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Ben, Jane (?), and Rachel, Finsbury Park Alexandra Palace, London, 1998? Pentax K1000, 28mm, Fuji Velvia.

This image suffers from a lack of documentation. It may be Finsbury Park [edit: a friend of a friend reports with some modicum of certainty that it’s Alexandra Palace], 1998 seems likely, and I think the woman in the middle is named Jane. Actually, there’s another Jane here, off frame, that I know for sure, for we had driven up to London together from Canterbury, with the woman in the middle…and I seem to recall the awkwardness of her friend also being a Jane. At any rate, that’s Ben and Rachel on the ends, living in a Crouch End flat at the time, a couple of years before they were to get married. God how I miss Rachel and Jane, not the Jane here, the one off-camera, sometimes….

There’s more to the story with the Jane you can see, she at the time in a loveless marriage somewhere in the folds of Kent, who shocked me with a deep french kiss a couple of hours after we met, as we parted after a long group night out dancing. I was interested for about 30 minutes of the remaining drunken ride home that night, but apparently the thrill lasted longer for her, hence her tagging along when Jane (again, the one not pictured) drove me back to London a couple of days later. As I promised less words this time, and as Naoko knows nothing of this story, perhaps I’ll leave it there.

ADDENDUM: Okay, here’s a photo of the previously off-frame Jane.

Mark with Bolex, Santa Cruz, CA, September 11, 1994. Pentax K1000, Fuji Velvia 50.

Did this before, tripping down memory lane via my slide transparencies from yesterdays. Let’s do it again, this time with less words.