Send in your photos, please! Today’s batch of travel photos comes from reader James Blilie. His comments are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.
Here’s another group of street photos that I took. All of these were taken on my bicycle trip around the world in 1990-92.
All are scanned Kodachrome 64, shot on a Pentax LX camera with various Pentax A-series and M-series lenses. I now own none of this equipment except the original 1978 K-1000 camera that was my first camera and a replacement Pentax M 50mm f/2.0 lens, just like the first lens I had.
Young man on the Big Island of Hawaii, cast-net fishing.
Group of sugar cane field workers, on the road in Fiji (main Island of Viti Levu). They came out of the fields to this bus stop, carrying their big cane cutting knives. They seemed rather intimidating; but were teddy bears. They are posing with my friend’s fully loaded bicycle.
Young boy, Fiji. He was the son of the right-hand man of the owner of a campground we stayed at. I imagine he has children of his own by now.
View of the old town in Singapore, 1991. I doubt much is left of the old town now. I hope they saved at least some of it. Singapore seems to be mainly chrome and glass.
The nieces of the owner of a home-stay (like a B&B in the US) where went spent a night in Peninsular Malaysia, along the east coast highway. They are looking at the photo prints of the USA that I had brought with me plus some photos from New Zealand and Australia.
Young man showing how much cargo is transported in Thailand on those little 125cc motorbikes, seemingly the national mode of transportation. Sungai Kolok, Thailand
Scenes in traffic, Bangkok, Thailand. The motorbike taxis are amazing. I shot the photo of the young woman on the back of one of them to remember how these women would perch on the back, never hanging on, as they zipped through traffic, dangling a sandal from theirs toes, unruffled by all of it. The second shot is at a taxi stand.
Swimmer, Chao Praya River, Bangkok Thailand:
Shipping with United Parcel Service, Bangkok Thailand. Same brown paint on the UPS truck! Same brown uniform on the UPS driver. We sent our bikes onward from Bangkok to Denmark, knowing that we weren’t going to bicycle in: Thailand (beyond getting to Bangkok), Nepal, India, Kenya, and Egypt.
Finally, public transport in Kathmandu, Nepal. I have no idea how people survived this kind of thing. We rode in some (sardine-) packed matatus in Kenya; but nothing like this! We either walked or got taxis in Kathmandu. The bus trip from Kathmandu to Pokhara in 1991 was pretty exciting. [JAC: It wasn’t much different when I did it about ten before that. If you’re on a long-distance Nepalese bus, try to get onto the roof and hang on; it’s less crowded and the scenery is great, though of course it’s not exactly safe.]
These are great photos – thank you for sharing!
Fascinating! Thanks for the photos and the comments. One does indeed wonder how things are different now in places we visited. Really, a bicycle trip around the world? Wow!
What an adventure! My heart quickened just imagining this trip.
You guys must have been extraordinarily intrepid, James! Thanks for the fabulous fotos. The Fijian boy is adorable.
Great pics!
Mama, don’t take my Kodachrome away.
😀
I’ve been all-digital since 2004 (wow, 17 years already). Still have too many KR 64 slides (packed tight in boxes). All scanned but I can’t, yet, purge the originals.
The scanner I have used for 12 years has been the Epson V500 Perfection scanner. (The current version is the V600.)
I can whole-heartedly recommend this scanner.
Easy to use. You can do 4 slides per setup or up to 12 35mm negatives or 2 6cm (square) negatives.
Software is a bit odd and takes a little learning, but basically easy to use. It does through-transmission scanning for slides and negatives.
It does up to 12,000 dpi. I mostly use 2400 dpi which is good for almost any use and much quicker than 4800 or 6400. At 6400 dpi, you get about 9 pixels per grain of Kodachrome 64, which is significant over-sampling. 2400 dpi prints well at 13X19 inches.
A good film brush (for brushing prior to scanning) is essential. My brush routine is: Brush the upper part of the scanner (light source; I do this about every tenth scan), brush the lower part of the scanner, brush both slides of the slide and place in the frame. (For negatives it’s a little different. The negatives are retained in the scanning frame by a clip. Therefore, you can hold up the frame with the negatives in it. So: Brush upper, brush both sides of negatives, brush lower, place frame on the lower, scan.)
Great photos, Jim! I love photos that combine my three favorite subjects: street, travel, and people, and yours are always winners.
My first camera was a Honeywell Pentax Spotmatic with the 50mm f1.4 lens, a terrific camera and lens for learning about the ins and outs of photography.
Great pix. I visited many of those countries around that time also. I’ve always liked Fiji and its people. I grew up in Australia/NZ so these places weren’t so far away. Your photos took me back! Thank you.
D.A.
NYC
Thank you! Will you also take us on the rest of your tour? (Or maybe you already have, but I wasn’t there to see it.) Why did you decide not to use your bikes in Kenya, India etc?
Nepal, Kenya, Egypt: We decided not to bike in certain places based on priorities. In Nepal, we wanted to walk (trek) through the mountains, in Kenya, we wanted to see the wildlife. Biking did not seem like the best way in these places. We were not going EFI by any means. Bikes were just a handy (and free) means of transport in most of the places we went to.
If you search for “Jim Blilie photo page” online, you will find a link to my trip. I will be sending Jerry more photos from these travels, so I don’t want to link to it here.
I should have stated this a bit better: “If you search for “Jim Blilie photo page” online, you will find a link to my photo web page, which includes a link to my trip.”