Deaf School in Amsterdam Part 2

I’ve always believed you need to be very brave to be a photographer and it was with this thought in mind, with my trusty Pentax Spotmatic 1000 and my home made camera case, I boarded the ferry for Amsterdam. This was the start of many interesting photographic journeys and a career which took me all over the world, some journeys were dangerous, some just plain enjoyable, some I have yet to talk about. You never know what is going to happen on a photoshoot be it in Bradford or Beijing and the build up can be quite stressful, even more so these days. Best thing is to go with it and try to enjoy it, be brave.

My college friends, in the band Deaf School were performing at The Melkweg club in Amsterdam. I was at a bit of a loose end and being no stranger to the hippy, arty Amsterdam, having already visited a number of times I decided to go and support them and document the tour. I’ve always loved the place, the art, the architecture, canals and the bicycles, the smoky bars and strange people and the feeling of relaxed freedom of thought. Since then I have been back many times (even been paid to work in Amsterdam).

I travelled there by myself as the band had a full tour bus but they very kindly let me sleep on the floor of their ‘luxurious’ accommodation and I spent my time documenting their tour. I produced a small booklet for the band which I know some have treasured even though I printed it out on an obscure brand of photo paper which still curls to this day, I remember my room at 104 Princes Road, Liverpool, full of booklets all over the floor with weights on top to try to get them to stay flat.

This was December 1974, a really long time ago, before I became a professional photographer and before what I consider to be the ‘modern’ world and it is curious that this is the first in my rock band photography series and probably the last that will appear on the blog. It has been a labour of love scanning and digitising these film negatives, which have not seen the light of day for 45 years. I have had to developed some photoshop techniques to enhance them. Looking at them now I see that what I lacked in technical ability and exposure control, I made up for in composition and drama. You are welcome to download them but they are not for commercial use without permission and the copyright is strictly ©montyrakusen  monty@rakusen.co.uk please request a link.