July 16, 2024 |
Elaine Constantine has had a career with many layers. A revered fashion photographer with a whole cohort of high-profile clients, she’s been stationed behind the lens for Vivienne Westwood, Dior and Burberry, but not before she established herself as a key figure in the documentation of subculture. Her latest book, I’m Com’un Home In The Morn’un, which is accompanied by a display at the Martin Parr Foundation in Bristol, explores this section of her career, specifically focusing on the burgeoning community of northern soul dancers across England from the ‘60s to the ‘90s.
Predominantly thriving in the North, the cornerstone for the movement was a rare, fast-paced soul music originating from Black communities in the US which sparked a distinct style of dance featuring glides, shuffles, spins and high kicks. It was largely an unpublicised scene, meaning when Constantine went to document it, she didn’t always feel welcome. “I did it with trepidation because I knew the scene. I knew that publicity and media were not welcome and had never been welcomed by most people,” she explains. “I felt like I was imposing… I’d often just shoot a couple of rolls and then put my camera away in my bag, whereas in a lot of other music scenes, I’d just shoot constantly. It’s one of those scenes they don’t want it commercialised, and I can understand why.”
Shooting across the UK gave Constantine a unique perspective on how the scene morphed from place to place but interestingly, location didn’t seem to have much of an impact. “They don’t tend to differ in a geographical sense. They tend to differ in terms of who’s promoting them,” Constantine says. “I would see a lot of the same characters from venue to venue whether that was London, Manchester, Scotland or even going to Soul weekenders in places like Sweden and Spain,” she highlights, nodding to the consistency of those that partook. “It was a testament to how dedicated these people were that they, and I, would go to that length, to listen to a particular DJ rather than worry about how far [away it was].”
The exhibition and the book chart a wide range of Constantine’s snapshots, which span from those taken in private spaces, like the kitchens of friends, to public spaces like pubs or clubs. “It’s really all based on DJs and who’s playing the records, which records they are, what tempo they are,” Constantine explains, “there’s often a ritual before all-nighters where you might go around someone’s house and play records, you call that a warm-up – there might be a warm-up at a pub [for example]…and then there’s the all-nighter. Playing records at home means people are less guarded, but I would say it’s sort of harder to reach ‘that place’ if you’re at home or if there are only a few people dancing with you,” she says, “It’s so much better to reach that sort of place…when you’re in a big venue and you’re surrounded by hundreds of people and you’re all there…there’s a kind of difference to that, that feels magical.”
The beauty of Constantine’s work is that she wasn’t coming at the community from an outsider’s perspective – she’d already been on the scene previously as just another soul girl enjoying the music but the more she took photos, the more she became an active participant. “People got to know me quite quickly…so that helped obviously because some people were happy to hang around in the morning and dance just for the camera because they felt sorry for me knowing that I needed some pictures for a magazine…I think the crowd are wary of photographers [not involved in the scene] because I think that it’s an odd scene; it looks odd and the things that happen in it are odd. And it’s got a particular etiquette. So I think when people on that scene see a member of the media coming in recording it they’re always kind of a little bit wary so maybe an insider doing it felt alright.”
The oddness of the scene made for brilliant photos and also some strong anecdotes to whip out at parties. “I think the maddest [occurence] was a guy dancing in his slippers and me, and my friends asked him “Why are you dancing in your slippers?”, And he said, “My wife’s burnt all my shoes to stop me going to all-nighters. So that was great!”
Shoe burning aside, the photographs Constantine took of the Northern Soul scene are a testament to the joy and allegiance felt by its participants. A space unconstrained by inhibitions, where people could move and express themselves in whatever way they feel, it seems what she documented was somewhat a dying breed in club culture. With social media and increased interconnectedness making it difficult to feel that a night can stay relatively undocumented and within the confines of the dancefloor, Constantine’s images highlight the vitality of the past and maybe, just maybe, will inspire that same energy for the future.
Photography courtesy of Elaine Constantine. Purchase her book here.
