Dire Straits : on every street - Original Album Cover Polaroid Photo.
Photographer Paul E Williams.
I was going through my archives and came across the original polaroid photos of the Dire Straits On Every Street album cover I took in 1991. I used an experimental Polaroid technique that I had developed and nicknamed Solaroids. The original photos have never really been seen before, so this is a short case study for Dire Straits fans and experimental Polaroid fans, as well as a chance to see the originals for the first time. I hope you enjoy them.
Solaroid Technique
The Solaroid technique was quite bizarre and I can't remember exactly when I discovered it. I must have been using black and white 10x8 Polaroid 803 on a project. This large format polaroid stock had a solid black plastic backing that was exposed in a 10x8 camera. It was then passed through a polaroid machine which sandwiched it onto polaroid print paper. The image transferred from the backing plastic onto to the print paper. After about a minute the paper was pulled off the backing sheet to reveal the polaroid print.
I noticed that when I did this the faint latent image on the black backing solorised then slowly disappeared under a layer of drying crystals as the processing gel dried. I wondered If I could capture this faint image on 5x4 ectachrome to make a negative to print from and, that how the process was born.
Mark knopfler's Leap of Faith
The On Every Street album cover was designed by Roger Cooper of Sutton Cooper who wanted to use the Solaroid technique. I nearly turned the job down as the process was so experimental and I don't experiment on jobs, especially un-repeatable jobs. I had though by that stage taken enough Solaroids to be confident enough at getting a result. I went with my assistant, a wooden Gandolfi 10x8 view camera and a Strobe flash pack to the old Air Studios above Oxford Circus in London.
Mark knopfler was using the whole studio complex so I set up on a mixing desk he wasn't using. He didn't want to be recognisable so I lit accordingly. I also had to light so that when the polaroid solarised it would highlight the guitar in an interesting way. I took only 8 polaroids of Mark knopfler's boots on the mixing desk with him playing guitar in the background. I laid out the black polaroid backing with faint images on them for Mark to look at. He pointed to one of the Polaroids and that was that. It was a real leap of faith on Mark Knopfer's side as there really was not much to look at. The photo was used on the album cover and worldwide tour posters and merchandising.
Final Cover
Variations From The Shoot
Here are a couple of variations from the shoot with a hints of Marks face for the Dire Straits fans. The surface texture comes as the Polaroid backing dried so I waited and copied them onto 5x4 Ectachrome at a moment I thought would add mood to the photo. The texture on the right of the photo is the developing gel. Hope you like them.
If you would like to see more Solaroid Photos Click Here
Thanks for your interest I Hope you enjoyed the photos.
See more Solaroid Photos here
