This week we are going way back to the 1980's. Back to the era of new wave music, big hair and traditional darkrooms. Music was breaking down into specific genres; such as new wave, heavy metal, traditional rock, punk and pop. This decade also lead to the rise and popularity of music videos. This had an amplifying effect on the popular fashions and trends of the day. Some photographers also made the move to producing music videos or shooting both the video and photography stills for a music act. We can look at this as one of the requirements for having both video and stills capabilities in todays cameras, the other driver was from photojournalists. This decade ushered in a lot of technology that we take for granted or has already been superceded. Some of the technology that arrived in the market place was:

• Kodak released a digital imaging sensor (1.4 megapixels)
• Compact audio disc
• Commercialization of mobile phones, VCR's and video games
• The personal computer
• Mobile music players
• Camcorders
• Increasing usage of digital effects in movies

From a photography perspective this was the heyday of the analogue photography era. Digital photography was born in the last part of the decade but would not have impact until the 1990's, but was a foreshadowing of what was to become. Retouching was an art form and highly specialized which lead to careers as retouchers. This work was very detailed and meticilous. Work was done in different ways with internegatices, composites and finely detailed brushwork. Photoshop was only commercialized in the last year of the decade. Digital effects were still in the realm of the movie studios and large commercial advertising agencies. A visial look at the 1980's reveals quite a few different styles but there are a few that stand out:

1. The new romantic movement lead to soft focus and glamour glow techniques in images. This movement also lead to the trend of wearing innerwear as outerwear. eg. Wearing lingerie as a main external clothing item.
2. Black and white photography was still a serious medium. This was in part due to a generation of photographers who grew up with this medium or were trained in more traditional styles. This was captured and reflected in some of the black and white styled clothing of the 1980's. This was in direct contrast to bright clothing and neon colours that also arrived in this decade. This was evident on TV shows such as Miami Vice and 21 Jump Street. Thus two photographic styles predominated: Black & white and a high impact colour look.
3. In the studio the use of Polaroid backs and film was used on a regular basis to check exposure and lighting. Visiual artists used Polaroid transfer techniques to transfer the emulsion layers onto other mediums which rendered a pastel quality that could be easily manipulated. There are those that argue that the use of Polaroid cameras and VCR's triggered the rise of the amateur sex movement and some pundits that say this was just the commercialization of the technology that lead to this.

To recreate the 1980's retro look we have Vanessa Fortune. There are three sets of images in the gallery: Soft focus romantic look, black & white and a pastel polaroid look. To see the gallery click here. Retro80s

Watsonphotography.ca creates unique images of fashion, models, people, travel, nature and racing sports by Toronto photographer Peter Watson.