#cross processing

it looks bitchin

Against a few photography rules

CASSANDRA WILSON Toronto 1990

The turn of the ‘90s was a great time to be into jazz, as there were still plenty of legendary musicians alive and performing as well as a whole new group of musicians emerging in the last years before the creeping spectre of “museum music” began to settle on jazz. One of these new talents was the singer Cassandra Wilson, who had emerged from a M-Base, a group of Brooklyn-based musicians, with a unique vision that applied improvisation to folk, country and pop songs, arriving independently at her version of fusion from similarly inspired musicians like Bill Frisell, Wayne Horwitz and Robin Holcomb. And if you were paying attention you could be fans of all these people and even see them play live. This was how I ended up shooting Cassandra Wilson’s portrait backstage at an upscale club on Toronto’s “Mink Mile” in late 1990.

Cassandra Wilson was born in Mississippi to a musician father and a teacher mother and performed with R&B, funk and pop cover groups while studying college. After living briefly in New Orleans she ended up in New York City and found a place in the M-Base collective with musicians like Steve Coleman, Greg Osby, Geri Allen and Jean-Paul Bourelly. Her had a sudden hit with her third solo album, Blue Skies – a collection of covers of standards and ‘30s pop songs that I remember playing almost non-stop when it came out. She was promoting her next album, Jumpworld, when she came to Toronto in the fall of 1990 and I made a point of getting an assignment to photograph her as part of my ongoing ambition to follow in the footsteps of photographers like William Claxton and Dennis Stock and document jazz musicians whenever I could.

I knew there was probably a clean white wall somewhere backstage at the club where I photographed jazz singer Cassandra Wilson so I showed up with a basic set-up: two Rolleiflexes, a single flash bounced into an umbrella and a bunch of colour and black and white film. I had been refining this set-up for several years and knew it could deliver simple but effective results if I placed my flash in precisely the right spot. I knew that my subject was photogenic enough – I just had to get her to look as interesting as her music was to me.

I was heavily into cross-processed colour film at this point, and particularly higher speed colour slide film that I’d process through C-41 chemistry to produce dramatically saturated negatives with an occasionally flattering colour shift. Wilson obliged with a range of expressions over four rolls and one shot in particular (at top), her hand elegantly touching her face while she looked off camera, that I made a portfolio piece for years. Cassandra Wilson has continued to record, and though her last record as a leader, Coming Forth by Day, came out ten years ago, the National Endowment for the Arts named her as an NEA Jazz Master in 2022.

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The Tyne Bridge was completed in 1928 and has become a defining symbol of Newcastle and the wider county of Tyneside. It was designed by engineering firm Mott, Hay and Anderson and built by Middlesborough steel maker Dorman Long & Co.

My hotel was right next to the bridge. it was the first thing I saw when looking out of my window during my stay.

holga x-process