More Travels with Rollei

Back in June, locals spent a Saturday watching the waves along the Mediterranean coast west of Algiers.

The lady friend and I had planned a long weekend in Paris primarily to catch up with each other, but I was also very excited to develop the film I had been accumulating for six months, ever since leaving DC. In Algeria, photo shop staff laugh when I ask if they can develop film. But in Paris I discovered that almost every corner photo lab both develops and sells the specialty 120-format film that my Rollei uses.

In a rare moment when we weren't stuffing ourselves with bread and cheese, I biked to one lab to drop off nine rolls of film. Then I waited and worried: After dragging the film all over the world—through the Algerian summer sun, the Swahili coast's humidity, and dozens of airport x-ray scanners—would it be salvageable? Would any of the pictures even be any good?

What a relief, then, to finally pick up the photos and learn that they had all turned out better than I could have imagined. Paging through shots from around Algiers, from this summer's trip to Burundi and Lamu, and from my visit to Constantine and Timgad, I was amazed all over again at how this rudimentary little box that's been knocking around more than twice as long as I've been alive can still capture such images, even in the hands of someone still learning how to use it.

Without further ado, here are the latest:

Algiers: (This album begins with photos from earlier this year before moving on to the new ones.)


Burundi and Lamu: (Also see my previous post, "With Help from the Rollei, Making Friends in Lamu", about the story behind this batch and the Kenyan gentlement to whom I'm mailing a few of the photos.)


Constantine and Timgad: