piccadilly Arcade. More info to follow…”
So posted one of my favorite photographers of all time, Cardiff’s own Chalkie Davies. I became Facebook friends with Chalkie when he discovered I’d known some members of the Quality Street Gang back in Manchester in the 1970s. Chalkie’s good buddy Phil Lynott (who I knew very slightly) was close to the Quality Street Gang and, indeed, wrote “The Boys Are Back In Town” about them.
Since then I’ve kept an eye out for Davies pictures and knew an enormous amount of them. Davies was also house photographer for Nick Logan’s “The Face” monthly (I interviewed Logan for the East Village Eye back when the hugely influential magazine first started publishing) so I guess I’ve stalked Chalkie without really realizing I did so.
Here is he bio off Snap Galleries:
“After spending four years training to become an Aircraft Engineer at British Airways, Chalkie Davies decided that joining the Rock and Roll Circus was a better way to earn a living than fixing broken Autopilots on Jumbo Jets.
“So in 1973 he quit life at the Airport and became a photographer. He joined the NME as Staff Photographer in 1975 and worked there until 1979, where he shot numerous covers and features, as well as touring with Paul McCartney, Elvis Costello and Thin Lizzy for whom he shot the sleeve of Live and Dangerous. In 1980 he helped start The Face with his old NME Editor Nick Logan shooting all the early covers, and he did the same when Arena was launched a few years later. In 1981 Pete Townshend published a book of his work for the Face and NME called Pointed Portraits.
“Always wanting to be a studio photographer, he gave up touring in 1980 and moved permanently into the studio, specializing in black and white portraiture. He shot dozens of record covers for many artists including The Specials, The Pretenders, The Who, Pete Townshend, Elvis Costello, David Bowie, David Gilmour and Robert Plant.
“In 1988 he decided to switch careers yet again and moved to New York where opened a large Still Life studio, using his background in engineering he merged his passion for both computers and photography by becoming the first large studio in Manhattan to go fully digital in 2001. He claims to get as much enjoyment photographing Yoghurt cartons as he did when shooting rock bands.
“Chalkie produces work for collectors in small limited editions. He commits to making a maximum of just 45 examples of each photograph, across all size options. For some photographs, just 30 examples are available.
Here is hoping that the exhibition makes it to to New York meanwhile here is the link to Snap Galleries and here is a link to an interview with Chalkie from 2012.