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Pictures, please.

This was a thought I had last night, when it was too hot to sleep despite air-conditioning. Partially brought on by some beautiful pictures of rocking Rocking Mitch. I thought it would be fun if we posted pictures of ourselves in our youth…teens or twenties. I’d love to see punk rock pairubu, or goth Bethnoir, or… you see the pattern!! I know we’re all shy about posting pictures, so no pressure, but … wouldn’t it be fun?!?!

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245 thoughts on “Pictures, please.”

  2. I have a couple of pix I could post . . . if I knew how. I mean, I can do it in a new post, but I don’t know how to do it in a comment on someone else’s post.

    Any clues?

    Reply

  4. That’s what I’m talking about, DsD!!! I’ll do some research to see if I can find a way to make that show up instantly in a comment, but it might be worth a post all unto itself? With a song you were listening to at the time? Everybody would be okay with a series of those, right????!?!?!

    Reply

    • They’re working for me so hopefully you can all see them. They’re all taken in the mid 80s, during my indie kid faze. In the two group photos, I’m the second from the right. Those of you who met me at the London ‘Spill Social might recongnise the Hurrah! t-shirt – yes, I still own it and it still fits me!

      I don’t have any photos of me between the ages of about 9 and 19 – that decade of my life has been airbrushed from history. I grew my hair so long that I could tuck it in my trousers (not that I did but it illustrates a point!) and shied away from cameras. How I managed to do this for ten years I have no idea …

      Reply

    • I’d just like to clarify that the words Christian Fellowship writ large behind our little group in the fourth photo have no significance whatsoever! We were at a college of some sort …

      Reply

  11. Any pictures from me will have to await finding the photo album and scanning.

    But… Bish. Nice pic. How did you get it to show?

    (Code, need code… Ah! Idea!)
    Page source tells me that you typed something like this:
    [img src="link"/]
    except with angle brackets instead of square brackets. That’s html, that is. I daresay that the size attributes could be used:
    [img src="link" width="x" height="y"]
    I seem to recall that you need to get these values (x and y, which are in pixels) right to keep the image in proportion. Bish’s original picture is 822 by 1153. I suspect that halving the values would have done the trick.

    I think I’ve answered my own question. Does it help anyone else, or have I been too techie?

    Reply

  12. Pretty much the last photograph of me that I like is this one:

    But here I am on a teenage walking holiday in the Peak District. I’m on the right, and am actually the shortest of the three of us (wonder what I was standing on?).

    Reply

  13. I love all of these! They’re so perfect. What a nice thing to wake up to! Thanks for playing along everyone.

    I’m going to try linking to a picture again…

    Reply

  17. OK, I’l try this one.
    This is what I looked like in about 1963, a friend, a sculptor, won a commission to do a piece at my university, he tried to create it from his imagination but it wouldn’t work so he hired me to be his model; I had to sit in that position for hours on end but the payoff was that I was immortalized in bronze. I’m still there.

    [img src=http://dl.dropbox.com/u/531886/IMG_2806.JPGwidth=400height=600]

    Reply

  18. OK, One more Time.
    OK, I’l try this one.
    This is what I looked like in about 1963, a friend, a sculptor, won a commission to do a piece at my university, he tried to create it from his imagination but it wouldn’t work so he hired me to be his model; I had to sit in that position for hours on end but the payoff was that I was immortalized in bronze. I’m still there.

    [img src="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/531886/IMG_2806.JPG"width="400"height="600"]

    Reply

  19. Once more once.
    OK, One more Time.
    OK, I’l try this one.
    This is what I looked like in about 1963, a friend, a sculptor, won a commission to do a piece at my university, he tried to create it from his imagination but it wouldn’t work so he hired me to be his model; I had to sit in that position for hours on end but the payoff was that I was immortalized in bronze. I’m still there.

    Reply

    • But you did it already!
      Add width and height attributes. You might have to do some sums to ensure that you keep the proportions correct. Around 450 to 500 pixels wide is about right. This is what you’re aiming for, in terms of code:

      (less than) img src=”link” width=”x” height=”y” (greater than)

      (less than) and (greater than) are the angle brckets I referred to earlier.

      Reply

      • Dead seriously, i really don’t have any. If my family has any, they’re buried in a box somewhere, my mom has moved a few times. I have no high school yearbooks, but the senior picture i had in there i was wearing a Spectrum India top and had half closed eyes and a very stoned smile.

      • Amy, I understand. Anything from my teenage years would be at my parents’ as well.

        (If anybody has posted a picture of you on facebook, you can drag it onto your desktop and load it into dropbox, but I’m sure you know that!)

        I don’t mean to be bullyish about it, I’m just so happy looking at all of these pictures!

      • Facebook, ha! I’m on there with a fake name and location and as a business precisely because i don’t want to be tracked down by people i went to high school with. I’m obviously not the nostalgic or sentimental sort. Behind the camera is bliss for me, and in front of it is hell so i really do try to avoid getting my picture taken, always have.

      • I just did a quick websearch to see if my high school yearbook was online somewhere so i could snag my senior picture. There was a locked website for the school so stupidly i registered for it. The yearbook tab was blank, they don’t have them online yet. And now the site has my email. Fuck!!!

      • Oh, that was me. Just tried to find my college yearbook too, no luck. I’m actually thinking that this is encouraging, that my school mugshots aren’t online.

  28. I suspect this might not work either.

    This is what you see if I’m looking at you through a condenser lens.

    And this is me and a friend in another timezone.

    Some time ago I was poking around on the internet and I came across the Sheffield Star, they had an item of the front page ‘Locate your long lost friends’, so I input the details of a close friend that I knew when I was in the RAF in 1954, I knew he used to live in Sheffield. About a week later I got an email with his address and phone #, it was a joyous reunion. We’ve stayed in touch and he recently sent me a set of photos from back then, that’s me.

    Reply

    • Lovely pic, Steenbeck. Reminds me of someone I know, she is very fair skined and always wears a big hat – sort of her trade-mark – very fetching (you, I mean)

      Reply

    • Jeez, steen, that photo’s an emotional landmine!

      Seems to be simultaneously crying out for someone to give you a hug and yet putting up some sizeable “F*** off and leave me alone” barriers at the same time.

      Reply

      • Damn.

        “simultaneously” and “at the same time” in the one sentence . . .

        I can just see my English teacher’s head shaking!

        Sorry.

      • Oh, that’s a saying in my family, DsD – “simultaneously and all at the same time”.

      • Thanks, anonymous. It’s funny, I was just thinking – looking at all of these shots. I have a couple of apps on my iPhone (hipstamatic, instagram) that try to give you these vintage looks, like we find in all of these pictures posted here. I use it all the time…it works, it’s fun. But it feels like cheating, and takes some of the magic out somehow. All the pictures people are posting here…that’s what it’s all about!!

      • Oh, all these anonymouses are me. I rebooted to speed up photoshop and forgot to post my name.

      • Oh my goodness! I love them!! What’s the dog’s name? We had a green station wagon when I was growing up, and we used to roll around back there with my dog, Tessie. Is that a GREEN STATION WAGON? if so…WIERD!!!

      • thanks everyone – the dogs name was Kim, she had quite a few pups that stayed in the family. There is a brilliant photo of me as a baby lying on her stomach – she’d growl a protective growl when anyone came into my grandparents garden.
        the car was an Avenger estate.. the first one WAS green Steenbeck – but it rusted away and this is a white one (I think) or it’s the Cortina estate.. we used them for delivering fruit and veg to covent garden market – so they got knackered quickly.. but our holidays were spent travelling the country like this – me /brother and dog rolling about in the back.
        Then we’d be kicked into the coldest tent in the world and my mum and dad would sleep in the back.

        I’m doing a photo project at the moment (basically I’m finding old pic’s of me (and coming up to date; the family) in football shirts.. sounds odd, I know, but there is a reason.
        But it means I’m trawling through old photo’s continually at the moment.

        it is so much fun.

      • Nothing that glamorous, it relates to a goth day Andrew Collins did on BBC 6 Music a couple of years ago. Thanks for all the nice comments.

      • I saw your picture on the Goth day – did Tracy point it out on RR at the time?
        ACE pic.. I have to sort out photos of my college friends (it’s the joy of being a photography student, I have the incrim(p)inating evidence – AND I know how to publish it!

      • beth -
        tracyk – was around in the earlier days of RR – but I seem to remember her being a fan of 6music then (I could be wrong – I’ve drunk a lot in my life – the memory is shot*)… someone on RR asked you if it was the same Beth in the photos on Goth day and it was you.
        There wasn’t a link to it or anything but I’d been checking the subculture weekend photos – I love things like that – found it quite odd that I knew what an RRer looked like (if we’d had the book launch social – I knew a few faces from there – but no one else… ) RR seemed so distant from real life at the time – it was a jolt to realise that there were real life people behind the RR masquerade… luckily a photo of a fantastical goth creature didn’t bring reality crashing in too close (insert white painted smiley with blood red lips!)
        .
        .
        .
        *except song lyrics for themes – can remember them.

      • Shane, tracyk is on fb and some of us are friends with her – and I’m sure she won’t think I’m giving anything away if I tell you she’s pregnant!

      • Is she? BRILLIANT! Pass on my regards and congratulations to her and JonP, please, someone.

  38. I love all these pictures!!! THere’s something about pre-cellphone, pre-digital photos that just kills me. Thank you so much for posting everybody!

    And I hope some others do as well.

    Reply

  44. I had a text message from gordonimmelthis evening who said he’d seen the picture of me from 1982, but refuses to believe it was me!
    He said to tell you that, as he can’t make comments work from his newfangled BlackBerry thingy.

    I think he’s also threatening to post both a 1982 version of himself, and a student-era pic of both of us instead if we’re still on this subject when he gets back.

    So let’s beat him to half of that; here’s me from the mid-80s, in a photo I’ve always liked – not for my crappy student zombie complexion, but for the fortuitous reflections in my shades. All real, folks, no Photoshop involved.

    Reply

  45. the reply button won’t work for some reason, but…

    thanks!

    Yes Barney (he was a barn owl, you see) was a cherised part of the family for a few critical years. Not sure exactly WHY we got him, but my older brother had a bit of a thing about falconry and it was his owl more than anyone’s (he had a couple of Kestrels after Barneys departure). Barney was really friendly and would come indoors when it was cold and happily watch TV or sit on the end of my little brothers bed when he was asleep. He was fine with letting strangers stroke and prod him when we wandered around the estate and my brother taught him to fly up and then swoop down and catch some ‘lure’ that he was swinging on a long rope. He was an ace owl and we were all really upset when he inadvertently flew away one snowy winter afternoon. He didn’t want to, but I saw him panicking and just flying up, not knowing what to do….he never came back….

    Reply

  46. I can’t make this post as a reply under my picture, but thanks for that steenbeck ! This was taken in summer 1980 when I was 18, by my friend Sarah and it features our friend Rachael . In fact, I remember that day being complimented by them on my ability to make female friends, that I was liked and trusted; and that this became something of a consolation for lack of actual girlfriends and lack of confidence for quite a while really. This photo reminds me of all that, and tells me that I really looked OK (whatever comparisons drawn by certain mini-shorted headbanging friend above, tee hee !). My reflection on all that is that, in whatever field of endeavour, sometimes we need to find from somewhere or pretend some self-confidence, and we might discover that we’re less hopeless than we thought.

    Luckily it’s all working out OK now, a late developer with MummyP and two little ones doing well…

    Reply

      • Brilliant ! It looks like you’re having a private teenage moment, but actually there’s someone there with a camera – you exhibitionist !

      • Actually, DP, my mate Dave having the camera was a surprise, hence the glare I was giving him in the first photo I posted.

      • What a swine ! Such is the risk of being tiptoed up on when the music is LOUD. Good now that the moment and the shorts are recorded for posteriority.

      • total student disregard to danger – sink, kettle and record player in splashing distance of the bed – drunken water and electricity mix threat thankfully avoided – I hope.

    • DaddyPig – David and I talk about that, too. We spent our teens and twenties feeling insecure and unattractive… What a waste! I felt old in my thirties…what a waste! Now we’re trying to change all that in our forties, but old habits die hard. As you said…I hope my boys grow up knowing how beautiful they are!!

      Reply

      • Thanks for that. I’m sure it wasn’t all a waste. Our bodies do such weird growy things in our teens, it’s not surprising it takes a while to get comfortable…

      • … but it still didn’t work. Just in a different way.

        Let’s try Photobucket’s code.
        HTML
        Dave sprout
        IMG
        [IMG]http://i56.photobucket.com/albums/g194/kurekure/hairygit.jpg[/IMG]

    • Thanks, Pairubu…what a wonderful picture! You all look amazing. I swear there’s a filter on my iPhone photography feature that tries to capture this exact look.

      I had some shirts like that too…polyester t-shirts that were martyrific.

      I think next we should all post pictures of us with our childhood dogs. (kidding, kidding…)

      Reply

      • Cheers, that jacket my brother has on is actually rather cool, I think. Perhaps the collar is a little large but otherwise I wouldn’t mind wearing one today.

  49. Oh well, I tried.
    Click the link, it seems to work. That’s me with the hair, brother, Mum and dog in about 1975.
    That t-shirt was made from really odd material, rather like a very fine , red Brillo pad.

    Reply

  50. Great thread, steen. I am away from home, so without access to my hippy days pix. Here I am at the grand old age of six, by my front door in Trinidad. The front door was upstairs, because the house was on stilts, to counter tropical flash floods, hurricanes, and earthquakes – all of which I loved (well maybe not the earthquakes).

    Reply

  52. I’m a little late to this, so one big “thank you” for all these pictures. What handsomeness and character they show.

    Reply

  53. I’ve been away all day, but what beautiful new photos people have posted!! I’ll try to comment on each as they occurred to me, but I’m feeling a bit sunstruck. I want to generally thank everyone for all the pictures they’ve posted. I love the ‘Spill! I love us!

    Reply

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