Nostalgie

While tidying up my office a few days ago, I came across some old photographs taken in the mid- to late-1990s. It was only around ten years ago, but it already seems sort of weird that people used to have to go through all that rigmarole with films, development, leaving the lens cap on etc. Did I really have to wait several days, and spend considerable amounts of money, before I saw the results of my happy snapping? To use one of Gen X's favourite quotes; "Inconceivable!"


Anyway, some of the old photos I found were so evocative (to me at least) that I decided to digitise them, in a process that would make the mid-90s me's head spin.


Step 1: Use networked copier at work to scan photo into its memory.

Step 2: Have the copier transform the image into a .tif file and email it to my computer.

Step 3: At my computer, open the image with photo manipulation software, crop it, and save it to the hard drive.

Step 4: Use the internet to upload the file from the hard drive to my Flickr account.

Step 5: Use HTML to insert the image into my blog.


I think mid-90s me had a techno-fetish aneurism somewhere around the word "email".


Leaving all that aside, I've decided to create an occasional series called Before Blandwagon (BBw), based on the few photos I took between 1985 and 2000 that don't look like they were taken by a confused monkey banging a camera against a rock.





HF, also known as Crazy Irish Girl, in Prague on a clear winter day in 1998. I love this photo for its sense of joire de vivre - the movement, the laughter, the grand architectural excesses of the background, and that clear, blue, friendly sky.