Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1998/10/25
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]I fly absolutely as little as I can, perhaps once every ten or fifteen years, so my own personal experience is meaningless. But the few Big Time Professional types I know seem to tell their client to have the appropriate film in-country when they fly there, taking no film with them. They do the shoot, then tell the client it is their responsibility to have the film processed in-country. This probably wouldn't work in a lot of the third world, but it works perfectly well in most developed nations, ranging from South America to Asia to Europe. My last flight was three years back (thank heavens, by the odds I can avoid travel for another decade, at least!), to Toronto. I did take a couple of rolls of 120 Ilford film and had no problems getting this hand-checked at Dulles. (I did have my passport along, the sole time in which I've used this instrument, and a damned good thing, too: they were in the midst of a Bomb Scare, so I got waved to the front of the line at all four airports I went through.) But, then, I took only a single camera with me (a Super Ikonta B), and had that over my shoulder. One major reason why I hate flying is that I set off every metal detector within a zillion miles, as I am a metal-heavy sort of guy: I have metal pens, metal pins, metal spurs in my shoes, metal zippers, metal belt-buckles, metal buttons, metal pipe-lighter (and a metal band on a couple of my pipes!), metal car keys, metallic-core pipe cleaners, metal book-marks, and so forth. Now, I cheerfully admit that I hate, absolutely despise, all travel, but I REALLY despise the fact that I so intensely set off metal detectors that I get flattened to the ground by wary security guards which results in my being strip-searched by Green Beret and Spetznatz types. My acid tongue and ready wit never help, either: these guys are of the humourless variety who react to me with the sort of horror which afflicted most of my High School teachers. Erwin is flying home from the US as I write this: I will be curious about his reactions! And, then, there WAS the time that a group of us Scotsmen met a clan chief, all of us decked out in the appropriate and metal-laden garb. My chipper remarks got me threatened with Imminent Arrest, which would have been professionally embarrassing, as I do a lot of criminal defence work in the local Federal court ... Marc msmall@roanoke.infi.net FAX: +540/343-7315 Cha robh bas fir gun ghras fir!