Friday 27 October 2017

Bad hair day?

Me, or at least a 1977 version of me. Shot & printed in 1977 and stored in a box of Kodak Veribrom WSG.2M paper for the last 40 years.  Flip me that sounds like a long time when I write it like that...
Perhaps not so much as a bad hair day - more a bad hair decade I think.  That's what happens when your mother cuts your hair.  I can't remember ever going to a barber's shop - but I guess I must have in my later teens.  I remember my great-uncle cutting my grandfather's hair with the clippers - I guess there just wasn't the money around for anything else in those days.

I can place this shot precisely - it was at the University of Stirling, in Scotland and was the summer of 1977, which would make me 14.  We stayed at the student halls of residence, took Granny and Grandpa with us so I guess it was an affordable holiday that the extended family could all go on together.  Self-catering.  Looking back, I guess it was a bit of a busman's holiday for my mum and Gran, with two men and two growing lads to feed every day as well as themselves.  The Brother, Grandpa and I spent a lot of time playing snooker on their full-size tables.  Strangely I can't remember what my father was up to - perhaps he was happy to leave us to Grandpa's charge.  And the best bit? - There was no-one else around...I mean no-one - we had the place to ourselves.

3 comments:

  1. Whaddya know, there's a photo of me in 1976 on my blog today. Of course, mine was shot on a little Brownie 127 camera from the 1950s, so the resulting image is far less pleasing than yours.

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    1. Well I don't know about them being any less pleasing, Jim - I thought yours were great just as they are. These old photographs mean a lot to the people that are part of them, however blurry&scratched they are. As we know, they can't be re-taken, so we're lucky to have them in whatever shape and form.

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  2. What a great print that must be to own! :)) You should pin it on the wall inside your darkroom. Or... actually you should find the neg somewhere and make a new print to pin on your darkroom wall, and put this one lovely print back into the box where it came from. That's what I think, anyway

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