Lost Process
November 17th, 2007
Those of you younger than about 40 may not know that copy machines used to be only black and white. Along there in the 70s color copiers started showing up. They were awful. But it was color. And someone figured out that you could set up a slide projector and a mirror and project slides down into the machine and get color photos out. They were awful. But they were awful in an interesting way. Sort of like the things Holga lovers like these days. They were also cheap, so it was a cheap, quick, though not so easy way to get a color enlargement from a slide. With the right photo they could be quite beautiful too.
Well, color copiers are much better now and I don’t think I’ve heard of anyone projecting slides into them for prints for a long time…maybe there’s still a way to do that, but I’m sure the results are much too good to be interesting in and of themselves.
Anyway, this is a digital copy photo of a color Xerox of a color slide that I made at the OU School of Dance back in the mid-70s. The dancer is Mary Pat Cooney. She was dancing with a scarf when I shot this closeup. If I remember right we were on the roof of the Putnam School when we shot this. I wonder if it’s still possible to get up there.
I won’t tell you any stories about Mary Pat because I know she reads this blog and I could get myself into trouble. I’ll just say that she was a beautiful young woman, a very good dancer and a lot of fun to be around. One of the many dancers I enjoyed knowing and photographing back then, but certainly one who has always stood out in my memories of those days.
Mary Pat tells me that OU School of Dance Professor (later Director) Gladys Bailin was the choreographer for the dance in the post below with Lisa Eck and David Novitz. That would have been my guess, but I didn’t want to guess. Thanks for the memory, Mary Pat.
Mary Pat had a quote at the end of her last e-mail to me that I’m going to steal and post here because I love it:
“There is nothing so necessary for men as dancing…Without dancing a man can do nothing…All the disasters of mankind, all the fatal misfortunes that histories are so full of, the blunders of politicians, the miscarriages of great commanders, all this comes from want of skill in dancing…”
-Moliere
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