Ultra Vegas Retrospective.

A friend recently had a clear-out and found something he's been meaning to send me for a while now. I completely forgot he said he mentioned he had something for me. Consequently the other week, the door knocked and it was a package delivery. It contained a pile of old prints from Ultra Vegas, a big club night in the '90s here in Milton Keynes I used to shoot for the promoters.

Simon, who sent me the package, used to manage the Ultra Vegas website for Marc and Gary that ran the nights in the Winter Gardens. I can hear the 56kbs dial-up modem now squealing in my head thinking how it must have been as it most definitely would have been in the early days of the internet. Maybe that's why I love techno and electronic music? The scrambling tones of the cassette loading on our Acorn Electron, as a kid, for 20 or so minutes for it to crash, rewind the tape, and try again and then later years the sound of a dial-up modem connecting to the internet.

I'm guessing the photos were shot around 98 - 99 so just before digital cameras had become more accessible. Back then, I worked for the Milton Keynes Citizen as a Senior Photographer. Pre 2000, the paper had a darkroom to process our films, create contact sheets for the editorial team, and sort out customer prints.

I would spend hours in my spare time printing out photos from gigs and nights I had been out shooting, experimenting with cross-processing films, neg bleeds for boarders, and multiple coloured off shoe flashes. Things have changed so much, what with everything on screens now and no real hands-on experience. I have several crates of old negatives up in the loft I should go through at some point and get scanned.

Below is a selection of prints scanned to be able to share with you and hopefully over time will get more old bits scanned and shared.