"Sky" Jones is as good an example of the traveler on a shoestring as I know. He lives cheaply, sometimes unbelievably so, and when he finds himself too very low gets a job for a time, at whatever comes up. Some strange things come up. Once he spent a spell hunting crocodiles on the Zambezi River. Living like this, and I speak from experience, has its ups and downs but sooner or later, given no more than average luck, you hit a really good "up." Sky's big "up" was hit through his interest in photography. On most of his trips about Europe he had carried an old Rolleiflex with him and had become attached to it. However, when he made his arrangements with a friend to go into the Sahara for the first time, the friend wished to go up to Wetzler, in Germany, to purchase some photographic equipment from the Leitz Company which produces the famous Leica camera. Sky obligingly went along. In Wetzler, at the factory, they met various company officials who were indignant to find Sky going into the Sahara without a Leica. Color was the thing, they told him, for such an expedition and 35 millimeter Kodachrome made the best color shots. Sky said, fine, but he didn't have a Leica and couldn't afford to buy one. Nothing would do but that they must loan him a Leica for the trip asking only that when he returned they have first look at his photos in case they wanted to buy any for their extensive library of Leica shots. Armed with the Leica, one of the older models with a f 3.5 Elmar lens, Sky photographed native life in the remote oases as they drove around over the Hoggar and Tanezrouft routes from north to south through the Sahara. He couldn't tell as yet what he was getting on his film, since, obviously, there are no photo shops in the reaches of the world's greatest desert. Eventually funds ran low and Sky found it necessary to return to Europe for a job. First, though, he went to Wetzler to return the borrowed camera. Holding him to the balance of the bargain, they wanted to see what he'd got and developed the film then and there.
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