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Photography is one business and one aspect of life that has been totally revolutionized by a computer world. Just when I am about to hide our black and white wedding photos as they seem outdated (not the people in the photo, but the photos themselves), I am giving it a second thought, because black and white photos are coming back.

I visit many homes, and it is interesting to see the way some take care of pictures and some don't. With some, they are jammed into that lower shelf, sharing space with the kids' toys, and the door pushed against them with hopes it doesn't spring open and hurt someone. Others have a given place for their photos, and great care is taken with them. They are dated and well organized.

The value of any photo to any individual is how they can relate to it. The most valuable photo is not necessarily the most admired and the one you proudly show to anyone. However, we all know that as much as we detest those driver license and passport photos (no disrespect to my friends at SNB) they are an absolute necessity to drive or travel to other parts of the world. Lose that photo while traveling oceans away from home and you find yourself sitting in the immigration office of another country. Someone comes in and passes you that passport with your photo in it what is its value now? In fact that little passport book has no value without your picture in it.

Abraham Zapruder, a dress manufacturer, was standing on a concrete abutment in Dallas, Texas, looking through the lens of his Bell & Howell movie camera when the motorcade of President John F. Kennedy moved slowly past that infamous Dallas library. Zapruder openly wept as he told investigators how he unexpectedly filmed the assassination. He heard a shot and saw the president lean over and grab the left side of his chest.

Zapruder's words were, "before I had a chance to organize my mind, I heard a second shot and then I saw the deadly wound to the head of the country's youthful president, and I started to cry!" Later he added: "I was still shooting the pictures until he (Kennedy) got under the underpass. I don't even know how I did it. ... I was walking toward -- back toward my office and screaming, 'They killed him! They killed him! They killed him!"

Zapruder died without a final settlement on the value the US government was going to pay for 26 seconds of history from an amateur's photo work. What is the value of a strip of celluloid wound around a plastic reel? The first buyer was Life Magazine who paid $150,000 for Zapruder's home movie right after the assassination and published 31 stills, but later sold the film back to the family for $1.

The government's representative on the panel, former solicitor general Walter Dellinger, argued that $3 million to $5 million was more than adequate payment to the Zapruder family, which retains the copyright. The family wanted $30 million and finally settled for $16 million. But what good will the value of those pictures do for Zapruder today? Like the president he is gone into eternity.

Remember those huge old family Bibles with their pictures? I used to love to look through them as a child, and I can always remember the picture of the crucifixion. Dominion Stores sold those Bibles at one time for a very reasonable price. A man I once met gave me one, claiming it had no value to him.

We know it's just an artist's concept of what the scene at Calvary looked like that horrid day, but it is the ‘word pictures' we get through the Bible that are priceless to many. Here is one ‘word picture' in Romans 5:6 ‘For when we were yet without strength in due time Christ died for the ungodly. What a priceless picture. There are those that have already entered the ‘other country' the Bible calls Heave. They found themselves as the ‘ungodly' described in this verse, and as such have the passport for heaven.

The apostle Peter writes in his epistle 1Peter 2:24, "Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed." To my knowledge that sober day in Dallas, no voices where heard as they were at Calvary…Crucify, Crucify him! When the apostle Peter says ‘our' he sees himself in this ancient photo. Do you?

mmccand@nbnet.nb.ca