well i was right, america is a long way off & i was fine.
the flying bit took ages and after my second flight i decided to sleep instead of driving. which was the right decision, it allowed me to stop and take photos on the way the following day. driving for miles in a straight line is weird espcially when listening to country music.
so i got there tuesday and checked in to the Super8 motel- its not often the lodgings are in context. found Dwayne’s photo lab and went in with a couple of rolls to be processed. introduced myself and got talking to a fella who had a car load of slides developed, all of trains (how long will that take to go through etc), when a chap from the new york times came out from back wanting to talk to the fella and the lady from london england. he seemed to think we were news worthy
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/30/us/30film.html?_r=1
i had made friends with a flickr member in parsons so i called him and he gave me a tour of the town, which was really kind of him. i was all enthusiastic about being somewhere new which semed to lift his boredom about being somewhere old hat. the next day i went to the council offices to enquire about the very closed art centre, which was indeed closed, but they put on exhibitions in the town hall so after a natter i took a few emails and the hope of putting on some sort of exhibition. spent the rest of the daylight taking photos around the town and popped back to Dwaynes to hand some more film over. oh, and met a group from belgium making a film about traveling & filmmaking, who were cool. Dwaynes was really busy on thursday morning, there were reporters filming and reporting on photographers and photographers photographing photograhers, and all were filming photographing Dwayne’s lab. they were So accomodating – Dwayne was there welcoming people, all the staff were wonderfully communacative and smiley and we were allowed to explore the inner workings of the site. which is what i did with my last roll. my last frame was taken of the office clock as it turned 12.00 the cut off point for handing film over, and as my camera rewound i came over all emotional, i really didnt want it to rewind.
i was all melancholic watching peolple use up their last rolls of film & it was interesting to see digital users clicking away with no countdown pressure. Dwayne was a pleasure to talk to and had time for everybody, a true gentleman, and i feel very honoured to be captured on his roll of film-the last roll of kodachrome to be processed
