Year: 2013
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Passing Out in India (It’s Not What You Think)
I had the honor and pleasure of attending the Passing Out Parade at Chennai’s Officers’ Training Academy (OTA). To “pass out” of a military academy means, in a number of countries, to graduate, or move on. In the case of this particular passing out parade, 350 graduates went from being cadets, to being junior officers…
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Ganesha Chaturthi, Chennai Style (Part 2: Video)
Yesterday I explained a bit about the festival currently ongoing in Chennai (and across India) – Ganesha Chaturthi – and posted some photos. It’s hard to really capture the atmosphere of the event with photos only – a video in this case is much more helpful. After watching this video, if you think this is…
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Ganesha Chaturthi, Chennai Style
Today was day 7 of Ganesha Chaturthi, the Hindu festival celebrating the (re-)birth of Lord Ganesha, the son of Shiva and Parvati. To celebrate this festival, many Indian families display a statue of Ganesha in their homes, and after making specific types of offerings and engaging in certain rituals, will immerse the (usually clay) statue…
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Color Film Processing at Home
There are quite a few opinions out there on the ‘net that processing color film yourself is just too darn hard. I’m happy to report that I managed to do it for the first time – and if I can do it, it’s definitely not that hard. You do have to be able to keep…
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Is There Really Such a Thing as Too Many Cameras?
I was very excited to get a package this week containing twelve new old junk vintage cameras, bringing the size of my collection to around fifty. Here are the new arrivals: And (changing subjects briefly, but I’ll come back to this) India has a lot of monkeys – 13 types, in fact – but we…
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At a South Indian Wedding
We had a unique opportunity to attend a South Indian wedding reception the other night. And I knew it would be an excellent photo-op, so I brought along my Ricoh with flash and a couple of rolls of film! As I understand it, a wedding in India used to last several days, but for practical…
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Reflecting on Afghanistan, 2006
Today, September 11, was a day of service to the local community. A group of Americans and Indians did some cleanup, painting, and entertaining of children at a local school for the mentally handicapped. The idea was to get out and do something for the needy, either in honor of those who lost their lives…
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Success! Processing B & W Film for the First Time
This weekend, I set out to try and cut the expenses for my hobby a bit by learning to process the film myself. I ordered the chemicals for both black/white and color film processing a few weeks ago, along with a developing tank from the 1950s I picked up on eBay for 3 bucks. The…
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Preparing to Process my Own Film for the First Time
It has been about seven months since I started fooling around with film photography again, after a break of decades. My daughter suggested we try and load up an old folder we had picked up years ago at a flea market in Belgium – I blogged about it back in February. Today, laughing, she said…
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and yet MORE Adventures with Redscale Photography
Yesterday I blogged about redscale photography with 35mm film – i.e. taking a roll of normal film and flipping the film inside the cartridge so that the light passes through the film itself before it hits the emulsion and causes the chemical reactions that produce an image. The same technique can also be applied, of…
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More Adventures with Redscale Photography
What’s redscale photography? I didn’t know either at first – I saw some “redscale film” for sale and started asking about it, and found out that it’s nothing more than ordinary film, but reversed. Photographic film has layers of chemicals in a certain order to produce the best effect, and as light enters the camera…
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Indian Entrepreneur: Kolam Maker
A successful entrepreneur is someone who offers a solution to a problem. Far too often, I spot people weaving in and out of traffic on foot, trying to sell motorists one type of useless knickknack or another: long, twisty balloons, feather dusters, national flags, wire/bead animals. But we found a guy in Pondicherry who has…
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The Dune Eco Beach Hotel
We stayed at a wonderful, somewhat funky beach resort north of Pondicherry – “The Dune” Eco Beach Hotel. It’s an eco-friendly hotel/resort consisting of a bunch of different huts and houses scattered over 35 acres of lush landscaping. In addition to efforts to be “eco-friendly”, they are also art-friendly, playing host to a crafts and…
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Pondicherry: First Impressions
Although it has been correctly known as “Puducherry” since 2006, even the tourist brochures continue to refer to this southern Indian city as Pondicherry. Formerly the nucleus of “French India” – the French controlled this area for 280 years – the city and the region around it formally joined the rest of independent (in 1947)…
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It’s a Long, Long, Way to Pondicherry
For the first time, we left our 7 or so million neighbors in Chennai and decided to head out of town. South, along the “ECR” or Eastern Coastal Road. Which can be a harrowing experience. I just kept reminding myself that our driver has been doing this for a long, long time – he’s about…
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Getting Better at Black and White
I love my Kodak Monitor 620 – this camera from the 1940s has taken a bit of time to master – especially since I’m new to film / analog photography anyway – but I’m finally getting quality images out of it. Just wanted to share: I’m amazed at the detail you can get from medium…
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More Found Film
I posted yesterday about “found film” – exposed film found in old cameras. If you’re also intrigued and interested in seeing other “found film,” you can check out the following websites: – Westfordcomp.com – a no-frills website listing “found film” – along with bunches of snarky comments – Nerd’s World – a growing collection of…
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Six-16 Brownie Special with Found Film?
I’ve mentioned it before, and I still can’t tell you why: I like taking old rolls of film I come across, and getting them developed to see what secrets they hold. It costs much more than modern film, and probably half the time there are no pictures to be salvaged. People think it’s weird –…
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Vintage Cameras: Zeiss Ikon Ikonta 35
I was reminded today that I have a long way to go in building my vintage camera collection – the world record holder, who lives nearby in Mumbai, has a collection of 4,425. At least, he did when this article was published. The thing about my (much smaller) collection is, however, that I try…
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Chennai Fish Market
Living on the coast has its benefits – fresh fish! Unfortunately, when it all gets gathered in one place, the smell of fish becomes so strong that I quickly lose interest in actually eating any. But it’s good to know it’s there and suggests that what’s being sold in the shops is likely also pretty…
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Chennai: at the Beach
Today’s post is a bit more depressing than most. People in Chennai will proudly tell you Chennai’s “Marina Beach” (also often spelled “Merina”) is the longest beach in the world, or the second longest. I was skeptical, but found that in actuality the beach is the world’s second largest URBAN beach, at 13 km in…
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St. Thomas Basilica or San Thome Church
I had the opportunity to take part in an event sponsored by local Ahmadiyya Muslims encouraging peace between religions, and I was impressed by the diversity of religions represented by the guests at the event. One of these guests represented there told me about San Thome Church in Chennai, so named because it is built…
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More Scenes from the Hood
Sharing some more general impressions from my neighborhood. I go walking around for 15 minutes and every time I come back and feel like I’m about to start reciting “And to Think that I saw it on Mulberry Street.” Today’s post is nowhere near as dramatic – but this is literally 15 minutes’ walking, and…
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Riding in a Rickshaw
This post is from the point of view of the auto rickshaw – or as I like to call it, “the scourge of the developing world’s road network.” OK so maybe that’s a bit over the top; but as exhibit A, I present the fact that in Mumbai, they have banned auto rickshaws from the…
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The Trouble With Black and White Photography
I enjoy looking at good black and white photographs. But maybe it’s just me – I find it extraordinarily difficult to create good black and white photographs. The problem is, we see in color. And I use color references to help me select and frame photographs before I press the shutter button. Then I get…