Wanting to explore the theme of Pride Marches and Protests, I started by amalgamating some of the images from my own photographic archives to better recreate the events (and the atmosphere) of these gatherings and demonstrations. This was an ideal process to simultaneously channel creativity while honouring such significant events! Pride marches and protests carry an energy that blends resilience, joy, and unity - then as well as now.
To start piecing together my own past I decided to explore the many negatives and transparencies I have. To view the collection completely, I spent hours scanning each film and photographic image, converting each into a digital file. Throughout the process, there was only one film which resulted in faulty scans. Rather than copying the whole image, the misaligned film provided snatches of each frame. This turned out to be a fortuitous error; the resulting images reflected how I remembered the past – fragmented and in snatches. The film was shot with gay friends on a day out at a beach. A carefree day where we could be ourselves, unguarded and enjoying the freedom others took for granted.
Amongst all the processed films I found a number of unprocessed colour negatives. Realising that some would be over 30 years old, I did not have any expectations when I recently developed them, but I was pleasantly surprised that there were some images which I could identify clearly, although it was as if you were viewing through a veil or fog. The emulsion had deteriorated to such an extent that only a murky green ting remained which added to the strange effect. One image I managed to identify as Brighton Beach although there is nothing which distinguishes as such. This was one photograph I remembered taking (unlike the others above) so I decided to create a tryptic of fading images to mirror how my own memory has begun to forget the past.
