(005) Focus On The Negative

I set up the lightbox and camera with macro lens this evening for another 35mm negative copying session. Today's image was originally taken in August 1999, from the Forth Road Bridge and shows the rail bridge undergoing extensive maintenance. The rail bridge was partially covered in scaffolding for a couple of years (I think) to allow the famous red paint to be completely removed and replaced with a modern protective coating. In addition to the scaffolding a large digital display was mounted on the centre span of the bridge to show the daily countdown to the turn of the new millennium i.e. the year 2000. A couple of things I remember from that time are the debate about when the new millennium actually began, was it Jan 1st 2000 or Jan1st 2001? Also, there was great deal of hype in the media about the possible effects of the 'Millennium Bug' or the 'Y2K problem' which referred to possible complications caused by the way computers stored calendar dates. Despite some predictions of a digital apocalypse, not much happened, perhaps due to remedial work undertaken by programmers to avert any problems.