About Us:  Sheer Image Video Productions UK

Some decades ago a small part-time photographic enterprise was set up in the UK which operated during evenings and weekends. Normal workdays were taken up with more important full-time occupations. The partnership took (and developed) b/w pictures and later colour slides of domestic events such as weddings, anniversaries, outings and parties etc. 

Family portraits were taken in a small rented studio. This was during the closing years of rock n roll and the opening years of the twist. A year or two later a request came to take casual pictures in local dance venues one of which was well known for its 50's rock n roll sessions and where some very attractive girls could be seen wearing those feminine flared skirts and petticoats and jiving and twirling in a most appealing way. Unfortunately none of these negatives or prints survived but it set the seed for later glamour pictures in a similar theme. 

It was also at this time when pin-up magazines called Spick & Span and Beautiful Britons were widely on sale in the UK. These popular little publications were unique insofar that they featured mainly non-professional girls in ordinary situations and everyday clothes of the period. Several of these girls went on to become film stars such as Sabrina, Belinda Lee and Shirley Ann Field and it was decided to submit a number of girls taken in the dance halls and later in glamour poses to the publishers for possible inclusion in these magazines.

Eventually, small photo-sets each containing 10 b/w glamour prints were sold for £3 ($4.50) and advertised in several photographic publications. Still pictures were occasionally complemented by b/w and colour 8mm cine film. This part-time activity continued on and off for the next 20 years or so.

With the advent of domestic video in the late 1970's, a new company was set up under the name of Sheer-Image Video Productions (later UK added) and 6 one hour videos were made in the same 1950's and early 60's theme and advertised in the 'What Video' magazine - a leading UK video publication. The videos became very popular and photography and cine film were discontinued. 

Since then Sheer-Image have made over 50 hours of one hour tapes as part of a series called "Old Fashioned Glamour" in which over 100 attractive girls are featured. (A separate company is engaged in commercial, social and industrial video coverage). Apart from a few exceptions, the company has maintained its policy of featuring non-professional ordinary girls with the emphasis on nostalgic and homely glamour and fashions of the period. There are no top-less or nude scenes.

Distribution of the videos is now worldwide, mainly via the Internet, and operated by company associates M & D AMERICANA & COLLECTIBLES in the USA (for the NTSC format) JOHN AND PENNY JAQUES in France (for the SECAM system) and SHEER-IMAGE VIDEO PRODUCTIONS UK in the UK and Europe (for the PAL format). Sheer-Image will continue the series and will also be making available, to subscribers, some of the old prints taken so many years ago where the original negatives survive.

This is nostalgic fun fashion at its best and we at Sheer-Image along with our associates, will continue to provide what we hope will be an enjoyable look back for our customers, either as a new experience or to re-kindle fond memories, of the glamour of an era when girls seemed to look so lovely and appealing in their feminine fashions of those years.

About Us:    M & D Americana & Collectibles

M & D Americana & Collectibles is a small home-based part time Internet Marketing and Design Company operating from Rochester, NY USA. The company was founded in 1997 and it's first site "Rewind the Fifties" went online. Over the 3 plus years since many changes have occurred. The original site was mainly (and still is) a nostalgic fun site which supports internet auction sales and partner sales of Nostalgic and Americana Collectible items. 

Since then the company has established many partnerships with several other Internet sites of a similar nature and all in a Nostalgic theme.

The company's beginnings are similar to Sheer Image Video Productions UK in that currently it's operation is evening and weekends and has not yet made the transition to a full time business, however the commitment and interest is certainly full time.

M & D Americana & Collectibles now operates the US Mirror site for Sheer Image Video Productions UK supplying NTSC VHS format tapes for North America and other NTSC format countries. Plans are to work directly with the parent company in the UK to bring new products to the US market and to continue to provide a "look back" on what seems to be a more innocent time in history using the current and future media tools known collectively as the Internet.