Before I came to Yemen, I sold off all of my photo gear and started from scratch. I didn’t use the vast majority of the stuff at all, it was just stuff that I liked owning. It felt pretty good to get rid of it actually, a load off of my mind. I had grand plans for my photography over here. I wanted big negatives, but it had to be easy to carry around. I bought a full Horseman VHR set-up with a new tripod, two 35mm cameras, and an enormous amount of film.
As it turns out, it was going to be too expensive to bring everything over here, so I left it all back home. I only brought a small digital camera and a tripod. I’m glad I didn’t bring the big rig, and the little Sony camera I brought has served me well, but I do miss shooting with a “real” camera and I’m getting really frustrated with the technical limitations of digital and of the camera itself. So I’ve been plotting a way to take the pictures that I want over here.
Right now, the biggest problem is the expense of developing that amount of film (200+ rolls). I think that I’ve found a way around that, I’ve found a lab that can develop 120 film at a very Yemeni price. That isn’t fool proof of course, it’s really easy to get bad developing back home, I’m sure that the chemistry isn’t kept in as good tolerance and that I can expect some scratches and whatnot from the processors here. The only way to find out if they are any good is by using them… My original plan was to ship everything back to my old job for developing and scanning and then just have the cd sent back to me. I could count on them to develop things properly, but they are much more expensive, plus the shipping by itself would have cost me a fortune. I may go back to that plan if the local guys botch the film up bad enough. I would just have to send lots of rolls at a time and cut back on the total numbers of rolls shot…
The camera situation has also been a bit of a problem. My Horseman is capable of outstanding results, but it is a bit much to lug around here. My solution to that problem is something that I used to have but had gotten rid of in the quest for better equipment. I’ve bought an older, Chinese “folder,” a medium format camera that folds up into a very compact package. I had a Russian one before but I decided that it wasn’t good enough. In truth, they are capable of decent results and they are a lot of fun to use. More importantly, they are really easy to carry around.
When I come home for Christmas, I’ll pick up my new camera, my pinhole camera (one of the few things I kept from my old collection) and all of my 120 film and bring them back. I plan on being out of 120 film about the same time I come back for my cousin’s wedding in July. That’s when I’ll pick up my 35mm cameras and all of that film (100+rolls). I’m going to look around for a reasonably priced scanner so that I can put some of my pictures online. I’ve even thought about renting some darkroom time to print my own stuff, but I haven’t really looked into that yet.
In any case, I hope to up and shooting in Jan.