Wednesday, September 18th

The 14 exhibition halls of the Köln Messe, located just across the Rhine River from the Medieval German city of Cologne, will be crammed with every manner of photo recording and play back technology, as well as ancillary products from over 1,500 companies and more than 40 countries. This, the world's biggest photo media show, represents everything these companies have been able to think up and offer for sale since the last Photokina 2 years ago. In short, if you want to know where the photo industry is now and where it will be going for at least the next two years, this is the place to be.

In 1994 some 165,000 people from 132 countries made the trip to see it all, and this year even more are expected.

Besides its sheer size, Photokina is also unique for the variety of products shown. Although the greatest attention will be paid to those major items being turned out by the big manufacturers, there is an awful lot of interesting specialty gadgets hidden away amongst the smaller booths.

It is in these smaller booths that you will find the unusual, the unique, and the bizarre, likely to elicit such responses as "Why didn't someone think of that before?" to "Who would ever use that!?" So while the majors are showing us where it's all at, smaller entrepeneurs will have their two cents, two, likely to tweak our interest, if not always our imaginations.

Ihis is what Photokina is all about, and that's what I will be reporting to you over the next few days.

If you'd like to reach me while I'm here, or have a question I can try to answer, drop an email to me and I'll do my best.