colors of tea and chocolate 4 : as grainy as film..

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colors of tea and chocolate 4 : as grainy as film..
colors of tea and chocolate 4 : as grainy as film..

[fiction] John wrote in late August 1999 while he was in Chechnya reporting on old culture there:

"the Russian bombers have destroyed almost everything near the hospital..
I tried escaping to the south of town but was stopped by some rebels... i held up my camera and kept repeating that i was working for a news agency. They became furious...grabbing it from me. They took the film out of the camera and tossed it to the rubble .... my mind was racing..because that was the only evidence i had of what happened on the growned these past few days.... i was tired... and fearful of my life... they pushed me and i dropped the camera... there was no hope of having it repaired here...

they let me off, i was never so stone cold in my life... despite being a field photographer... some things just never sink in until you see it face to face

it was another twelve hours until i found a small closed cafe that still served food ... i went in and sat down. my feet as if i were walking with two cement blocks for miles ...
I sat near this man with a nervous face...he was reading the papers ... but i knew everyone's attention was focused on the lone radio that was blaring the same propaganda over and over again... we perhaps were hoping someone would interupt it and tell us the bombing has stopped...

i then saw a camera shaped object on the shelf behind the cafe owner ....

'how much for that camera'

he shrugged....then i put a 20$ us bill on the counter...
he held the bill up the light as if to inspect it for counterfeit..
it is odd for us to see this for such a small sum, but here twenty dollars can go a long way...

he smiled and handed the camera to me.

'does this have film?'

'yes yes... lomo camera very good'

well i am going to lay down here for a while and leave this letter here in the cafe. hopefuly the few ruples i paid will motivate the cafe owner's buddies to smuggle this letter out the country with them when they leave...i wonder if this letter will ever get back to you"

I was happy that the letter arrived and John came back sitting in our garden a month later.

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Taken on: May 25, 2007
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Camera: Konica Minolta DiMAGE X1, f/3.5, 1/5 sec, 7.7mm, ISO 160 (more info) (hide info)
Camera: Konica Minolta DiMAGE X1
Aperture: f/3.5
Exposure Time: 0.2 sec (1/5)
Focal Length: 7.7mm
ISO: 160
Exposure Bias: 0 EV
Flash: Off, Did not fire
Exposure Program: Program AE
Exposure Mode: Auto
Metering Mode: Multi-segment
White Balance: Manual
Light Source: Daylight
Gain Control: High gain up
Color Space: sRGB
Software: DiMAGE X1 Ver1.10
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