I HATE Air Travel...

At this time of year, with so many friends, colleagues and acquaintences leaving town, I am reminded of how much I HATE air travel.  Winter so far has been pretty tolerable... with only one cold snap and only one big dump of snow... so far...

But so many people are complaining and catching flights to somewhere warm...  What sort of Canadians are these people...?  Canada is all about WINTER...!!!  We thrive on it... we embrace it... we enjoy it...!

I really hate air travel...  arriving at the airport hours in advance of your departure... packing all your belongings into a suitcase...  dealing with the congestion of airports...  standing in long lines and spending countless hours waiting...  suffering the indignity of inspections, searches and x-rays...

All of this stuff drives me crazy...

Then you have to spend hours sitting inside an aluminum tube, dealing with all the whining, snivelling idiots sitting around you... only to arrive at your destination and stand in yet more line ups, before you have to wait to reclaim your luggage... only to hope it arrives on the same flight that you were just on...

When you can finally leave the airport, you are then faced with car rentals, hotel check-ins, restaurant meals... not to mention that fact that none of this is particularly friendly to film!!!

Way back in 2007 Margarit and I travelled to Austria for Christmas with Hailey and Anna.  I knew that it would be impossible to consider bringing along a large format camera on such a trip.  I was resigned to shooting with my medium format Hasselblad.  Despite some technical issues that I had with my equipment, I came home with some reasonably good images.

For the next several years I informed anyone that asked that I had no issues with taking my high end camera gear with me as carry-on, and allowing the airport security "knobs" to pass my stuff through their X-ray machines repeatedly.  During that trip my camera equipment was X-rayed on at least seven occasions.  When I returned home and processed my film, there were a number of images that did not work out, mostly as a result of equipment issues but also partly as a result of errors on my part. But, there were no issues with the equipment and the film having been passed through numerous X-rays.

Recently I realized that my initial impression of this process was not valid... In May of 2013, Margarit and I went for a long weeknd out to Vancouver Island.  I just recently processed the last few rolls of film that I shot on that weekend.  These particular rolls were Efke Infrared film, sensitive to wavelengths up to 820nm.  Much to my dismay I found that the film was badly fogged as a result of the two airport X-rays that it was subjected to..., one on the way there, and one on our return.  The image of the printing from the roll film paper backing is clearly visible on the exposed film... now that I have recently processed it...  I find this very annoying and frustrating.  It is no wonder that I MUCH prefer to drive wherever I wish to go.  There is something to be said for travelling with an RV and having the freedom to go where you want to... when you want to...

Even the two recent trips down to Utah were much more pleasant.  Though I still had to deal with the indignity of crossing the border and the usual ignorant questions, initiated by the border idiots.  I was not subjected to any X-rays... and the line ups were relatively short.  I was able to bring my large format camera equipment with me, without issue... and once I was across the 49th parellel... I was free to go where I wished... and shoot what I wanted.

I am more than content to remain at home this winter and look forward to future road travels... at my leisure... and prefer not to have to deal with the hassels of air travel...

Here is a scan of a recently processed roll of Infrared Film, ruined by the airport X-rays.  I have also included a scan of the paper backing of that same roll of medium format film, showing the printing and the backing that ended up being tranferred onto my film as a result of those X-rays...

Many thanks and best of the season to all the morons working in Canada Border Inspection and USA Homeland Security...!!!