The pics are back from the shop

Here's a selection of photographs from meetings held recently:

Committee Meeting, January 6th
Meeting in STAR, January 14th
Star '86 Gathering, January 21st

You might be wondering what those pieces of paper with the numbers on them are. Back in the, well, old days, when light only struck silver halide crystals instead of silicone photosensors, and cameras where still relatively expensive for most students to own, only a few guys, sometimes just one, went around photographing every event that cropped up. Once the reel was finished, they would hand the film in to some Kedai Gambar for the pictures to be processed. Even in, well, my time in Ipoh, there were some titanic progress: the processing period went from a week, to a day; from shops that had to send them to a central processor, to having their own machines; from expensive to slightly less expensive. Ipoh being as it was then, you had to go into town to find these shops; TC (Taman Chempaka) came a bit later.

When the first set of pictures were returned, you will always get that small clear file booklet for you to place your pictures (and still like today in the era of half hour processing, the shop kindly lets you have the opportunity to fill it in yourself). Now the cameraman has to do 4 things:

1. Insert the pictures in the correct order, by looking at the filmstrip against the light (or the sun).
   
2. Tear a piece from an exercise book, cut them into small squares, number them, and insert them with the pictures matching exactly with the number on the filmstrip.
   
3. Tear another piece of paper from the exercise book, draw a table for names, and choice of pictures, and stick it to the back of the simple album
   
4. Pass the book around
   

From here on, one can write a treatise on the need of physical reminders, on the desire to have every photo that one is in, of the shuffling to be in every photo, on that strange pose of the upward glance away from the camera, on how different (or the same) this present day is with regards to photosharing, or on the general concept of young entrepreneurship. We could also follow the cameraman as he collects the cash, goes back to town and returns the prints to expectant wide eyed boys, but let's leave it at that.

But before you go, you might want to write down your pick of pics...