Back in the day
A wander through the AP archive. This week we pay a visit to December 1984
1984
THIS issue we pass through the magic portal back to the wonderland that was 1984. This cover image is really shocking – you’d think with all our photographic expertise and fancy studio equipment back then we’d be able to avoid blowing out the highlights around the model’s hair, but there you go. Magazine publishers weren’t quite as ‘woke’ back then, so moving quickly on, there were some interesting features, including a travel guide to Bologna written by Sam Haskins (again, we apologise for the clanking headline). Gone are the days when this kind of travelogue would get you in a photo magazine, as everyone is a travel photographer these days... The cover-mentioned flash guide was full of useful tips too, and reading it makes you realise how spoilt we are today with our cheap, cost- effective TTL flashguns and huge range of affordable lighting accessories. Telephone number ISO levels and fast affordable prime lenses are also things we take for granted now, but shooting after dark wasn’t so easy back in 1984, as the other main feature reveals. Returning to the cover, it could have been worse – they might have gone with Duran Duran as the model!