Half Full or Half Empty?

Glass half full or half empty…the perennial question.

Let’s start with the glass half full…
So I came to Belem with that now tired old mission: find those aerial photographs. Readers might remember that this has been my gauntlet for quite a while now, and while I haven’t updated the blog with the latest info from Rio let’s just say I’m not completely holding my breath on that front.


So I came to Belem with a list of probably 10 organizations that might have archives of these sorts of photos. Knowing I had essentially two days to make this happen before I head down to southern Para to visit my field site, I knew this aspect of my research needed to go as they say here “rapidgim” (super fast). So this morning I head out in the (relatively) cool Belem air and start hitting the pavement.

Let’s see….I went to three organizations without much success. And than the last of the three directed me to a fourth that I had never heard of and shall remain nameless at present. So I head over to this obscure state organization…and well, viola! Sort of .
They had done some aerial photo reconnaissance at some point in the past, and had a few projects to show me. Well, complete with my laptop and coordinates, I was able to identify the photo index.






On a variety of levels this was the first hurdle of the day as I then had to find which flights they had been taken on, which rolls of film, and which actual images. Now this place, unlike the military archives, actually had the photos in filing cabinets, which increased the value of my time there a thousand fold. However, as always, complicating matters were several factors: first the “archivist”, as sweet as she was, was possibly as helpful as a screen door on a submarine. Whether she was illiterate or not I can’t be sure…seriously, but regardless she had no understanding of how the photos were catalogued in the eight giant filing cabinets, and after a cursory glance at what I wanted told me they didn’t have it, and it had been lost in a fire….

Ok…and so what would be the basis for that assessment? Well, you can see all these folders have 4 number record identifiers, and your photos have six. Well, luckily for me my eyes are still decent, because squinting at the impossibly small numbers on the photo index, I was able to barely make out the four digit number she was referring to…now granted, this discussion was not quite civil, and was the first of several near shouting matches, as I tried to explain to her something that she was not willing to hear…until I showed her.



So, I wrote down the number of the first of the photo series (the one that burned up in that fire mind you) walked past her to the sacred filing cabinets which I was certainly not supposed to touch, and after some shuffling…pulled out the photos.

Archivist: ”Those aren’t them.”

Me: “Really?” Do you see this giant land clearing on this photo?”

Archivist: Yes.

Me: “Do you also see it on the index?”

Archivist: “….um, yes.”

SILENCE.

Now for those not intiated into the wonder that is aerial photograph interpretation among you, man-made features (i.e. roads, dams, forest clearings), have an incredibly striking geometry, standing out starkly against the landscape. How certain was I that this was the same clearing….certain enough that I remembered seeing it on the photos in Rio.

Ok, so with that hurdle down…it was time for lunch. Yes, the all-important two hour break in the middle of what is otherwise an incredibly uneventful day for most archivists from my incredibly cynical perspective.

Following the two hour siests, and with the precious few hours of “working” time slipping away, we got back to it. Finding the photos was pretty exhausting- physically and mentally. The font of the number identifiers was so incredibly small I had to squint over my glasses, picture pressed up against my face, writing down each number, and then not letting my eyes go out of focus to write down the rest of that series (i.e. 1123-1140).

Given that these images were stereoscopic pairs (think 3D) there were two images for ever little puzzle piece on that index…which put it at about 130 photos…which given my Portuguese pronuciation and my ever so unfriendly archivists processing capability, probably resulted in me reading about 400 of these numbers.

So after several hours we have all the photos in piles, organized by film strip. Now remember these are the actual photos, so we’re talking gold here.

The archivist asks me if I want to photograph them, seeing that I have a camera. I give it a shot (couldn’t help that one) but am not ecstatic with the result. I inquire whether they have a scanner I could use….

BAD IDEA (note to self take the opportunity when you still have the chance)

She goes off to ask the boss.

And then I’m summoned in to see the boss….who tells me there’s this “processo”… oh really, a process? Why am I not surprised? Ever so remotely (bad joke for remote sensing dorks). The process is that there needs to be an institutional agreement between the local university I’m affiliated with here and them.

“oh, but don’t worry, that shouldn’t take more than an hour”

At which point I laugh in his face.

Last year it took three months for such an agreement to get squeezed through the works. An hour huh?

So I go back downstairs and tell the archivist I’m just going to take some photos.

Well, that’s when she starts hemming and hawing…..

Oh I don’t know, the boss wants you to have this institutional agreement…etc etc.

I’ve reached my limit. I can’t take it anymore.

I gently grab a stack of photos, and start explaining my logic as I take the pictures…

Well, you see, you told me I can take them before, and I already took some so I’m just going to finish the job.

She wasn’t too impressed with that logic, and was so very clearly unimpressed with me.

I have to say I was fairly unimpressed with myself as well (hence the cow poo image).
Not only was I unimpressed with myself for basically taking these photos against this woman’s wishes, but also because in reality, they are not of the highest quality (as one might imagine taking a 130 photos while basically arguing with someone in a foreign language about why they should let you do what you’re doing anyways). As the quality is not so great, it’s good, but stereoscopic good….well, I’d be surprised, I’m going to try to push this darn institutional agreement through, and if I can get that gauntlet passed, spend my one free day next week (after my 3rd red eye flight in a week mind you) in front of the scanner….

Glass half empty

So where is the rest of the glass is half full? Well, I might have forgotten to mention that the very helpful receptionist didn’t know when the photos were taken…not like that’s important at all in a temporal study of land cover change (sarcasm dripping like acai ice cream from a child’s hands). However, after some nudging she called the woman who she had taken the job over from. That women had started working as an archivist in 1978. And at that point the photos were already in filing cabinet. So…we’re talking old. But how how, at least to the year is very important. Well, leafing through the photos I found a date written on one April 1972. It was written into what appeared to be the kind of stamp a library puts on a book when it first receives it. So they RECEIVED it in the early 70s….something tells me, it is just a hunch, that there was at least 3 years between when the photos were took for this massive project (8 filing cabinets worth of aerial photographs-probably costing several million in terms of production) of which they have no record of when it occurred and when they actually received the photos and found time between siestas to catalogue them…covered now in the gooey acai . The upshot of all this, remember this started out as a glass half full entry. Well, if these images were from the late 1960s, and the nebulous ones from the military archives are also from the 1960s…nope, it doesn’t mean they’re the same, don’t ask me how I know (the answer is I’m omnipotent, and very cynical), but that I don’t necessarily need to keep bugging the military in Rio, and might have just save $500 by not having them develop them….

So, glass half full or half empty You decide. All I know, it usually works out in the end. And in the end, I’ll be laughing about this….much like the pants.

Phew! That was cathartic.