Stories from strangers

I see from looking at the past few posts that photos are beginning to take over this blog. That is OK by me. I continue to be fascinated by the information that they store. In a previous posting, I discussed how my personal photos store metadata that unlock my memories. This evenings photos hail from complete strangers, yet they too store wonderful information. However, rather than accessing one's memory banks, photos such as these access the imagination. The journalistic instincts kick in with the hope of answering 'Who', 'What', 'Where', 'Why' and 'How'. Take for example this photo:
My first question in seeing this photograph is 'why is the gentleman on the left wearing purple pants?' Is it the only pair he owns? Are they his special crocodile-handling pants? Is he color blind? Did his daughter pick out the pair of pants? With regard to answering some of the journalistic questions, I have a bit of an advantage because I was told in advance that the photos came from Papua New Guinea and in seeing the rest of the series, I know that this was some sort of crocodile farm. That it the slides came from Papua New Guinea were also confirmed by this photograph:

Thanks to google, I learned tonight that Varirata National Park was the first designated national park in Papua New Guinea. The '76' stamped on the slide frame would also indicate that these photos were taken 3 years after Varirata opened in 1973. You will also note the aspect ratio of the photo. It is square. One would assume that meant it was scanned from a medium-format transparency. You would be incorrect. I have been fooling with photography for just over 21 years now. Only tonight did I learn that several camera makers had indeed made square-format 35mm cameras. The frame size is 24mm x 24mm. Now I am on a mission to find me one.....

The Great Auto Race

On Monday night, I attended a lecture at the Explorer's Club with PG & IW called 'Bandits, Guns & Autos: The Great Race of 1908.' In an effort to prove the viability of the automobile to the general public, several international teams raced from Times Square in New York to Paris, by way of the Pacific. The race organizers, working on some faulty intel, decided to start the race on my birthday February 12th in order that the teams could transit from Alaska to Russia by way of the 'frozen' Bering Strait. Needless to say, this didn't happen and the few teams that did make it across the United States (driving countless miles over the railway lines) were shipped by freighter to Japan and then to Russia from there. All told, it took 169 days and the American team in a Thomas Flyer won the race. More details can be found here: www.TheGreatAutoRace.com

I enjoyed one of the quotes regarding the race from the London Daily Mail in 1908. "Is such a journey possible? Theoretically it is, but it must be borne in mind that the motor car, after woman, is the most fragile and capricious thing on earth."