A painful realization that turned into a vital lesson as an analog photographer. Back in 2021-2022, I was avidly attending as many DIY and house-based performances from the underground punk scene of Chicago. I couldn’t get enough, going to multiple shows a weekend sometimes, always with my camera. My projects, From the Corner to the Floor and Residual Blue were built off a lot of the content that I collected from attending these shows. But there is one show I wasn’t able to fully capture due to a critical mistake.
After attending several shows at an apartment that granted itself the name “Gayhouse”, the organizers decided to find a warehouse location along the north branch of Chicago’s river to both have a little bit more control over the crowd and separate themselves from being personally liable from damages, injuries, etc… I attended multiple shows at this location, somewhat disappointed of how bare and stripped it was inside, but nonetheless grateful to be in a space that was intended to hold a greater audience.
I was planning on going to another show there in early 2022, I packed my Canon AE-1, slipped a roll into it (but didn’t load it, thinking I would do this later when I got there), and started my one hour commute via the train & bus to get to this venue on the other side of town. I had done this dozens of times at this point, going to various apartments, houses, venues – wherever these shows were being held, so my guard was down you could say.
Upon arriving to Gayhouse, it was the same old. Tell staff at the door I was media/photography, find a corner to hide my backpack & supplies in, and start to make my away the room, snapping pics of performers, attendees, anything weird or mischievous that I could capture with my analog SLR.
As the music began, again, I did the same thing that I always did. Focus, cock/crank the shutter, and shoot. It was maybe 45 mins after I had arrived, around the start of the second performer’s set, when I went back to the corner to retrieve a new lens and sip some beer. The corner I had chosen too was maybe 15 feet from the door I came in through, so I had pretty good access to everything – whether that was a cigarette, following an artists in/out of the venue, etc…
As I was crouched in the corner, swapping my lens and taking swigs of cheap beer, I noticed a beam of light from a flashlight come in through the front door. In enters a dozen cops, who off the bat seemed to overwhelm the staff at the door handling ticketing, who didn’t know what to do. Immediately, I chucked my beer in the nearest trashcan (I was only 20 at the time), and began to collect my backpack & other supplies I had about. I did my best to document the inside as cops began ushering people out, only allowing me to get 5 – 10 frames snapped before I was escorted out of the building.
Outside the Gayhouse venue was utter chaos. Artists/performers & their friends/groupies started to verbally harass the cop, some people were on top of dumpsters, a line of police cars ran down the block, and a helicopter came in from above, spotlighting the parking lot in which the growing crowd was now gathering.
I saw this as pure gold. I was turning left and right, snapping pictures of artists & people I knew posing in front of cops, mocking them. I took pictures of a group of people with their fists raised to the sky, flipping off what we assumed was a CPD helicopter. I even got pictures of some people who had been detained from getting to rowdy and having altercations with the police. I felt a wave of euphoria move over me as I saw the frame counter of my camera hit 36.
“Great”, I thought, preparing to pop in another roll in but this time it would be a roll of Kodak Gold instead of the BW film I had been shooting before. Upon opening my camera, however, I made one of the most painful & horrific discoveries that I’ve had since becoming a photographer: I never threaded the film, and therefore, captured 0 images of what I had just witnessed.
For those unfamiliar with how film rolls work with analog cameras, once you put the roll into the camera, you still have to feed it across the shutter to the other side, so that way, when you advance the film, it pulls in a fresh section of unexposed film that you can then expose to capture an image.
I had failed to do this, earlier in my mind thinking I would do it at the show. I learned from a great mistake that I haven’t recreated since: always verify that you’ve loaded the film. Whether you listen to it moving or watch your rewind spin/rotate when cocking/advancing, or whether you double-check that your film advances and that you’ve loaded it properly before you even close your camera, verifying if you camera is loaded is the difference between capturing gold and capturing nothing.
Most of photography in the documentary/fine art realm follows an idea from Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Decisive Moment. This is the moment in time where you press that shutter, and capture whatever it is you’re capturing. It relies heavily on the patience, thought, and quick response that can either make or break an image.
Maybe you’re sitting at a boring intersection all day, with only cars passing by with the occasional pedestrian appearing here or there. But what if you leave and miss something? What if, right after you’ve left, a bicyclist who isn’t paying attention, runs into a pole & you capture it? Not the best thing for the cyclist but not something you can necessarily control either.
Part of being a photographer is recognizing the potential that lies in a certain scene or area, and the change that can happen there, whether great or small, is what must be taken into account when trying to construct an image. Hopefully, you’ll remember to check if you’ve loaded your roll properly when that time comes.
Leave a Reply