Friday, August 27, 2004

Flooding, photographs and negatives

We had inclement weather this week. Two days ago, I got home from work on the night shift to find floodwater inside our house. After the rains had stopped enough for the floodwater to go subside, we started to "drain" (no, really, I truly believe THAT is the best word to describe it) our house.

And I thought that was that.

Today, I got home and my wife reminded me that the flood waters might have reached the lowest cabinet of our book shelf, where we kept our photo albums and negatives. And sure enough, the flooding did reach the photos. One album actually, the very bottom of the stack. Good thing these were stacked. The photos are now drying out.

Of greater interest though are the negatives. That is more than 15 years worth of negatives. And about a third of them got wet in varying degrees. These are also in the process of being dried and aired out.

Unlike watching paint dry which is a boring exercise, watching the pictures dry allows me to look at them again, in a very different light. Some of them are humorous, and I can't help but smile at the memory of these photos. To see your kids standing beside or lounging infront of the television set is totally different from seeing their pictures as you were carrying them as babies.

The negatives, on the other hand are altogether different. It is painful on a different plane of understanding to know that some of these negatives might be damaged, even as you are waiting for them to dry. These negatives were supposed to be the "backup" copies. A case of the original material serving as backup to the print copies.

Oh well, that is life.

--andoy
"live moves..."

allvoices

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