Whose back….

It has been such a long time since I posted but I just couldn’t…the death, destruction of Gaza made me realise that this frivolous thing didn’t need to take up space so I paused, little did I know it would last this long even with all the pressure…the genocide is still dragging on…But I’m realising that I have to now return as voices need to be amplified and with the craycray american cheese ball taking us to hell then I have to at least make some sort of stand…

Perhaps you may need a list of where I’m at, note I will have missed some off I know but take it. Woke. Feminist. Trans Rights. Gay Rights. Human Rights. Anti-Fascist. Anti-Racist. Pro-Choice. Free Palestine. Anti-Zionist. As well as many more but I think that give you an idea of where I’m at.

Tolerant of everyone but faschits…that’s fascists and shits combined…

Anyway see this as a sort of return…whose back….

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Hiyare…This week I thought I’d write one that I could actually publish so this is in my mind from the outset, which should translate into what I’m writing for. I write many of these usually weekly but don’t end up publishing them as either the grief of the ‘…what abouttery…’ crew, which I so don’t have the energy for, even at the best of times, or its the  sneaking suspicion that my entire archives worth is balanced on the…now what can we call it…a combo embarrassment/punchingdown/laughing/impliednastiness/unpleasantness.

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Which is something not really very nice indeed, a little unpalatable to me woke brain…and as I have said in the past my archive is the only thing of value that I’ve got, I want to pass it on so its worth something to someone…

I better get it sorted, take this missive as another reintroduction for the umpteenth time but maybe this one will have a hook for futures contained in it…

I started sbh as a vehicle for my club pictures, born in the 1970’s I do straddle some very interesting times with technology, outlooks, world views, levels of  acceptance, witness to another rise of fascism (and repeat) etc etc. As an example of what insights have been around my existence is a funny thing I remembered from my youth, something my Mum said only once but its ridiculousness has stuck with me, this was an observation that if you wore white shoes then it meant you were probs homosexual…Ha-ha with all those white Pike Ones out there then wtf!!!! As I said I’ve straddled some very strange times…to just about now…

To a beginning of sorts, I started off the sbh journey as a photographer pre digital using film, working various angels until I got a nightclub gig and it kinda went off from there, worked this till about 2019, just before Covid I think, I originally meant to take the break for just a couple of months as I finished my MA, but then Covid hit and I never did quite return back to it

I always took my role of club photographer (sometimes the only one allowed in) very seriously, the taking of what I call nasty type pictures or people in various states of embarrassments wasn’t really in my remit, some may call me a PR shill but I didn’t see it like that, I mean I did get embarrassing pictures…but it was not my intention from the outset to do that…I more than likely caught them after and checked in with them…Although there was a large period of time when flashing the camera was a thing, so I did get quite a few of which are affectionately called ‘tits’ ‘flashing the camera’ in my projects folder, please if these images are ever published, promise to obscure identities unless its ages away and we are all dead…

Interesting sidenote here is to notice the changes that have happened in this period of time, at first the local paper who I worked for, who incidentally wouldn’t balk at putting girls in their lingerie to advertise clubnights…somehow struggled very hard to publish a picture of two 19 years old lads with tops off in a gay club, this made them stumble very hard.

This archive contains millions of pictures and I’m not sure which ones will sell or cause any interest. I’m not interested in pushing it out now as its true value ain’t really there, plus now there are too, too many ‘people’ looking to just make hits or quicks off my archive…e.g the cheap books where I feel the copyright payoff is too little as once bought, anyone can share the imagery…with no possible consent sort for where its shared.

I realise now that I suppose that my biggest consideration is Consent…what an incredibly moving word that is Consent…beautiful in fact…But specifically in this case is a nod to say yes to a picture thirty+ years ago as I write this in 2025…ok now? What if they have a good job, a bad job, no, job, are dead, are half alive or any of the combination of those…I don’t know…I just don’t know… To navigate that I now protect all identities unless I can get permission…difficult that one as you can understand, how do I find these people, there has been so many…if you ever went through a Manchester club in the 90’s, 00’s or 10’s then give me a shout as I probably got a picture of you…

You can say I’m semi-retired, as such I’m finding myself, and its only now, what five years later, that I am only just shaking off that weekend weights that comes with restlessness/worries that I used to get when my main working was on weekend nights…

Now all I do is work, think, exist, think, speak to my therapist and think some more. This is kinda what I’m seeing the future sbh as… It’s mainly sharing what I is thinking these days, as I never solely existed around clubs, I saw them as partial work and as a backdrop to interact, place to let your hair down, to be whatever self you wanted to be…

So it’s no surprise that I’m really not obsessing over clubs now, it’s more about the stuff that I didn’t have time to follow up properly then,  as I was too busy trying to tread water in those shifting sands of earning a living thru photography by doing club/gigs/whatever, just practicing the art of surviving…

Moving forward I will share memories and stuff but I will also be down for talking about the three ‘F’s, or more accurately could that maybe be stretched to F.U.N which consists of my takes on fashion, that team and the titillating observations that the flirty nature of clubbing inherently held…plus what’s happening on screens and what I’ve read…now that’s a proper retiree interest that innit…By way of example I’ll give you my thoughts for this week:  

FasshUN WEEK? I’m not sure what happened but where did the full fash weeks go? Now they seem to have collided and condensed into a daily rather than a weekly occurrence, or at least that’s how they are coming at me on Insta and YouTube…London to Milan back to London then onto Milan…there has been so many this last 2 weeks that I’m not sure f they’re overlapping or it’s the content thing, now wonder FasshUN pollutes so much, the air miales you’d have to do just to follow the shows must be terrible…its going to be about capitalism and money isn’t it…well…yes..maybe everything is about that???

Will have to give a bit of a special mention to that D-Squared 30th year anniversary show, it was phenomenal entertainment !!! I never really saw much D2 over the years but from what I remember it was either on the camp gays or the ladsladslads…now there’s a really diverse section of people, or when I think about it then maybe it’s not? HMM further research on that one possibly…But now after that show I want to see what they’ve got for me…So many looks and models and things and everything, this is right up SBH street, and possibly sums us up more than Tom or Roberto, this is us when raw, when we really show who we is…And to that ends I’d like t mention a  few models that stood out and I particularly liked:

Amelia Gray /// Bách Buquen  /// Brigitte Nielsen /// Colin Jones Doechii  /// Freya Nutter /// Irina Shayk /// Isabeli Fontana /// Issa Lish /// Jessica Miller /// Kit Butler /// Kit Price /// Laron Gigger - Roller-skater // Leanne De Haan /// Mia Armstrong /// Rachel Marx /// Vivienne Rohner /// Yasmin Wijnaldum /// plus Lainey Hearn /// Sihana Shalaj /// Steinberg /// Yilan Hua /// Rejoice Chuol.

Not sure what I’ll do with this but feel that as I map where sbh is, especially regarding Fasshun then knowing who appeared where, how, why and where they at, is important, as it’ll come up in future searches when mapping ideas, careers or styles…I think in establishing a solid, (non-sleazy as have been accused of this in the past) post value identity for my newish retiree sbh…

It is funny that this year is there 30th and sbh is of a very similar age…’95 must have been a good year…

That was quite a long way to answer ‘R U oK…’ and could start to get quite heavy so let us move to Picture Time, now this is where we at these days…this one will only appear here and not on Instagram, Insta need a separate thing going for it…so the last few weeks I have been noticing that my pictures of now either contain the aftereffects of partying, rude words scribbled on a wall or following the artistic movement known as dick…

Will share and will also couple this with snappy, clever words that symbolise something that I’ve seen that sums up the ‘sbh’ ethos which establish where we at in 2025…U up for that?

Hopefully you said yes as hires this week’s image…Although I’m not sure I will ever beat the one frm the turn of the year but I will try…Here is that one from 2025:

Bras, these I see from the 1990’s to 2025…

I think that sums up where we were, to where we are now but that may be too sweeping a generalisation as the first one is an old film based one and was not really when I was at the height of my powers, so I will maybe go for something like this… 

(what you won’t see here is that I went away, searched the archive, made some connections and came up with (what I think at this moment are some absolute ****** corkers !!!)

Wow what a selection I came up with! Think I will share them here as they’re pretty good diptychs showing particular times in club land but relating to the now…can you see the links, or more interestingly can you see which are 20+ years old and which aren’t?

Connections, what i photographed then and what I photograph now but will the sbh hat (…more likely that’s eye…) on so keeping connections like that…

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And now for those words I talked about, it’s going to be of something that I’ve seen that remind me of the ethos of sbh but that I couldn’t photograph

Somethin that takes me back to the the spirit of 90s/00s/10s clubbin…

I guess I need a title for it so for now I’ll call it the vulgar sentence…

“That move reminds me of many a mistaken direction…”

Not sure about this as it’s not an alluring time when I’m writing this, but will roll with it…we will see…And now I’m done…thank you for reading, with what turned out to be quite a mammoth one! Please don’t expect this every week, I’m old now…I’ll bid you adieu, say: Ciao Bella…or should that be Ciao Belli!

Ciao Belli x.