A bird's-eye view of how Hampton Roads developed

Tim Rudziensky carefully slipped a few black and white negatives from a manila envelope, placed them on a light table and leaned in for a look. A slight chemical smell drifted into the air.

"These are from when they were building the Bay Bridge-Tunnel in 1963," said his wife, Maryanne, glancing at a piece of paper that had accompanied the negatives.

"See, what they are doing here is actually building an island," Tim said. "You can see the vessels. There's a section with only the pilings. Here's one showing the last piece of the bridge being put into place."

The images were another discovery in the couple's 2 1/2-year treasure hunt. The Rudzienskys are slowly digging through about half a million negatives - an enormous collection of aerial shots of Hampton Roads, taken between 1962 and 2005. As a group, they tell the story of the region's development in those booming decades.

The negatives, stored in 38 cardboard boxes, landed in the Rudzienskys' custody almost by accident, when they moved their Virginia Images Photography business to a space in Virginia Beach's industrial park off Lynnhaven Parkway.

Some were no good, but many are perfectly preserved, Tim said.

"We were really surprised because they had been stored in the heat and humidity and we thought they would just be stuck together and absolutely ruined."

The subjects include bird's-eye views of each Hampton Roads city and some out-lying areas. A 1963 look down on George Washington Highway in Chesapeake shows where I-64 would eventually be built. A 1964 photo of Virginia Beach's Sandbridge reveals only a few beach houses dotting the dunes. Norfolk's downtown waterfront in 1965 can be seen, absent MacArthur Center, Waterside Festival Marketplace and Town Point Park.

The aerials were primarily shot for developers by local commercial photographers Millie Boyer from 1962-1978, Jack Will from 1978-1991 and the late Gene Woolridge from 1991-2005. Many were also commissioned by oil companies trying to figure out where to put gas stations.

Woolridge gave the Rudzienskys the rights to the images as a gift when they took over his studio space.

Tim estimates he and Maryanne have gone through about 100,000 of the negatives - choosing about 500 to scan into their computers and about 300 to print for sale.

"When we started opening them up, and seeing what was there, we realized that there was really a lot of potential there to make sales," Tim said. "It's quite overwhelming."

They look for scenic views showing where the landscape has changed drastically over the past four or five decades and landmarks like old buildings, subdivisions and drive-in theaters.

Covering the couple's gallery walls are colorful framed photographs of waterfalls, sailboat regattas, lighthouses and panoramas of the Blue Ridge Mountains - Tim's photos from 18 years in the business. He mostly shoots landscapes and sells them as large murals to decorate the halls and meeting rooms of corporate and public buildings.

During the holidays they opened a kiosk down the road in Lynnhaven Mall and sold hundreds of prints from the aerial collection to wide-eyed shoppers.

"We had so many people who bought them for sentimental reasons," Maryanne said. "We had one gentleman who bought a picture because he could see the place he had proposed to his wife. Another found a picture of the house that he grew up in. It was a little house that isn't there anymore."

The best-sellers include old scenes of the Virginia Beach Oceanfront, Norfolk's downtown and Ocean View.

Tim said people like to buy then-and-now photos that show a rural landscape and an image of the same area that has been developed. He often uses an aerial he shot to go along with the older image.

Tim and Maryanne have a few favorites.

"Sandbridge when it was just sand," Maryanne said. "I think our oldest picture has about 24 cottages. I think at the moment there are 1,500 homes in Sandbridge. And, of course, the ones of the Oceanfront when it was mostly cottages and very few hotels and a lot of sand."

Tim likes shots taken of Rudee Inlet that show the old steel pier with cottages and no hotels. His favorite is a 1972 photo of The Cavalier Hotel with the Beach Club.

The couple also gets excited finding images of the construction of area malls, bridges, major subdivisions and wide-open spaces that are now heavily developed.

"I found one yesterday that shows Rosemont Road," Tim said. "It shows all the way out to the Bay to Cape Henry. It was taken from about 7,000 feet up, so you can see where all the developments were and all the empty land was. Compare that to now, and there's a vast difference."

The least-interesting photos show a single structure, with no clues about what or where it was.

The importance of the collection is obvious to the couple.

"People are sentimental about it," Maryanne said, "especially longtime residents of Virginia Beach who have lived here and seen the growth since 1960. They say they are sad in some ways that the city is so big now and so populated, but at the same time they are proud of the growth of the city and how far it has come."

Robert Hitchings, archivist in the Sargeant Memorial Room, the local history section of Norfolk's Kirn Memorial Library, has talked to Tim and Maryanne about their collection and its historic value.

Hitchings estimates the library owns close to 60,000 images from the late 1890s through the 20th century. Although he covets photos that are a little older, the aerials would add to the visual record of the region's history, he said.

Tim and Maryanne aren't ready to relinquish the negatives yet. They foresee years of digging through the boxes and making more interesting discoveries.

They can imagine some of the images being used in history books, and they've tossed around the idea of someday publishing a coffee-table book showing the aerial history of Hampton Roads.

So where do the Rudzienskys see the negatives eventually landing?

"There is the Sargeant Memorial Room," Tim said. "They have put their emphasis on historic things. We think that's the right place for them to wind up."

Roy Bahls, (757) 446-2351, roy.bahls@pilotonline.com