Colin Lane: The Strokes: Is This It front cover

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Important technical note

The 665 Polaroid negative from which the 16×20 inch photograph is made by hand in the darkroom has some small inherent imperfections around the border areas and on parts of the image, and we wanted to give purchasers some information on this.

Colin explains:

“If you look at the thigh you’ll see a light water stain which is on the negative permanently. This was shot on 665 Polaroid which was a B&W polaroid that yielded a positive and a negative when peeled. Back then I was “Mr. 665”. You would have to peel the excess paper from the negative and then put it in a tupperware filled with water to soak. The water would turn black as the coating on the neg dissolved, and then you would need to rinse it and hang it to dry. I would have 10-20 negs in the tupperware on top of each other, and the fragile nature of the film would almost guarantee some marks. I’m lucky there’s not a big scratch on it! These inherent markings always occur with 665 polaroid negs. It’s from the peeling process. I love imperfections and I understand some people might not like that but I think others won’t mind. For me the imperfections just add to the street cred of the image.”

 

 

SKU: CL-Strokes-ISI Categories: ,
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Description

The front cover photograph from The Strokes’ debut album, Is This It.

Colin Lane shares the story behind the cover:

“I took that picture a year or more before I met the band. The girl in the photograph was my girlfriend at the time. I had just done a fashion shoot for The Observer Sunday magazine, I believe, and the stylist had left all of the clothes at my apartment to be picked up the next day. I saw the black Chanel gloves and asked my girlfriend to pose for some pictures with them. She had just gotten out of the shower and was like, “No I’m tired I’m going to bed”. I pleaded a bit and convinced her to do ten pictures (a pack of 665 polaroid).”

“Cut to the day we were doing the press shoot in the spring of 2001. The band were leaving the very next day for a tour of Europe and Australia and RCA was pressuring them to pick a cover before they left. Luckily for me I had brought my portfolio with me that day just so the band could see the kind of work I do. We were on the RV and Julian was flipping through it and saw The Ass Shot (as it has come to be called) and was like “That would be a cool cover. Would you mind if we used that?” Obviously I said of course not and so everybody was happy! We had a cover.”

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