Tuesday, 4 November 2008

Tanning Salons


© Caroline Edge

I’ve been hanging out in tanning salons lately; in fact I even went on a sun bed the other day, all in the name of research, of course. Trying to create a contrast to the more ‘spiritual’ photographs that I have taken at the eclipse, solstice etc. However the sun bed photos have a spiritual atmosphere all of their own, if I don’t sound a wanker saying this about my own work. This is because of the light; the eerie glow of the blue, the unusual effect by having this enveloping light source, and the shorter wave length of UV. Mostly though the pictures remind me of mortuary slabs in TV police procedural dramas. The light makes the body seem lifeless. Being on the beds is akin to being slowly roasted in an industrial cooker. Surprisingly hot and really claustrophobic. I only managed about two and a half minutes but now I feel really good for having a dose of sunshine- so begins the slippery slope! By January I’ll probably have full scale tanorexia. My beloved, being a man, insisted on going on for twice the recommended time and now has sun burn. I feel a bit guilty, for me the whole idea of going on a sun bed seems wildly exotic and massively irresponsible, yet for masses of people, particularly in the North of Britain this is normal. The list of tanning salons in Manchester extends into the hundreds. The owner of the salon showed me older beds which were more powerful and looked even more 80’s factory. Apparently people travel from the other side of Manchester for the sake of this additional radiation. I only they took Melanotan II instead, after they got over being violently sick from the injections, they could be horny as well as brown! There’s nowt as queer as folks…..