[35mm film-to-digital conversions]

Spark up a conversation

~Reviewer Rob

Some may remember when a girl would approach you in a bar with an unlit cigarette and a certain “look” signaling that you needed to give her a light.

I wasn’t a smoker but after a while I learned to carry a lighter in my pocket so as not to be a dud and miss an introduction. Photos here are by me somewhere in downtown San Diego, probably mid-1997. 35mm (ASA 400, maybe) Sav-On film negative digitized in Photoshop last night after all these years.

Then in 1997 Sacramento outlawed smoking in California bars after January 1, 1998. It was the first state in the country to do so, prohibiting indoor smoking in nightspots, bar/restaurant combinations, bingo parlors, cardrooms, and casinos on a statewide basis.

Below are some 25-year-old images from the time immediately preceding the bar-ban. I was converting 35mm color negs to digital the other night and hadn’t seen them since they were shot.

#analogphotography #colorfilm #downtownsandiego #barscene #nightlife #girlswithcigarettes #smokingfetish