Camera
Item
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Title
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Camera
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Short summary / description
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<p>'After a short period of disorientation in the tents of Bangalore, where we stayed over one year, I started thinking of how to utilize the time at my disposal. I thought of documenting my misadventure through photos. Unfortunately I did not have a camera. No doubt we all had left our homes with our own cameras but I must say that none of these had reached the camp safely. To tell the truth one film had been found, which had escaped the numberless searches. In order to make use of this roll I decided to make myself a camera to fit the film. To do this I searched my memory for the old principles of physics, I had studied at school. At the end I succeeded in finding: a metal box of Waltham's cigarettes; some tin from a "McLean's" toothpaste tube (which was the only one made with tin as all the others were made of lead); a candle (lent by the chaplain under the solemn promise to give it back immediately after my return to Italy); a blow pipe made from a sausage box; last, but not least, a tiny lens. This one, a basic element, had escaped the searches thanks to its negligible dimensions of 4 mm (I had taken it with me because I was a stamp collector). Now we had a camera. We used it to take about two thousand very small snaps showing our activities in the camp. In the first years the snaps were shot through an invisible hole in my suit. These photos were, then, put inside cigarettes, in place of some of the tobacco, or in toothpaste tubes, distributed among our friends for safe keeping. Only some five hundred of them were lost. If you take a glance at these photos you can easily recall the origin of the art of photography. Therefore they must be looked at with great understanding. It was not a professional who took them! On my return to Italy my wife took them, printed them and kept them with the greatest care. [...] The material used to create this camera was: * A metal box of "Waltham's" cigarettes. * The tin from a tube of ''McLean's'' toothpaste. * A piece of faucet used as a soldering-iron, which we could use only when we did not need water. * A blowpipe made out of a soya sausage box. * A candle borrowed from Don Clemente, the chaplain of the little Church (to be given back in Italy). * A small elastic band for the shutter release. This was the most difficult thing to find. It was at last discovered around a small medicine bottle. * A fragment of transparent red celluloid was also taken from a capsule of another medicine bottle. * A tiny 4 mm diameter lens, which had eluded the searches thanks to its very small size. Luckily its focus fitted our needs. * A roll of filmfum with 12 exposures measuring 6x9 cm, a size used at that time, lent to me by a fellow prison This film supplied the 500 exposures measuring a few millimetresillimitmers each.er. The photos are really very poor and require great indulgence.' Translation into English from: Saltamartini, Lido.<em>10.000 prigionieri in Himalaya,1941-1947 - Tesori, orsi, idee, fughe.</em> Ancona: Humana, 1997.</p>
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Creative Work type
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Tools and technology
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Material
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photographic materials
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Date of creation
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1941
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Date of publication
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1997
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Copyright information / URL
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Courtesy of Saltamartini family
Saltamartini, Lido
