Thought some of you might be interested in this story.
New Orleans based 82-year-old photographer Herman Leonard, renown for capturing the golden age of American jazz through his incredible b&w images, escaped Katrina with his family unharmed, but lost a lifetime's body of prints to the storm. Amazingly, his original negatives were saved by his staff:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/n...ationworld-hed
http://www.hermanleonard.com/default_content.html
How would you feel if this was your life's work and you were in this situation?
While it's very sad to see so many precious prints lost, personally I feel those are material objects. From a historical perspective, I think the negatives are much more improtant, and it's a bit of a miracle that they were saved...