Kodak era revival

I've long talked about transforming thousands of hardcopy photos into retrospective blog posts. Regular readers will recall that last year I devoted my waking hours to chronicling vacations Garry and I enjoyed before this blog began. These posts were focused on adventures we'd captured digitally. You'll find the fruits of my labour here and here.

I bought my first digital camera in 2003. As a result, earlier vacations and business travel were all captured for posterity by printed hardcopy photos. I call this the Kodak era. This month I began researching and publishing posts from this analogue period.

It's a huge undertaking. While I have piles of photos, critical data such as dates, locations and context is typically missing. Filling in these gaps is a marathon effort involving plenty of creative research. I've shuffled through old passports, reviewed old emails, read dog-eared letters and searched archived files on the home server. I recently rediscovered a cache of old boarding passes I'd collected over the years. It's a trove of dates, flight times and destinations.  I've also used Google Image searches to demystify anonymous scenery, buildings and locations. Each data point slowly fills in the missing picture.  

However, some detail still eludes me. For example, where did I stay while visiting Ranthambore National Park in India? I have a photo of my room in the hotel (as shown above). Yet, despite hours of sleuthing, I've yet to confirm its name or exact location.  However, eventually, I uncovered the tour company's name (Exodus) and the actual itinerary I booked thanks to online detective work using the Wayback Machine.

I've been using this internet archive for years to dig up old websites and track down long-lost details about all manner of things.  For example, what was the street address for my company's office in Mumbai in 2002?  The office has moved at least twice since then. Or, what time at night did my flight to Easter Island depart in 1998? The Wayback Machine has all the answers!

To date, my retrospective efforts have focused on travel undertaken since October 1996. Why this date?  At the time, I’d booked a three-week ticket around the world, ostensibly to attend my brother's wedding in Austria. It was also the first major overseas excursion I’d taken since backpacking around Europe for six months in 1990. I've built an initial list of 30 potential Kodak-era posts covering experiences such as my first vacation in Japan (1998), my first time in Tahiti (also 1998), my first business trip to Indonesia (2000) and so on.

Once this project is complete I'll start work on reliving my six months exploring Europe in 1990,  Given how much ground I covered, I'm sure there are at least a dozen posts to share. Until then, I hope you enjoy these initial posts from my Kodak-era revival:

• Day trips to the Grand Canyon (and Monument Valley)

• My first time in Orlando and a road trip down the Florida Keys

• Parasailing in Tahiti

• Flying in a microlight over Victoria Falls

• Going on safari in Zimbabwe

• Exploring Mumbai's mysterious Elephanta Island

• Indian traffic hazards on the road to Jaipur

• Searching for tigers in Ranthambore National Park

• The Taj Mahal at sunrise

• Experiencing Varanasi from a boat on the Ganges.

Finally, in case you've missed them, I've already published Kodak-era posts covering my first time on Easter Island, a day trip to Macau, my first time in Sydney and my experience as an exchange student in Syracuse, New York.

Enjoy the journey!