GUEST PHOTOGRAPHER MURRAY CAMMICK shows off his flash cars

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GUEST PHOTOGRAPHER MURRAY CAMMICK shows off his flash cars

Elsewhere writes: Murray Cammick is best known in New Zealand for his longtime editorship of the legendary rock magazine Rip It Up -- yes, legendary, a word we only ever use sparingly in these pages --  which he founded in '77 with Alastair Dougal.

He was also behind the Cha Cha fashion magazine, the pop magzine Shake and founded his own Southside and Wildside record labels (Upper Hutt Posse, Moana and the Moahunters and others on the former, Rumblefish, HLAH, Shihad, Hallelujah Picassos and others on the later).

He has done numerous radios shows on a number of stations, is a soul music fanatic and expert (and a DJ in the genre), was involved early on as a founding editor of the New Zealand music archive-cum-website www.audioculture.co.nz  and . . . .

So much more.

What many don't know however is that Cammick -- renown as a rock photographer -- also shot Auckland streetlife in the Seventies and early Eighties, and had a passion for the gleaming cars which would roam up and down the central city streets gleaming under the neon.

As a 20-year old he was out on the street with his camera capturing a period which was rapidly receeding. 

In August there is an exhibiton of some of Cammick's streetlife photos in Auckland at Black Asterisk Gallery (see details below) and he has kindly offered Elsewhere four shots unused for publicity in other places.

Our pleasure to introduce Murray Cammick's Flash Cars exhibition to you here . . .

1963 Ford Fairlane Compact and Ford Anglia at the Civic Theatre, 1976

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Of this photo Murray says, "Keri Pratt was one of several transvestite or transgender youths who walked from Customs St to Mojo's opposite Aotea Centre Friday and Saturday nights. They would strike fashion model poses for me and treat me as their David Bailey. I did cross the street sometimes to avoid them as they tended to create a bit of a scene."

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Two Chevrolets, 1976

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Steve Bliss (left) and friends, 1974. In August 1983, Bliss who was on a visit back home from Sydney, was stabbed nine times in the stomach at a party in Kingsland. Bliss died aged 28.

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