The other day plowing through my old yellow Kodak boxes, I found one marked in pencil ‘RR-BAD, 2nds & 3rds’.

Translated from my teenaged sorting classification system this was code for ‘real garbage, but not so bad that it should be thrown away’.

Without opening this box, hidden away in the dark for more than three decades, I joked to Kris Sabbatino, “these slides are marked as ‘Bad’, so they must be the best of the lot!”

I explained further, “In my younger days I’d dismiss a photo for the slightest perceived imperfection and classify it as ‘junk’. I know better now! Any box that’s coded as ‘garbage’ is filled with lost treasure!”

Sure enough when I opened this yellow box last night and examined it closely, I found host of fascinating photos. Many only a quick correction away from public presentation.

So what was wrong with this view of a Bangor & Aroostook GP7 at Northern Maine Junction? I’d exposed it on Kodak Ektachrome back in July 1983, and missed my ideal exposure. The original is a bit hot (too light). But that’s a quick fix using Adobe Lightroom.

What you see here is my corrected scan of the original overexposed slide. Not all that bad after all!

So what else was in my garbage file?

Tracking the Light Posts Daily!