Frankie Venom comes to my place
500-Weeks #005: Frankie Venom comes to my place
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| Frankie Venom in Toronto. Photo © 1996 by Steven Lungley |
One day I received the assignment to photograph Frankie Venom. The music editor was trying to fill me in, telling me he was the lead singer of a band called Teenage Head. I nodded my head, but needed no such introduction.
My teenage years were dominated by comic books, movies, skateboards and punk rock. Not everyone I hung out with claimed interest in all of those topics, but all the skaters loved punk.
A formative experience was on June 2, 1980 when one of our favourites – a rocking punk band from Hamilton, Ontario called Teenage Head – were coming to Toronto to play at the Ontario Place Forum. Admission to the Forum was free with admission to the park, so all the skaters headed down early in the afternoon, and we took over row 2 in one section of the Forum.
We hung out all day and were rewarded with a fantastic, raucous, unbelievable sold-out show. When I got home, my parents were frantic with worry. Apparently, mobs of fans had arrived at Ontario Place and paid for admission to the park grounds, only to discover that they could not gain access to the show in the now completely full Forum. In frustration and anger, they decided to start causing trouble instead. The local news reports named this the Ontario Place Riot and those of us inside the show had no idea at all of what was going on outside.
The band went through some rough times and a couple of years later, Teenage Head also played my high school. The punks and art students were at the front, the rockers at the back. The rockers were threatening much violence on our heads after the show. Before exiting, everyone I was with pulled off their studded belts and wrist straps and wrapped them around their knuckles, in preparation of the rockers retribution.
Noting happened. Apparently the rockers got drunk behind the school and went home early.
Jump forward to me working in the media and I’m being told that Frankie Venom will be coming to my studio for a photo shoot. This was my anti-Metallica moment. This was a chance for a one-on-one with someone who’s records I owned, and adored. Frankie was part of my teenage years and I was excited.
On any assignment, the newspaper preferred that I shot colour film, because if an advertiser paid for a colour ad, then that page might feature a colour editorial photograph. Sometimes, if I thought a photo opportunity might yield something that would be worthy of my portfolio, I would go beyond the art department requirements and shoot something for myself as well.
In this case, I was an excited, 14 year-old fan who decided to give Frankie the star treatment and do part of the shoot on a 4”x5” view camera, using Polaroid Type 55. This was a large format, instant B&W film that resulted in both a positive print to look at and a negative to print with later on. On a per frame basis, it was an expensive process, but I loved the look of the large negatives and was willing to go over budget on film supplies occasionally if I deemed the opportunity worthwhile.
Frankie was grateful for my central downtown location. His previous photo shoot was deep into the suburbs in Scarborough and he had to take a very long ride by public transit, including two subways, then connecting to a bus, plus a walk, just to get there. I also don’t believe he was too keen on the photos.
I was prepared with two different lighting set-ups, ready to go when he arrived. Frankie was both very cooperative and collaborative, as he loved the ability to look at the Polaroid images, one at a time, as we shot and become an active participant in the process. It allowed me to adjust my lighting, and him to critique and tweak his appearance and performance as we went. We peeled each sheet apart together, at my kitchen counter, discussing any possible adjustments before making another attempt. I remember him loving the results, and the B&W final you see here is the one that we both approved of.
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| Frankie Venom. Photo © 1996 by Steven Lungley |
The newspaper decided to go with the more conventional – and comical – colour images, but this B&W of Frankie has always been one of my personal favourites. This is the first time it has ever been published.
Frankie Venom passed away on October 15, 2008.
R.I.P. Frankie.
Obit here:
Teenage Head details here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teenage_Head_(band)
Ontario Place riot details:
Technical details: B&W, Topcon 4”x5” view camera with 150mm lens using Polaroid Type 55 Neg/Pos. film. Colour shot on a Bronica ETRsi 645 medium format camera using a 40MM Zenzanon MC f/4 lens on Fuji Reala colour negative film.
Lighting: Studio strobes, Elinchrom monoblock and Dynalite power pack.
frankievenom, teenage_head_official, punk, punk rock, analog, analogfilm, analogphotography. Film, filmphotography, largeformat, largeformatcamera, 4x5film, epsonV700, hamiltonpunk
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