Tag: film (Page 1 of 2)

Using film in Antarctica

12 May 2020 / author

It’s 2020. Why would you take film to Antarctica? No, it’s not because I am some superannuated 40-something wishing I was a hipster – despite what at least one friend definitely thought when he read that first question. I do love film, for many reasons, but the most modern digital cameras surpass it in most ways, at least for an Antarctica visit. So why do it?

Seven Days Trekking in Iceland

15 April 2020 / author

Feel the need to trim down a bit? Try this hike. I went in weighing 74kg. Seven days later, I was 62kg. In between, I’d lugged 30 kg up and down mountains, through rivers, across snow fields and volcanic plains. I’d eaten anything I could lay my hands on, including fish served through my tent window by an Icelandic child in the middle of a downpour. We saw sun, wind, rain and snow, just on the first day. And in all that time, I only had one shower. It was three minutes long and cost about five bucks. Welcome to the Laugavegur – Iceland’s famous and awesome trek.

Once Upon a Time…Northern Vietnam

1 February 2020 / author

Sixteen years of marriage. The ups, the downs, the really downs, the ups again, and the promise of more ups than downs to come. The constant? Love, respect, and commitment.

Our first trip as a married couple was our honeymoon in northern Viet Nam. They were the days – the days of fresh faces and film.

With love for the person who doesn’t need to read this because she’s on all the Journeys, &c.

十一

1 October 2019 / author

Ten years ago today I was stuck in my apartment complex, or 小区, alone and hungry, and lucky to be in, not out. Because the authorities had locked down everything within a few blocks of Tian’anmen Square and Chang’an Avenue for the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. Today’s the 70th, and though we’ve now left China, from all accounts this lockdown is even heavier than the last. For all the wonderful memories I have of China, there are many like this, too: the raw display of power over people; the infinite urge to control.

Eastern Iceland

19 August 2019 / author

I don’t think we’ve ever been as wet as we were in Iceland. Or as cold. Or hungrier, more tired, or dirtier. I formed this judgement only two weeks in to a six week trip on a day it rained so hard for so long that I thought I would never be wetter than this. Late next night, as we moved our tent from a pool of water, beside a lagoon full of icebergs, I realised I was completely wrong in assuming that was the wettest as I’d ever be. No. With every new day, I was going to be wetter yet.

Even our Gore-tex wasn’t keeping the rain at bay. Would I ever be dry again?

Northern Iceland

12 June 2019 / author

“Eight bells and all’s well, ha-haargh…”

Dolphin watching is really cool – when you’re looking for dolphins. But when you go whale watching, you’re really after something bigger. You know, like a whale. These guys had a great guarantee – see a whale or your money back*. Being (back then, in 2005) smart lawyers, we checked the small print under that asterisk. “Whales includes dolphins”. Hmmm. Well, we’re here now, we thought. It’s the last day of the season. Maybe we’ll get lucky.

The Last Litang Horse Festival

4 June 2019 / author

Tibetan horse traders at Litang, western China

In 2006, westerners could travel into the Tibetan regions of Sichuan, Qinghai and Gansu provinces relatively freely. For one shining moment in early 2007, it looked like the group-tour-only restrictions on Tibet Autonomous Province itself would be lifted. It was a Golden Age, the time when China boosters found most evidence for their prediction that the country would continue to liberalize and ultimately democratize. The Olympics changed all that. Riots and protests brought unprecedented clampdowns in western regions. The internet was simply switched off in sensitive areas and politics nationally took a new, harder-line direction from which it’s never really diverted. Since then, troops are often on the ground in sensitive towns, and for a few years there was a spate of self-immolations. Foreigners are often thrown off buses at Kangding and other towns, long before they get anywhere near the western reaches of Tibet. Cynicism and uncertainty grows on the eastern seaboard, though you don’t notice it unless you pay attention. But out west, by most accounts, well, it’s quite, quite different to how it was when we visited.

In amongst all that, the Litang Horse Festival, a longstanding fixture on the Tibetan cultural calendar and the backpacker loop, was cancelled, and stayed that way until very recently.

On our own journey of exploration in the summer of 2006, we saw one of the last Horse Festivals before the big crackdown.

Reykjavik and the Westman Islands

21 May 2019 / author

The burgers are pricey in Reykjavik (and film, oh how it glows).

August 2005. We’d left government office jobs in search of adventure. How did we end up back in government office jobs? After a few months doing that in London, we remembered why we’d left Australia and what we wanted. So on August 12th 2005, after some serious decisions, we took the train to Stansted and embarked on the journey that would ultimately deliver us to Beijing in February 2006. But that was still some way off. Our first stop: Iceland.

We soon discovered it was lucky we’d brought camping equipment and a whisperlite stove. Two burgers and fries at a rustic burger hut on the Reykjavik docks set us back over $60. Remember the days before the GFC wiped out Iceland’s banking sector and demolished its currency? We do. They were expensive! But it was a great place to travel. Read on to find out why.

One morning in Bali, on Provia

20 March 2019 / author

Quiet ceremonies in quiet corners of the world are some of our most memorable or moving episodes. Being invited by your couchsurfer host to an Omani wedding or by Chinese villagers to a special ritual to appease the local spirits transforms a great trip into a significant experience. Most recently, we were privileged to be asked to a small local ceremony at a temple near where we were staying in Bali, Indonesia. Just an hour or two, with local villagers, doing something they do about every month. It was lovely, and interesting, and full of colour. These photos are straight, uncropped low-res scans of Fuji Provia taken on my Bessa R rangefinder, a fully manual (focus and exposure) camera with beautiful lenses.

Olympus XA and expired Tri-X

27 February 2019 / author

From one roll of eight year old Kodak Tri-X in an Olympus XA from the early 1980s. Posted straight from the scans with no processing at all. Not one frame shot with my eye to the finder. I can’t say “analogue is warmer” because – whatever the hipsters say – film is not analogue. So how about “film rules” instead?