Several months ago I began scanning photographs from my college days and beyond. These images were all on 35mm slide film. Most of these were kept in polypropylene pages that each hold 20 transparencies. Some were still in little yellow boxes from Kodak processing. Those pages were then put into 3” wide 3 ring binders. There are two binders. One with “personal” images and another with photographs I took at various concert venues. I started the scanning project with the personal pictures and then suddenly gravitated over to concert photos. There were quite a few flashbacks going on, there were points of curiosity and head scratching… wait a minute, what, when and where was this again?
While I have a light table and probably a dozen loupes, I didn’t bother breaking those out and my druthers were to scan at high resolution (4800 dpi) and see pictures in all their glory (and defects) rather than squinting over them with a loupe. Another motivation in doing all this was my running up against time with both hardware and software obsolescence almost hounding me. Until about a year ago I had a functional mid-2011 iMac that was still copacetic with my 2003 Canon 9950F flatbed scanner. It’s still a fine scanner with film guides for 35mm negatives, 35mm mounted slides, 120 roll film strip and up to 4x5 inch negatives or transparencies. It’s just no longer supported with my more current 2022 Mac. In my opinion it was the best scanner Canon ever made but as time goes by and demand for stuff like this wanes, support goes bye-bye. I went from supporting the scanner with the 2011 iMac to hooking it up to a 2004 PowerMac G5 and then after the G5 suddenly bit the big one and stopped responding I began using a 2003 PowerMac G4, (Digital Audio). Yep, plugging away with two pieces of 20 year old computer hardware. Do you know how slow a 20 year old computer is? Also, on the G4 resides Photoshop CS from October, 2003 and fortunately that has a piece of plugin software called ScanGear CS. After all other software options failed, ScanGear worked… for awhile anyway. It too suddenly and rather mysteriously started having issues. I’ll save that for another time. Maybe.
Anyway, after a bunch of scanning and a number of sometimes odd, permutated flashbacks that had me pondering WTF was going on in x_month of x_year, I asked myself, okay, what do you do with this stuff now? Some images were shared with people I knew at the time and perhaps went to some of these concerts with. There was some sharing of faded memories between us. Some were also shared with Docken. Then I thought, what about Blogger? What the heck is this platform good for if not sharing some of these images and then having other relic concert goers find them and think, hey, I was there too. Then there are all of those old-timers who somehow feel obligated to steal your pictures without attribution because… it’s the Internet. Mine, mine, mine! My contribution to their discourtesies. There are exceptions but they are few and far between.
A quick note on the covert part of my title here. Generally speaking, one couldn’t just walk into a concert venue carrying a 35mm camera. Nowadays you’ve got hordes of people holding up their phones because them being wherever is what’s really important. The road to narcissism starts with a smartphone. Back in the day I would often take a 135mm lens and strategically place that in the crotch of my 501 jeans, while the camera body would be placed with equal care right underneath the button down fly. These were not places one might be patted down upon entry. This was not a comfortable walk. A quick visit to the men’s room and I was all set. SoCal concerts were supervised more rigidly than NorCal venues. In fact, many Bay Area facilities were perfectly fine with you bringing in a camera. The camera was probably a Pentax MX (I started with a Pentax K1000). The lens was a Pentax 135mm prime, I don’t recall how fast the lens was but it was a good lens. Film was Kodak Ektachrome 400. The following year I graduated to a Pentax LX.
This first post is from May 26, 1979. The venue is the Long Beach Arena. The artist is Yes. The concert was “in the round” meaning the stage was rotating. We also went the following evening to see Yes at the San Diego Sports Arena. There are some lingering questions as to how we got to San Diego and how we got home (approximately 150 miles). I have my theories. I was probably out of film in San Diego and either didn’t have the finances to pick some up or it wasn’t logistically feasible. San Diego also could have been real tight on security and it wasn’t worth the hassle. I’m certain too that our last minute decision to head south made for seating arrangements that were less than ideal for picture taking.
Yes…
Jon Anderson / vocals
Rick Wakeman / keyboards
Chris Squire / bass
Steve Howe / guitars
Alan White / drums
In no particular order, except the last shot was chosen to appear last.
The opening song for this concert was Siberian Khatru. According to vocalist Jon Anderson "Khatru means 'as you wish' in the Yemeni dialect of Arabic." The album Close to the Edge was released in 1972. All of these years and I just learned what khatru means.
Fabulous !
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