Near middle little helps photographer. (1, 1, 1)



_ _ _

After church, I went to find a film developing shop I'd noticed, just outside Dahra. That was after I had a burger - a real Libyan burger: a thin burger, (it needed to be, wait until you hear what else), a slice of cheese, a fried egg, ketchup, harisa, and a few chips thrown in for good measure. Last time I had one of them was on a hot Thursday morning in Janzur... Sometimes, you can see where Proust was coming from. And then I found the film developer's. The first good discovery was that they had the right batteries, A76, for the Chinon. Once I paid for the film to be developed, I learned that they didn't have a film scanner, and queried what I was getting for my Dinar (about 40p, mind): "So you can hold light, look at." I've never heard a better description of development only. It would take a couple of hours, so I'll go back later in the week.

It still remained to get the rest of the roll I had developed the other night scanned in, and eventually I re-found a shop just off Green Square (it had been shut at prayer time last time I went by it). The man there had a wonderfully kind, puzzled, child-like face. He invited me into the back shop. He had just bought a new scanner for 400 dinars, and put it to work. It was an Epson V350 and it wouldn't feed the film. After a few abortive attempts, he got out his old scanner, which worked well enough when you cut the roll into strips.

All of this took a while, and whilst I was there a youngish woman came in, a big lass in a headscarf. She shook hands with the developer, and then to my astonishment with me too. Later, another lass came in and the same happened. She wanted to tell the developer something, and didn't want to in front of me, and kept giggling nervously, not believing that I couldn't understand Arabic. Eventually she whispered some story to him, which partly involved him giving her money to pay off a taxi outside. I don't know what was going on here.

Tarik phoned me and eventually found the place. Two young men waited patiently in the front shop all the while, apparently seeking copies of prints they'd brought. Tarik joined in with working the scanner. When I'd got my 16 files onto the CD, the developer looked stunned that it had worked, and charged me three dinars. I'll go back there.

The xpros, after all that, aren't too good. There's another roll in that Dahra place, hopefully that'll be better. And now I've got a battery I've also got a light meter, which should make a world of difference. Another big problem is mis-wound frames: either the winder's faulty, or (more likely), I'm a bit slap-dash with it.

Battery? Light meter?

TTL!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Leech or flatworm? Ants and Swiss Chard

Image
For the 2nd time in a week or so, (1st time regarding dwarf beans ), I'm following Alys Fowler's advice, this time with regard to Swiss chard .  Long story short, after midsummer plants which often bolt if planted in spring will resist the impulse to do so, probably because of shortening days; (I say shortening, but in Glasgow, in July, we're still getting 18 hours of daylight).   I got a packet of Bright Lights , at a good price, (another reason to wait until July before sowing, lots of bargains, I've noticed). But where to sow them? Most of the 2nd bed is under a tarpaulin, but it wasn't quite big enough to cover the whole bed, so the last 5ft or so went under a sheet of plastic, (in the background of the photo in this post, here .) Transparent plastic was a foolish idea, weeds were growing underneath it, so I covered most of it with sheets of metal from the old shed. I decided to leave the tarp, but use the area beneath the plastic for the chard. Who-ah there
Read more

LTPTP XXV: We Shall Overcome

Image
We shall indeed.  It's a lovely wee tune to learn.  I've almost memorized it this morning, the idea being, when I encounter a piano, I want something to sit down and play on the bugger.  I've a feeling that my keyboard's keys are lighter than a proper piano's, and there'll be a bit of effort transferring the skills I've gotten so far.  Probably, at some point this year, I'll be in workplace with a piano.  I'll print off some simple music and scales, and work at it, but it's likely to be in a public place so I want something to avoid making a twat of myself initially. It feels right that this should be the first tune I learn by heart.
Read more

"Chevy Chase. Fuck ever happen to him?"

Image
As Paulie Walnuts said in The Sopranos. It got me thinking. As it happens, he's been working steadily , but you can see what Paulie means. It's like that with film and television actors: you don't see them in anything for a year or two, and you wonder if they're dead or perhaps on a lengthy charlie and booze session. Or maybe doing proper acting on the stage? Only appearing on the telly gives them meaning to us. That video with Paul Simon was on one of the cable music channels the other day. It always makes me smile. As for Paulie and the rest of the crew, the clock's ticking. Of course, America already knows how things finish, but we don't. My mate Ian was telling me about a friend of his, visiting the States a few weeks ago, flicking through the channels in his hotel bedroom, he hit on a repeat of THE final episode, just beginning. What a quandry! He watched it, as it goes, but kept shtum when he came home.
Read more