Begining the mind construct of the project process

February 2nd and 3rd                          

   Remember the olden (!) days when you sent your roll of film off for developing and when you got them back half were a fuzzy blur or a close up of someone's ear, and you still had to pay for all of them!
 
    We were blessed with the help of our first volunteers this week, at both our sites. Liz got them settled with tea and biccies and started them on the next step of the sorting and sifting of material by tackling the photo boxes. It is part one of a four week process, after which we will hopefully have a catalogued set of photos.
 
   They really did a fab job of getting rid of the waste - blurry and nondescript photos and duplicates. This is doing a great deal for Toby's state of mind, who was getting fed up with not seeing the wood for the trees - or the usable photos for the dross.  Many, many thanks for your help!

We are so used to adjusting and editing the photos we take nowadays, that it's slightly difficult to jump back to before all that became possible, even though it was not all that long ago!

Do you remember this?

   The first Balls Up photo here is not in sharp focus on the performers faces, but has been cropped and enhanced, through the wonders and accessibility of modern technology.

Balls Up During Rag Week

   But it is the original, above, where half the shot is taken up by the building, but in all its mid- 1980's glory, that will be stored in the archive, reflecting as it does, the era in which it was taken.

 
   There is a dichotomy between the pre-digital and the digital age, and this results in opposite ways of creating the archive.

In terms of photos, From Balls Up to Bianco is pear-shaped. Definitely big- bottomed!

For, say, the last 15ish years, it is a question of the sifting through the mountain of available photos and choosing only the best ones or the most representative.

Treasure Island
 black and white and slightly blurry!

   Whilst for the first 15ish years it's more a case of trying to find any and every photo in existence, and making allowances for quality. So the further back we go the more photos we are going to need to snap up.

Not totally clear from this photo that Risky in Pink were
aiming for the chocolate bar in the volunteers mouth
and not the child!

 
The pre-digital age is really the period about which we would like everyone who has photos to get in touch, and either donate them to the archive, or allow us to scan and return them. All will be most welcome and gratefully received.

Artist at work - wonder what music Dave was listening to!

Two more photos of the pink trucks era. Who did come up with the idea? This is turning into an obsession!

One of the finished products - how many did he do?