Was it 1971? At first, I didn’t think that I had the date right. According to the Wikipedia entry on People’s Park, National Guard troops first arrived in Berkeley in 1969. But I think that they were still there when I took this photograph in 1971.And let’s take a moment to consider the impermanence of physical objects. I took several shots of the troops guarding the park with my Nikon F: the negatives are very clearly represented on one of my contact sheets. All park photographs were contained on one strip of film, which is in fact now missing; I first noticed its absence in the 1980s. Not only that, at one point I had several slides showing pitched confrontations: rioters, tear gas . . . everything. And of course the slides are now also gone. I had to resurrect this photograph by scanning an old print I had (luckily) made.
There might be some moral here in discussing the modern disease of backup paranoia involving a full panoply of multiple redundant hard drives. But I’m not sure what the moral might be.
Someday we will have to discuss this.
Photo: People’s Park—Berkeley, 1971
References:
People’s Park Wikipedia entry.
Contact sheets: the mikereport
Backup Wikipedia entry.
Scott Kelby's Backup Strategy.
6 comments:
Interesting entry. (especially since I was born in San Fran in '68) I think you might be referring to the Wiki link for People's Park see here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People's_Park
Yikes! My link got messed up! How'd that happen?
Thanks . . . fixed now.
I was attending grad school at Berkeley when all the commotion happened.
I left Berkeley in 1969 because of the feelings I had during the initial struggle. I lived on California next to the staging area where the sheriff's buses and helicopters brought people to start their work. It was heart-poundingly loud, there were lots of guns, and it was very disturbing. I moved north to live in Humboldt Co., a much more peaceful place.
I was in Berkeley today (12/5) at the Ecology Center's Craft Fair.
I had this photo displayed. Very little reaction! By now, People's Park is truly Ancient History.
Maybe deserving of a separate blog post.
How did the Craft Fair go for you?
Oh, not that great. I sold enough, however, to pay for my entry fee and the Richmond Bridge toll!
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