…slides…

31-03-23 – slides…

Hiyah. How’s you? Good, I hope. Welcome back to another scurrilous missive from the sbh, sbhmissive if you will. Thought I’d delve a little further into the archive and have a look at the negative/slide archive which dates from around 95 to 2001, roughly. I think I’ve spoken about the specifics of the negative/slide archive before but think it’s one that will crop up as I return with further thoughts and interest, especially as I think about it in today’s climate and with today’s morals applied.

These are photographs of slides, a film that provides positive images as opposed to negatives. It was reportedly difficult to use partly as the latitude wasn’t as wide as print film, they were a demanding element to work in but I loved them. Think explaining the concept of slide film in the digital age is a funny one. Not sure where you start and what questions you ask. That is part of the reason why I’ve copied them like this, so as to show them as an entity rather than just an image (aptly Susan Sontag’s On Photography watching over them as I copied them.) These appropriations are the actual ones that went through the camera, much the same as negatives but much less likely to be printed (anyone doing Cibachromes these days?) so here they sit as both witness and as a tangible element of the time.

It might also be worth explaining how this worked for me back then, and by using these images as an example. Firstly I’d get a commission from a magazine to make some images this was usually of an event but sometimes just of a general club or vibe. Then I’d go to said event and make some images, I used to make a lot of images on slide as I liked the way they looked and felt, they had a more polished edge to them. Now if the clubnight was on a Friday I could sometime catch the pro developers if they were open (occasionally) on a Saturday morning, if they weren’t or the clubnight was on a Saturday and they were shot on slide then it’d have to wait till Monday morning to be developed. If the event was shot on print film, I could always use the hight street labs for a quick develop, Boots or Jacobs were my main ones plus it was free street parking on a Sunday. Then. It would be to the post service to get then down to London, no post on a Sunday, needed them guaranteed next day too, think I remember using the Oldham Road main PO as it ran till about 7pm. This would get them there for first thing Tuesday morning.

They would then be scanned, chosen and published anything up to 3 or 4 weeks later depending on deadline, usage, etc etc. The magazine may have held onto them for a couple of months in case they wanted to publish more then they would (possibly) be sent back to me.

As it was a commissioned job, I couldn’t use them anywhere else, anyway it was just as easy to go the next week and get some pictures if anybody wanted any. Did an equivalent pay rate which varied depending on usage, reusage and spreads, oh and it was plus expenses which were usually about a third of the fee so in today’s money I was paid between somewhere between £395 to £753 for each job.

Wow, wonder where that all went!?!?!?

Another thought strikes me when looking at these pictures is their timescales, I could take them on the beginning of the month, the magazine would either be out the week after (possibly the week after that) for a weekly or upto 4 weeks later if it was a monthly magazine and then people would see the images that the editors had chosen. I had no idea which ones were chosen, which I’d taken and/or a whole load of other issues would come up.

Another thought strikes me when looking at these pictures is that how many people saw them, especially the subject, sometimes people would tell you that your picture was in, sometimes not, I’d sometimes be collared and asked why that picture as it made them look…….but by and large people were a lot more accepting of having their image taken, used and disseminated. Oh yes and if you missed a copy of the magazine then it could possibly be gone forever if it had sold out and nobody you knew had one.

I wouldn’t get the slides back for a while, I had no idea what one was used or what other ones were available till maybe 3 months later. A moment much like that argument you had in October and only now months later do you think of the perfect riposte.

Strange concept to think of all of that combined now, yes?

Do you think we looked upon our images differently then?

As with general archives, I do wonder about the re-publication of these images, I know the law is accommodating around this and as we’ve not quite got to the European/USA levels of suing (yet!) There is still a lower instance of applying a moral compass on this, I know mentioning morals is a biggie but think it’s an important question to ask. What do we owe the people in these images? A first private viewing, time to digest its impact, the right to veto, the right to destroy?

I’m not sure.

And when asking that in general I also want to add in an extra layer with club photography, the way it is now is totally different from then as I mentioned. There are a lot of what if’s.

What if you hated the picture then but now not so much. What if you were with someone who you wouldn’t like to be reminded of now. What if you work in an environment where this wouldn’t be acceptable. What if you wouldn’t like any ridicule to arise because of this single image?

Surely that’s an interesting one to hypothesise and academiasise about?

Anyway here are the pictures:

Another thing popped up when looking at these and here in lies another problem with the disorganised archive and a shattered memory, there’s no notes for these pictures and in amongst them there was an image of a giant 10 with an angle grinder performer next to it….which would suggest a 10th anniversary/birthday thing but no. I recognised the club and a few people in it so was able to google it, it actually opened in 1999, so if it was a tenth birthday then that would be 2009 I was most definitely digital by then, so no slides.

Oh dear. What a ‘mare.

Sending love.

Ciao Bella.