The start of 2019 has been challenging. My house has endured upheaval because we took the decision, maybe unwisely in some respects, to replace the carpet throughout the ground floor, stairs and landing after 25 years.
Spiders were disturbed and as always, long misplaced items once again saw the light of day. The charity shops were very grateful, the dustmen not so. It was similar to moving house, everything was boxed for ease of moving back and forth; a logistical nightmare with furniture and chattels being moved from room to room in a random circular fashion so that the carpet layer could work sequentially in areas that combined efficiently to suit his working day.
This meant that anything belonging to me went into my office/camera display/ electronic darkroom. My workshop had its fair share of boxes too. To add insult to injury we subsequently planned to make better use of available space to house newly found possessions and decided to replace two chests of drawers with wardrobes. More boxes were moved into my hidey-hole.
I had offered to scan a friend's folder of historic family negatives but my scanner and the negative folder on top of my desk were now buried under 12 inches of documents waiting to be filed together with a large quantity of photographica. Access to cupboards and filing cabinet were blocked with boxes, the contents of which were (and still are) waiting to be unloaded into those storage facilities which they are still blocking.
Anyway, feeling very guilty at my failure to fulfil my offer, I carefully assembled the items covering my desk into small piles of similar items and nick-nacks and piled them on top of already precariously balanced leaning towers of crumpled boxes and piles of paperwork. I did scan about 130 negatives dating back to circa 1960. I scanned about 40 per day over three days, taking about 12 hours in total.
I now have one less item to find a home for. I then looked for my collection of Rollei Collector journals by David Smart dating to back to 1984. I knew they were in my office and as luck would have it, I could see the box behind four piles of boxes and underneath a pile of three boxes. Because I must return the box to its original location, I have more piles of boxes blocking the doorway to my office until I put it all back. I must remind myself to go on a mountaineering course.
Contents:
Front Cover: Olaf Joksch, a musician by Volker Muth.
- 3 In Passing by David Morgan
- 4 Rollei at auction and Projector safety by David Morgan.
- 6 Barcelona Underwater camera Museum by Andrés Clarós.
- 12 Helen by Steve Barham
- 18 Dunreyth Alpacas by John Wild
- 23 Extracts from Davis Smart's Rollei Collector, 1984.
- 26 Great Cameras? Fact or Fiction - Sourced from Internet, Author Unknown
- 31 Film Scanners
Rear Cover: Newton Ferrers and Noss Mayo, photos by John Wild.
