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This might be a tad long, guys, so either bear with me or hit DELETE now. A few of years ago, a good friend and fellow railfan asked if I could provide some originals for a book he was going to write. He needed both slides and black and white. I provided several b&w prints for him to peruse. He also wanted to see some slides. At this point, it was only to inspect them. I complied, knowing that this was an "inspection trip" and that all the slides would be returned..............which they were. So far, so good. A year or two later, push came to shove. Black and whites were not an issue, but slides were needed for the project. It should be noted that the slides in question were all shot in the 60s, or early 1971 at the latest. This is long before I ever had equipment with motor drives for shooting dupes; in fact, I was mostly a b&w shooter in those days. Slides were kind of for desert; the frosting on the cake, so to speak. Anyway, the slides I had were all one-of-a-kind. Because of friendship and assurances that any slides that might be used would be cared for with the "utmost of care", I acquiesced against my better judgement. BIG mistake. The slides were gone for nearly two years while the project was being assembled. Once the book was published, back came the slides. The ones that were used were scanned by some subcontractor for the publisher (who will be named at the end of this). This bunch of ham-fisted sloths unmounted each slide, scratched each one, fingerprinted each one, and they remounted them in the original slide mounts with Scotch tape,...sometimes ON THE IMAGE. In a few cases, this was done more than once and the caption info and slide identification had been pulled off the slide because of tape removal! Half were mounted reversed! Sweet Jesus; talk about reassurance and taking care of the originals.......forget it. I have remounted the originals. The scratches are there forever; I am deliberating about the fingerprints. But, I am pissed, big time! Dave Cohen has scanned a few slides of mine. They have come home totally unmarked. I have sent slides to Holland Photo in Austin, Texas. They have come home unmarked. Several calendar publishers have used my slides and they too, have returned unmarked. Obviously, it can be done. Unfortunately, all of the above examples are of slides that were shot in multiples. So, a word to the wise; NEVER send a one-of-a-kind original transparency to anyone who is doing anything related to KALMBACH PUBLISHING.......NEVER. It will not come home the way you sent it. Yes, I have received an apology from Kalmbach. In fact, they told me that they are unhappy, also. Seems that the jerks who did this job have gone tits-up (belly-up, for those politically correct). Heck, I didn't even get a free roll of Kodachrome or Fuji or Verichrome.............just, Gee, were are sorry! Yeah, "Sorry" certainly describes that outfit! A very unhappy camper, John C. Lucas (Only trust your mother, and don't even trust her if she is doing a book that needs your photographs!) ======================================================= -> SPORRS: 'Serious Photographers Of Railroad Related Subjects' -> Web Site: http://www.anet-stl.com/acphotog/sporrs/ -> Message © 1998 SPORRS® - All Rights Reserved =======================================================
