Gallery: Gorgeous, Decaying Photos of Firemen, Rescued From a Watery Grave
Photo: Courtesy of Gregory Lucas01Greg Lucas Drowned Firemen (portrait)
These 35mm slides were nearly destroyed when a broken pipe flooded the basement of a fire station in Bern, Switzerland.
Photo: Courtesy of Gregory Lucas02Greg Lucas Drowned firemen drowning car
No other originals or negatives remain of these deteriorated images.
Photo: Courtesy of Gregory Lucas03Greg Lucas Drowned firemen abseiling
This firehouse kept a photographic record of each call they made between the mid-'70s and '90s.
Photo: Courtesy of Gregory Lucas04Greg Lucas Drowned Firemen firefighting
Of the thousands of slides, Lucas says he kept about 500.
Photo: Courtesy of Gregory Lucas05Greg Lucas Drowned fireman fire truck
Lucas roughly categorizes the collection of images as follows: major fires; dramatic rescues; poles descended; ladders extended; towering infernos ascended; road-crashes attended; water fired; various training exercises; new fire trucks; charred remains of rooms and personal belonging; burnt-out buildings; portraits of firemen, smiling.
Photo: Courtesy of Gregory Lucas06Greg Lucas Drowned Firemen contemplating equipment
Lucas was interested in the pataphysical aspect of this collection of photos, the absurd connections that could be made in describing their story and his experience in finding them. “Suddenly I was saving this drowned archive of firemen from Bern — it becomes a pataphysical adventure.”
Photo: Courtesy of Gregory Lucas07Greg Lucas Drowned firemen melted room copy
Although the images themselves are somewhat secondary to the point of the series, they are still well-composed and beautiful in their own right.
Photo: Courtesy of Gregory Lucas08Greg Lucas Drowned firemen overturned car
Lucas says the emulsion was essentially hanging off of most of the slides.
Photo: Courtesy of Gregory Lucas09Greg Lucas Drowned Firemen two fire fighters
Lucas's interest in the photos sprung not from the images themselves as much as from the particulars of the story behind them.
Photo: Courtesy of Gregory Lucas10Greg Lucas Drowned fireman entering room
Another ironic element of the drowned pictures' story is that, being made of celluloid, they posed a fire risk.
Photo: Courtesy of Gregory Lucas11Greg Lucas Drowned fireman melted car
"\[The firefighter\] said they’d been drowned, because his English wasn’t very good. I thought, ‘drowned firemen.’ I asked where the fire station was, and he said ‘in Bern.’ I thought, ‘There are drowned firemen in Bern?’ That’s how it started. From there I knew I was going to do something, and what I liked was that the images didn’t matter.”
Photo: Courtesy of Gregory Lucas12Greg Lucas Drowned fireman portrait
To Lucas, the photos represented a kind of family photo album for the firehouse.
