Archival thoughts.

Good Morning and thank you for tuning in again to one of these posts, it is appreciated.

So when I restarted these a few weeks ago, I decided that I would draw a line under the ones I’d missed, as it felt a bit pressurised reincorporating some of them into new formats, some were very specifically timed and others needed too much revisiting rather than how I see the blog being as living in the moment/spontaneous like. I said that was shame as some that went missing feel like they were still valid, I hoped they would return at some point, well lo/behold here we have one!!!

This week I’m talking about archive, to be fair I think the subject of the archive, specifically mine, will be a subject that I will revisit time and time again anyway. I’ve been making pictures since I was about 7 years old, so you can imagine what my archive is like. Sadly the film archive has suffered quite a few losses over the years, it’s not as complete as it once was, but there are still quite a few unexplored negatives/slides in there. The digitising the analogue process is quite slow, as I search through, find, label, value and catalogue these works. Sometimes the remembering part of when/why an image was made is the hardest bit.

Like quite a lot of people I’ve moved from scanning the negatives to rephotographing them, it seems the levels of control in doing that and having the raw file of a neg, gives a more solid base to work from, there’s just so much more you can do with a raw. I did always find that scans of negatives gave a completely different feel to what the neg was providing, it’s nice to get that bit more control of how it looks.  

For the technically minded, my set up is a copystand with a lightbox at its base with a neg holder and a Canon pointing down at it, on this 7dmk2 is a beautiful Sigma 105mm macro lens (an absolute belter of a lens, has paid for itself many times over, used in portrait and architectural work too!) I would like to give a massive shout out to the neg holder part of this equation to the Essential Film Holder company atwww.clifforth.co.uk

I have the EFH-09-Kit and it’s fantastic, it has made the whole undertaking much smoother, it’s speeded the process by about 75%, now I know that speed isn’t the most important part in this, but this holder makes it just so much easier. I’m not the best at these types of fiddly work but I have/can do them, but the thinking has to be ‘why make this operation more difficult than it needs to be?’

My EFH-09 neg holder on my Lightbox.

I can thoroughly recommend this holder; it has been monumental for me.

Now to the results, well typically I’ve chosen the three main types of work contained in the film archive, as that was what NathanPhoto did most of (the clubbing work has its own separate umbrella now, you can check them out there, give me a shout if you don’t know the name.)

These three are split into portraiture, news/events and entertainment. These strands made up the majority of what I did, they were my bread-and-butter work for many years.

First up is a portrait of Kermit which I made on the steps of Oxford Rd station, not so sure of the year but I’m thinking turn of the century around 2000, I think this was for the local paper, for a feature on something, guessing club and/or performance related. This is a problem I’m finding increasingly more with the archive; I see people share some images that aren’t palatable (well to me) in these current times, yet they are lauded, so that discussion gets brushed aside. I do wonder how the subject feels about the image being widely shared after a number of years, but not enough time has passed to render them historically viable. I’m not sure this element of archive work is discussed very much; it does seem to crop up much more in my clubbing archive much more readily. I did reach out via Instagram but guess the message hasn’t been seen because as of yet I’ve had no reply, do hope its ok that I shared it here.  

Second up is a protest march, this one is an Anti-Apathy march which must have been around the same time. Timely I thought with the recent marches planned in Manchester. This one took the form of a funeral with people carrying a coffin, it started at the BBC and headed up Oxford Rd from what I can make out from the images. I think its main protest point is against people’s disinterest in politics and where that could lead us. Weren’t they right to protest that fact, as look where we’ve ended up. I photographed a lot of protest in the 90’s up until the 10’s so there is quite an archive of images in there, maybe even enough for a book.

Lastly is the entertainment bit, this is Mark Radcliffe and Marc Riley as they appeared under the Shire Horses at Virgin megastore in Manchester in 2001. Not sure who this was for as I hadn’t started at Getty then, possibly may have been for Virgin at the time. I do remember Mark slapping Marc’s bottom in the act, but as we scrambled to get the shot in real time, I kinda caught it from the side but after the song Mark called it, said he saw the ‘paparazzi blur’ so restaged it, which was nice. These personal appearances in record/book shops were quite the thing, I ended up making quite a lot of these in my time.

Interestingly not sure these images have seen the light of day since they were first made, it does feels like giving them a new lease of life. My plan is still to sit on my archive as then it has some unseen value for when I’m gone, hopefully my kids can make something of it. The current indifferent reaction to these type of images only reaffirms that decision but thought I’d share some here anyway, just to confirm.

There you go with the archive post, thank you for reading and if you have any comments, questions, thoughts or reminiscing’s then please get me via the usual channels.

Thanks.