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Topics: how I came to photography and how it evolved; travel experiences, environment issues etc.
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02/27/09
How I got into photography (3)
Filed under: General, A photographer´s odysssey
Posted by: site admin @ 6:45 pm

I mentioned that after the Leica III F  I got a Canonflex, in 1959, not long after it was launched. I used it during my military service in the Congo (then a Belgian colony). When my military service ended I stayed in the Congo, hitchhiking across the country from Katanga in the south-east to the Ruwenzori Mountains, the  Nyiragongo and Nyamuragira volcanoes in the north-east. I was using the first Kodachrome which had an ASA (now ISO) of 10. I still have an image taken in 1960 online at the Getty Stone collection made with the combination Canonflex - Kodachrome I in the Congo:

Go to gettyimages.com, Image, Creative, Rights-Managed, and search for my name (TinyURL: http://tinyurl.com/bea7zw). It´s the African woman with a lip ornament).

A thing I loved about the Canonflex was its bottom left winding lever. You didn´t need to take your eye off the camera to advance film. Apparently (from a Google search) some photographers didn´t like it because it made it difficult to follow-focus or to use on a tripod.

OK, back to the Congo. Independence day was coming. From Kisangani (then Stanleyville) I went to a small town in Central Congo to assist at more traditional festivities, essentially dance to the sound of drums. After a few days  rumors started running that a revolt was happening in Léopoldville (now Kinshasa) - or was it in the Katanga, or both? Anyway I hiked a ride on a truck back to Stanleyville/Kisangani. To continue in a dramatic next chapter… (probably after my March - April trip)

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