2015
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Jaipur, India: Street Photography Goldmine
I have done a few posts already about our trip to Jaipur, India. It was only a 4-day trip, but as I have been looking through our photos, it’s surprising the number and quality of interesting shots we were able to get in such a short time. Especially considering that it was 104 Fahrenheit and
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Found Film: Photos that tell your fortune!
I’m often surprised by what I discover on a roll of “found film” – but this roll was especially unusual: these photos included a fortune on each one! All mundane photos, shots taken of almost random places on the streets of Portland, Maine. I was able to track down the location based on the unusual
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MORE Monkeying Around in Jaipur
Our recent trip to Jaipur, in Rajasthan, India’s largest state, was short but we brought back a lot of photos. I posted awhile back about our encounter with monkeys our first day there; it turns out this would not be our only encounter! Our second day there, we decided to make our way to what
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I Wonder What Mrs. Mangelly Would Say Now
Way back in 1977 – I was about 10 at the time – I wanted to learn the piano. But we had to be concerned with something called a “weight allowance” – the maximum weight the US government will agree to transport from assignment to assignment at their expense, every time they ask you to
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Monkeying Around in Jaipur
With only a month or so before we leave India, we finally made it to Rajasthan, the country’s largest state, located on the northwestern border with Pakistan, and home to the inhospitable Thar Desert. Literally translated as the “land of kings”, Rajasthan could easily be the destination for a half dozen or more individual trips
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Found Film: Portland, Maine
I occasionally acquire rolls of film on eBay or inside old cameras that haven’t been developed, and were never seen by the photographers. Â You never know – sometimes they’re old, sometimes they’re not. Â This roll is not. At first, I thought this was shot in Boston. But boats move around, and this could be any
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Life Goes On in Kathmandu (part 1)
I wish my visit to Nepal had been under different circumstances. I arrived late on April 27 – after hours on the tarmac in New Delhi, waiting for a parking berth to be on the forecast so the plane could take off. Thankfully the airline arranged for an extra meal to be delivered while we
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Having a Whale of a Time in Sri Lanka
We recently took our first trip to Sri Lanka. Growing up on the opposite side of the globe, the only thing you would hear about Sri Lanka was the ongoing civil war, which dragged on for more than a quarter of a century, resulted in between 60,000 and 100,000 deaths, and displaced nearly 300,000 people.
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Found Film: The Happiest Place on Earth
It has been some time since the last time I wrote a “normal” found film post – i.e., one which hadn’t yet been developed.  In fact, since October, I have been sharing a box of already-developed found film shot by the late Raymond Albert. I had a bunch of film piling up, and I have
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Hark!! The Breadman Cometh
Every afternoon until well into the evening, at approximately half-hour intervals, you can hear an odd whistling sound loop in the village where we are staying, just outside of Weligama, at the southern tip of Sri Lanka. At first I thought it was the “ice cream man” but eventually we managed to find the source
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The Ashram: Following in the Beatles’ Footsteps
One of the places we were eager to see on our recent trip to Rishikesh, in northern India, was the so-called “Beatles Ashram.”  The former ashram of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, on the left bank of the Ganges overlooking Rishikesh, is where the Beatles went in 1968 to learn about Transcendental Meditation.   They wrote a few
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Strolling (and Rafting) through Rishikesh
Not too long ago, we had a chance to visit Rishikesh, in northern India and the Himalayan foothills, known as a top yoga and adventure travel destination. You may have also heard about Rishikesh as the site of the ashram where the Beatles stayed in the late 1960s, and where they sought (and found, apparently)
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Confessions of an EBay Junkie
This is what sixty bucks worth of junk looks like: OK, so I admit, I have a problem. Â I like to go on eBay and type “vintage camera” into the search bar and see what comes up. Â And I sort by time remaining, so invariably an interesting camera or two will pop up with 3
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Raymond Albert’s Photos: Postscript
Since October 2014, I have been scanning, restoring and sharing rolls of film that were found in an estate sale and subsequently put up on eBay for sale. Â Unlike the “found film” I usually develop after it has been neglected in an old shoebox or left inside a forgotten camera for decades, this film was
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Petri 7S Test
Half a year ago, my mother-in-law asked me if I could use an old Petri 7S and a Minolta SRT101 they had laying around and after some quick research online I responded “most definitely!” Â The Minolta will be the subject of a later post – this one is about the Petri. The Kuribayashi Camera Industry,
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When 2000 Giant Ganesha Idols are Immersed in the Sea
My Indian friends who grew up nearby tell me it wasn’t always like this. They say when they were growing up, during the festival Ganesh Chaturthi, they would have a small clay statue of Lord Ganesha, one of Hinduism’s most important deities, which would be dissolved in a pond or a container of water at
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The Androscoggin Flood of 1953
The Androscoggin River roars past the Rumford Dam in Maine during the March 1953 flood.  Compare the river to this photo of the same dam taken recently. Since October, I have been sharing a collection of photos rescued from the estate of the late Raymond Albert – believed to have been taken by him in and
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Thousands of bugs were bubbling up out of the ground…you’ll never guess what happened next!
On the grounds of a posh Himalayan resort – where the monkeys are normally kept at bay by G4S guards carrying long sticks – thousands of winged insects were bubbling up from the ground – seemingly from nowhere – and taking wing. It was the weirdest thing, because it was like they were appearing out
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Hiking in a Himalayan Hailstorm
We went on a trek this morning – quite short and easy by trekkers’ standards, but pretty long for old(er) folks staying at a resort in the Himalayas where there’s a golf cart and driver if you don’t feel up to walking down the hill from reception to your room. Â In total it was about
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Raymond Albert’s Photos: One Last Wedding
For months, I have been sharing photos believed to have been taken by Raymond Albert in the late 1940s through the late-1950s.  In total, the collection consists of about 23 rolls.  This post highlights roll number 22, probably from around 1958 or 1959. As an aside, Raymond Albert would have been 89 today. This roll features
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Tirukalukundram
Eighteen kilometers west of the Tamil Nadu tourist town of Mahabalipuram is a town of about 24,000 called Tirukaludundram which is known for its hilltop temple, the Vedagiriswarar temple.  The temple consists of an upper part up on a hill, which can actually be seen all the way from Mahabalipuram: and a lower part consisting of multiple
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Found Film: Grandpa Albert’s House on the Coast
For months, I have been sharing photos believed to have been taken by Raymond Albert in the late 1940s through the mid-1950s.  In total, the collection consists of about 23 rolls.  This post highlights roll number 21. I’m guessing the current roll was taken around 1956 or 1957. In this roll we are mainly looking at
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Backyard Aquaponics Project
A few years ago, my daughter wanted a fishtank for Christmas, which was cool for everyone because we all got to enjoy it in the living room. We kept live plants with the fish, and I noticed at the time that they tended to thrive in the water the fish lived in. Nitrites or nitrates
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Drones, Kingfishers, and Joey Cook’s Ukulele
Goa, India’s diminutive state on the west coast, enjoys a certain reputation as a party destination, full of backpackers and bikinis, in search of yoga or outdoor sports. Â But it also has its wildlife – especially birds. I wrote about our visit to Goa’s Dr. Salim Ali Bird Sanctuary about a year ago when we