…for images that is…is…

Hiyah. How’s you? Good, I hope. Welcome back to another scurrilous missive from the sbh.

Phew…well after last week’s mammoth posting this one may be a little scant, but like the weekend before payday, that’s usually always the case, it’s always smalls fun...Just as a reminder that these blogs have no real structure it’s just how they tumble out of one’s brain at the time when I get to commit them to a word document…

As another week rolls by, thought I’d talk about the club I get the most requests for images from, and that is…

Sankeys !

Sankeys Soap to give it its Sunday name, this was a club that ran from the 90’s to early 10’s with a few other iterations after and between. So this week I got another request for Sankeys images rolls in. It seems that I have the only archive of this place in existence, like the Hacienda it’s an emotive place, it splits people straight down the middle, saw one comment on the m.e.n about how it was a place for lowlifes, (as opposed to high lifes?) Yet another comment was from one who purported to work on the door team and it said similar disparaging things, so you get the vibes from the comment sections of society.

I’ve been asked about pictures from her so many times, I always say the same things about permissions, it’s too close to recent history and I need to check with absolute assurances about what use they are looking for, as I know some of the people in these images wouldn’t like to be associated…

Plus what happens if one of my easily identifiable pictures is used by someone pointing the finger at drug culture, rave culture, class-based shenanigans or the such like, and they infer that my picture is purporting to show exactly that?

Mooyder that’s what…

Must say that the request this year have been a little varied they range from a channel 4 production to one (but most of the) red tops to the BBC to a woman’s weekly to a niche Japanese webpage but they still seemingly all wanting the same thing. Pacifically one wanted one from the 90’s (where unfortunate the archive is a little thin) one wanted only negative aspects, one wanted grimey…etc etc etc. This usage conundrum played out in a recent discussion with someone (who primary wants were for me to give up my archive for dollar) they stated that they would quality control them so nothing embarrassing came out, that is until we discussed what the word embarrassment meant, it got a little confused. Then I used the job role argument, as the particular picture I was thinking of would circumnavigate their controls yet still cause huge embarrassment to that person due to the field they work in, silence ensued.

You see in my archive of clubs from the 90’s to the 20’s I have teachers, nurses, councillors, public servants, MPs etc amongst so many others types. I only occasionally bump into people so haven’t had chance to check if they want their picture using in these articles, once it’s out there, it’s there.

(Thinking this would be a great one for further discussion in my (proposed) roundtable discussion…what do you think?)

That’s the price of putting stuff online it’s a huge one, even the ‘great’ MixMag nicked my pictures so many times, never wanted to use northern photographers but quite happy to nick their work when they see it. You all said I wasn’t good enough at the time so why try and use my pictures now? Surely, they’d still not be good enough?

Anyways I remember Sankeys fondly especially what seemed it’s chaotic nature of it..(ketman and mad mike anyone?) It was the experience of it all, difficult to sum up up and everyones memories are slightly different depending on many factors… (funny in thinking back, think I’m still owed £50 for work done)… it was at times quite rough and ready, but that gave it an edge, something that seems to be missing now I think?

It’s not one that would not survive today too loud, too noisy, too much(?) but think Sankeys was the ‘generation after the Hač™’ club de jure.

Lets Embrace the roughness and the problems and love in.

Here’s a couple of pictures from that era, enjoy…