Have camera, will travel. Not very far
I spent this afternoon with CC. Or to be more precise: CC, and a film SLR camera. Or to be even more precise: CC, a film SLR camera and my little Canon Ixus.
CC is not only a bassist and jazz fan, but a keen amateur photographer who works in one of the camera/photographic shops in the mall next door; and a thoroughly nice guy, to boot.
He is also, it transpires, a brilliant tour guide.
As he had the day off today, we decided to go on a little photographic expedition in Georgetown. I took with me the film SLR B has kindly leant me - and when I ran out of all 36 exposures (which took about, erm, an hour), I switched to digital.
First stop was lunch - curry mee soup served in typical Penang style, ie. down a ramshackle alley. And, rather bizarrely, with white toast soldiers with butter and some sort of sweet spread on them.
Second stop: roaming the streets of Georgetown, taking photos; and CC leading me into a massive building not unlike Smithfields Market, which turned out to contain second-hand book stalls that you could get happily lost in. Imagine the final scene of Raiders Of The Lost Ark, and you’ll get some sense of it.
Third stop: more streets and alleyways (and CC all along pointing out interesting places and buildings). By this point, I was using my digital camera:
The last one is an election sticker for the ruling coalition party - ‘Keep Reinventing’ being their slogan. Actually, say what you like about Malaysian politics (and I have) but their elections do at least brighten the place up - there are banners and flags everywhere, festooned across the streets, or waving on flagpoles along the sides of the roads. It’s all very festive, until you realise what they’re actually promoting:
Third stop: one of the Chinese jetties. It turns out that there are a whole series of Chinese jetties near the pier in Penang; Chinese in the sense that they were established long ago by various clans of Chinese immigrants, and are now inhabited by descendants or by those otherwise allowed to own a house there. Well, less a house as more a shack on stilts… But glancing inside you could see that these were pretty spacious shacks; and it was a fascinating little community that we walked through:
See? It’s not unlike a Malaysian Venice.
And so to the fourth and final stop: Cornwallis, the old fort in Penang that was established by, yes, the Brits. And here’s the intrepid Captain Francis Light himself:
Fort Cornwallis was actually pretty dire: a delapidated little area that was part museum, part falling apart, sea-faring theme park. They even blast out classical music as you walk around. And for no apparent reason, there are three semi-wild ponies roaming the place. Very odd.
One advantage to taking photos alongside someone who works in a photographic place is that, upon completion of the film, you can just hand it over to them for processing :-). If any of them turn out to be any good, I’ll get them scanned and posted too. In the meantime, you can see the rest of today’s shoot over here. And yes, they include obligatory pictures of - you guessed it - teeny tiny cats! Hurrah!
