War Photographer's Notebook

Chapter 783 Never Old

In the basement of the library, just when Wei Ran thought the visit was over, Sui Sui dragged him into a room at the end.

As the lights in the room turned on, he noticed that there was a set of large-scale printing equipment that he did not know where to get in the room!
Bending down and looking at the nameplates on these devices, they are all products from the Soviet era without exception, and even the place of production comes from Leningrad in the 80s of the last century without exception!
"Where did this come from?" Wei Ran asked curiously.

"My dad found it for me from the warehouse of a long-closed printing factory in Volgograd, and then I paid a lot of money to ship it over!"

Sui Sui smirked, "He really couldn't bear to lose that broken car to you, so he found this for you. In his words, this set of equipment is enough to develop a 68-inch large photo."

Having said that, Sister Katenka who followed in also opened the two large iron cabinets in this room, and Sui Sui also leaned over and pointed to the things in the cabinets and said, "I also asked Aunt Daria, she helped I bought enough large-size photo paper."

Looking at the packs of photo paper wrapped in light-shielding paper in the cabinet, Wei Ran couldn't help grinning. Just looking at the outer packaging and the production date on it, he knew that these photo papers were probably specially produced in Kazan. Made by factory.The only ones who can do this are Teacher Dalia and the others.

Still begging for people.
Wei Ran muttered to himself, and a series of thanks came out of his mouth, which fully satisfied the former's psychological needs of waiting to be praised.

"Are you tired?" Sui Sui asked nonchalantly, while looking at Wei Ran meaningfully.

"Not tired"

Wei Ran answered expectantly, but immediately after, the girl slapped hard and said with a smile, "Since you're not tired, how about washing out the photos later?!"

"I" knew that Wei Ran, who had been tricked, nodded and agreed with both laughter and tears.

And Sui Sui, who had succeeded in the trick, also ran out of the dark room and got into the battery car.

Let the other party drive the battery car and pull him to the door of the house. As the door opened, the dog Beria immediately rushed up, shaking his head and swaying his tail, and washed Wei Ran's face with his shoulders.As for the two big-eared foxes with African household registration, they seemed to be sealed away, and they didn't intend to leave the fireplace more than three meters away.

Pulling away this enthusiastic big dog, Wei Ran went into the darkroom on the first floor, casually took a photo album specially containing negatives and put it in his pocket, and handed over the work of carrying the developed photos upstairs to Sui Sui and the others, and he himself walked slowly back to the basement of the library with his dog Beria, who followed suit.

After shutting Gouzi out, Wei Ran locked the door behind him, and got acquainted with this equipment carefully.

There is no doubt that these devices are more professional than the one at home, but the essence has not changed much at all.Even, because it is more professional than the one I used before, it is much easier to print photos with this equipment.

With confidence in mind, Wei Ran, who was also full of expectations, no longer delays, took out disposable gloves, masks and dust caps from the cabinet at the entrance and put them on, then adjusted the lighting to the red light mode, and then He took out the metal book and opened it, and the photo development began.

Even Wei Ran himself does not have an accurate figure on how many photos he has taken after returning to those forgotten historical fragments so many times, but most of the film specifications used are nothing more than 120 and 135.

On the premise that the shooting is clear enough, the former can produce a large-scale photo of up to 48 inches, while the latter is only 24 inches to 32 inches at most.

From the Battle of Stalingrad, which he entered for the first time, to Teng County, Baiyangdian, to the North African battlefield, the Hawaiian battlefield, etc., when he once again took out a photo taken in the No. 52 mine from the metal book Four or five hours had passed by the time the group photo was taken.

Looking at the large photos hanging above his head, Wei Ran put away the metal notebook contentedly.These photos are selected and released without worrying about causing any trouble.

Even to avoid suspicion, he didn't even rush to print out the latest photos of Nier, and decided to wait until later.

In addition, these photos are not all from the metal notebook, including two group photos obtained from the veteran Leva who learned photography skills.

Among the two group photos, the first one is Leva, who belongs to the 131st brigade, holding an SVD sniper rifle, and the other 10 companions who also wear Afghan cards, standing in front of a BMP-1 infantry fighting vehicle.

But in the second group photo, there are only one-armed Leva and a veteran in a wheelchair who has lost his legs and has numb eyes.

The two of them still wore Afghan cards, but there was no infantry vehicle behind them, let alone the other nine comrades who should have appeared, and there were only nine empty chairs.

Taking off the dust cap and mask, when Wei Ran opened the locked door, he immediately asked about the aroma of the hot pot, and then saw several girls headed by Sui Sui eating around a large round table in the center of the basement Excited, and the ventilation duct directly above the table also sucked out the acrid steam with a whistling noise.

"Come and eat!"

Sui Sui put down the cup in her hand and greeted warmly. Lola, who was not far away from her, also stood up immediately, and brought out a large box of mutton rolls from the refrigerator next to the wall.

"Why do you guys come here to eat?" Wei Ran sat down next to Sui Sui and asked.

“Warm enough here”

Sui Sui burped, and said while pouring Wei Ran the wine, "And the room that doesn't know how to make it smells like hot pot."

“We got a little kitchen here”

Anfeiya said while scooping the brain flower covered in red oil with a spoon, "You can come here to eat some delicious ones, and there are many things to play with here."

Subconsciously looking at the unclosed coin-operated game machines and claw machines in the room not far away, Wei Ran shook his head dumbfoundingly. It really fits the occasion to have a hot pot in this place.

It's just that for him, after editing so many photos taken on the battlefield, he was dragged to the dining table to eat meat and drink with a group of beautiful girls when he went out. This psychological discomfort is inevitable.

After barely filling his stomach and drinking two glasses of cold beer, Sui Sui also saw that he was depressed, so he simply ended the meal early, and together they helped send all the washed and dried photos to the unopened on the surface. library.

After these few hours of busy work, it was already dusk outside, and the empty library was also dyed a warm golden yellow by the setting sun, and even Wei Ran's mood improved a lot.

Under Anfeya's control, the blank photo frames that were suspended in mid-air by steel cables descended one after another to a position at eye level.Under Wei Ran's command, large black and white photos of different sizes and contents were fixed in groups of two on the front and back sides of the photo frame.

In the end, when the photo frame carrying the red flag of the Capitol and the photo of General Weidling's surrender was raised directly opposite the entrance, the small spotlights from the bottom of the photo frame were also under Anfeya's control. The lower ones were lit one after another, releasing a warm dim yellow light.

Looking at the blank photo frames raised to the highest point, and looking at the friends who were frozen in the photo frames less than one meter above his head, Wei Ran couldn't help but take a hard breath.

"That soldier's name is Li Hexian"

Wei Ran pointed to the soldier in the nearest photo frame and said, "Beside him is his younger brother Li Suian. Both of them are from Sichuan and Shu, and they both participated in the defense battle in Teng County in 1938. Li Hexian, Didn't survive."

After taking two steps forward, Wei Ran pointed to another photo and said, "The soldier in this photo is called Zhao Shengli, and the one next to him wearing glasses is called Chen Qi. They both participated in the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea. The old man, and the rest of the soldiers in this group photo, all died, and some even failed to return home."

Sui Sui was startled when she heard the words, and followed Wei Ran a few steps forward in silence.Listening quietly, he pointed to a photo and continued, "The woman in the photo who was crushed by a tank was a staff member of the propaganda department in Berlin during World War II."

After a short pause, Wei Ran walked around to the other side of the photo album, pointed to the two young people inside and said, "The older one is called Marco, next to him is his younger brother Mario, and the woman just now is their aunt .”

"Did you investigate all these?" Sui Sui, who raised his neck, asked without looking back.

Wei Ran's body trembled subconsciously, and he nodded heavily, "I found it all through my investigation. These are people who have been forgotten by history. Too few people know their stories."

"Is this man a pastor?" Sui Sui, who had been raising her neck, pointed to the person holding a Bible in another photo next to her and asked.

"His name is Tom, he is an American military chaplain, and participated in the second Guam battle in 1944." Wei Ran sighed, "He didn't survive that war, but he made a lot of good friends.

"Is this Baiyangdian?" Sui Sui asked, pointing to a photo of a wedding scene, "I seem to have seen this photo at my grandma's house."

"Yes!" Wei Ran nodded again, "I found the negative of the photo from my grandma's house."

Sui Sui looked away, looked at Wei Ran and said, "I suddenly remembered a movie."

"What movie?" Wei Ran also looked at the other party.

"Coco"

Sui Sui let out a long breath, "The animation movie said that the real death is to be forgotten by the world. Look at these people in the photos, they now have a second life."

"Many of them are still alive"

Wei Ran shook his head dumbfounded at first, then sighed, and said regretfully, "It's just that I'm not young anymore."

"They will always be young." Sui Sui raised her head again and said with great certainty, "These people will never grow old, never will!"

(End of this chapter)