Outfitted with a Polaroid SX-70 camera and often dressed like a moll out of noir films, Sharon Smith spent the years between 1980 and 1988 photographing people at storied New York City dance clubs like Area, Roseland Ballroom, the Roxy and the Palladium. Along the way she also snapped stars like Iggy Pop, Madonna, David Bowie and Prince when they were still young.
Somewhat as 19th-century photographers inadvertently recorded ectoplasmic beings through their lenses, Ms. Smith in her Polaroids captured the fugitive spirit of a rip-roaring city in the days before AIDS laid waste to it. Her souvenir photos, which were developed and paid for by club-goers on the spot, are the focus of a new book, “Camera Girl,” published by Idea. It is an important addition to a canon of work by gifted and self-taught shutterbugs like Bill Butterworth, Chantal Regnault or Jamel Shabazz, who documented seemingly imperishable, yet all too fragile, elements of bygone urban nightlife.
In an interview that has been edited and condensed, Ms. Smith, 73, spoke about capturing the “sex-crazed,” “drug-fueled” and “gender-bending” — to use three terms in her book — club scene of 1980s New York. She also described what people wore to the parties.
How did you get started?
When I first pitched myself to the Ritz, they already had a cigarette girl. So I became the camera girl. I took pictures of people and sold them for a couple of bucks. I had to come up with my own persona for the situation, so I decided to call myself Rose. I wore these slinky black dresses and pumps, like I was a photographer from a ’40s movie. That became my role.
Before you started taking pictures at clubs, you were taking them in the streets. Isn’t that right?
Originally, I started going out to Coney Island and shooting with a Polaroid SX-70 camera. I always loved the whole process of shooting, the performative aspect — standing there for 10 minutes waiting for the image to emerge. Since this was a job for me — I was making a living selling these pictures — eventually I went looking for clubs and the ones that had the most clientele.
What were they?
The Ritz had huge crowds on the weekend. So did Red Parrot and Roseland. I also did Studio 54 and Area and, later on, the Palladium, 4D and Mars. Whenever I would enter a place, I was like, “Wow, this is a whole new world.”
How so?
The Red Parrot was a huge gay scene. I remember one day I was there and looking at the dance floor. It was like, “Oh my God, there are a thousand men dancing together.” It was totally a different time.
Each place had a little bit of a different flavor. Roseland had an older crowd, more Queens and the far reaches of Brooklyn. That was before midnight. After midnight, all these hip-hop kids would come in and they were dressed like suburban doctors — jogging suits with matching sneakers.
And Kangol hats and “dookie roll” necklaces, which — being semi-facetious here — suburban doctors had not yet started wearing. Did you ask people to pose?
I did not ask people to pose. I might have asked someone to move a little to the left or right. I was really good at finding the places in every club where I liked to photograph.
New York, New York had a camouflage background in the ladies’ room. The Ritz had these great banquettes. So did Roseland. Red was very popular for the banquettes. I have one image of a woman sitting alone. She has a blue shirt on, dark hair and she’s just sitting there framed by all this red.
If you were selling the Polaroids, how did you have enough for a book?
If a particularly interesting-looking person was in front of my camera, I would ask if could I do one for myself and add it to my personal collection.
Given the paranoia created by the widespread use of cellphone cameras, it is hard to imagine celebrities like those you shot being approachable. But then again, the era of capital “C” celebrities flanked by bodyguards and publicists hadn’t yet begun.
People have said, “How did you screw up the courage to ask?” I’m a photographer. It is hard to conceive of in today’s world, but it was so much easier to approach somebody just hanging out at a club and relaxed.
Case in point, Madonna.
I saw Madonna very early on at Roseland, before she was a big deal. What I hope the book expresses is that people were more free, the world was more porous, AIDS had not really registered yet. Yes, it was the Reagan years and the politics were repressive. But people still enjoyed going out and being together. There was this electric sense of possibility. The point of demarcation was 1987, when people started dying. Everything changed after that.
How were things different before that?
It was, like, “I’m going out. Who am I going to be tonight?”
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