We argue about how long our negs or digital files will last...

[bmattock]

And in the end, it comes down to something like this:

http://www.callalillie.com/archives/2006/04/we_found_you_on.html

April 26, 2006
We Found You on Beard Street

Dear Arthur,

We found pieces of your life last evening scattered across Beard Street. It began with the inspection of three buckshot shells and a slide sitting in the gutter. Next to them lay one negative, then another. The decapitated head of an old enlarger poked out from a pothole puddle. Floating around it, we found bundles of medium format negatives, warping and staining in the dirty, stagnant pool. With each step, we discovered more. An old pay stub from your workplace, 1969. An electric bill, 1990. We held one slide up to the light of the streetlamp. It was the sugar refinery, labeled August 1981.

We collected everything that we could carry. We returned home, stinking of photographic chemicals, and drew a warm bath in the kitchen sink. Slowly, we eased the negatives into the water, carefully peeling those that had stuck together, rinsing them gently. You were an avid hunter. You built a house. You wife looked quite lovely.

Based on the artifacts we collected, it was easy to deduce who you were. We learned quickly where your house was, what army base you might have worked near, your wife’s name, and when you passed away. A quick check on your pay stub revealed your profession, clearly connecting you to the old shipyard, which is exactly where we found your pieces.

Beard Street was silent. The wind and rain were working themselves up against the twilight. In a matter of hours, you would have dissipated into the night—the negatives staining beyond recognition, your address fading, the evidence of your existence erased. I wonder if we would have found you had we come the next morning, staring up at the shipyard, looking for changes, just peering down once to inspect the buckshot.

Yours Truly,
Corie & Alexis

This is a poem, and one that is not often told. More often than not, our negatives end up in the local dump, along with the other treasured detritis of our lives when we are no more.

Perhaps the best we can do is hope that someone finds our negatives floating in a puddle and looks at them briefly, trying to figure out who we were, if we mattered.

And then, silence.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

PS - I need more coffee.

 

[peterc]

Great find, Bill. Thanks for sharing.

Peter

 

[wlewisiii]

I appreciate these pieces you post. Once again, thank you, Bill.

William

 

[nihraguk]

A beautiful poem. Thank you.

 

[bmattock]

I have to do something to earn my keep around this joint. Thanks for the kind words, folks, but I just find 'em and post 'em. I didn't write it - wish I had.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

 

[RicardoD]

I somehow have this fantasy that in future, on the the uber-computer on the Starship Enterprise with a gajillion bytes of memory on a postage stamp, the captain can call up my name, a RicardoD from the 2000s, and find all my digitized photos. If I can just keep them alive until I'm dead perhaps they will have a shot of making on that far.

So I have CD backups, and dual hard drive backups and eventually will they will get on Blu-ray backups and on and on and on....

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

It's all hopeless. Hopeless, I tell you.

 

[ruben]

And in the end, it comes down to something like this:

http://www.callalillie.com/archives/2006/04/we_found_you_on.html


Perhaps the best we can do is hope that someone finds our negatives floating in a puddle and looks at them briefly, trying to figure out who we were, if we mattered.

And then, silence.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

PS - I need more coffee.

When I arrive to such a sad moment, I recall that many artist were discovered only after their death. Thus I cheer up myself without coffee. Who knows ? Perhaps your out-living soul may even take part in your artistic discovery.
(very much like politicians do, but long before they die)

 

[bmattock]

It's all hopeless. Hopeless, I tell you.

Some people are 'the glass is half full' types.

Some people are 'the glass is half empty' types.

I'm a 'the glass is full of radioactive waste and I just drank half of it' type.

And I'm still thirsty.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

 

[kmack]

Some people are 'the glass is half full' types.

Some people are 'the glass is half empty' types.

I'm a 'the glass is full of radioactive waste and I just drank half of it' type.

And I'm still thirsty.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

You have a glass! I wish I had a glass.
Who are these people and why are they giviing everyone but me a glass?

BTW, nice blog find.

 

[Creagerj]

My hope is that I can guilt my kids (when I have kids) into not throwing all of my stuff away. Somehow I don't think I will have to bother though, as my family members are naturaly pack rats. Heck, we probably have tintypes somewhere in all of our old photos for all I know. For me it won't be the dumpster, but the cardboard boxes in the closest and under all of the tables in the basement.

 

[bmattock]

You have a glass! I wish I had a glass.

You could wish? Luxery! When I was a boy, we had to kip in cardboard box in the middle of the road.

Best Regards,

Bill "Python" Mattocks

 

[bmattock]

My hope is that I can guilt my kids (when I have kids) into not throwing all of my stuff away. Somehow I don't think I will have to bother though, as my family members are naturaly pack rats. Heck, we probably have tintypes somewhere in all of our old photos for all I know. For me it won't be the dumpster, but the cardboard boxes in the closest and under all of the tables in the basement.

I have no children. I guess it's the dumpster for me. Sigh.

If only I can win the lottery or something between now and the time I die. I'll endow a university with some huge annuity, and the stipulation will be that every student has to pass through the "Hall of Bill Mattocks' Excellent Photos."

Hey, a guy can dream, can't he?

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

 

[dreilly]

A little related story:

In Turkey a few years back, in a market off the major commerical shopping street of Istanbul, there was an old bookseller. And one of the things on offer were several boxes of old photographs. Mostly family pictures. I found this very moving...all these images that someone might have put a lot energy into, now lost and sortof found, in a big anonymous box. I bought about a dozen of them that seemed like they portrayed interesting people, and made a little album for it. I arranged it so it looked like it could have been one family's album, even though it was probably many people who never met each other. And from time to time I wondered what their stories were, and why they were discarded.

And then I think of Rutger Hauer's last speech on the top of that building in the rain in Blade Runner. Tears in rain, for sure.


doug

 

[amateriat]

I have no children. I guess it's the dumpster for me. Sigh.

No kids here, either, but my younger sister has two, and, oddly enough, they take a more than casual interest in my photography. No guarantee that any of my stuff will join their grandmother's paintings for heirloom status (I broke my back to archive those on film after she died a few years ago), but I think there's a fair chance. Gotta have hope in this life.


- Barrett

 

[enochRoot]

A little related story:

And then I think of Rutger Hauer's last speech on the top of that building in the rain in Blade Runner. Tears in rain, for sure.

doug

everything is cyclical. didn't bill quote that somewhere? love that movie (and i think i said that in the other thread too) 🙂 my wife loves to collect old photos such as that from antique stores/flea markets/etc.

 

[yossarian]

Some people are 'the glass is half full' types.

Some people are 'the glass is half empty' types.

I'm a 'the glass is full of radioactive waste and I just drank half of it' type.

And I'm still thirsty.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

Bill,

Things have been a little bumpy for me lately, but you are a great therapist.

Regards and thanks,

Fred

 

[bmattock]

Bill,

Things have been a little bumpy for me lately, but you are a great therapist.

Regards and thanks,

Fred

Without the bumps, the road would be too smooth and we'd fall asleep. Crank up the tunes and let 'er rip, my friend.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

 

[robert blu]

My apartement is full of boxes of pics and slides i started to take in a "regular" way since more or less 1970. More over I have boxes of pics taken by my father (from who I learn enthusiasm for photo). Moreover I have boxes of his family photo (first where he and his brother were children, which means around 1918 . A part the difficulty to look for the appropriate boxes the are all visible and the emotion me and my wife get when looking at them is incredible (unbelievible) ; by the way we got married only 4 years ago and she never met my father. THIS is the power of "printed" photography.
I also have boxes of 8mm movies, but very difficult to see. If my (father's) 50 year old projector Bell&Howell goes broken probably there will be not many chances to see those movies again. (Ok, I'm trying to get them on DVD now) . And this is in my opinion the weakness of images related to "instruments" to be seen. Or even more, to hardware or software.
robert

 

[wlewisiii]

Some people are 'the glass is half full' types.

Some people are 'the glass is half empty' types.

I'm a 'the glass is full of radioactive waste and I just drank half of it' type.

And I'm still thirsty.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

Marvellous statement. That's a .sig moment for certain, if you don't object.

William