Film was stored in these canisters since 1933. All but three of the cans were labeled as to what supposedly were the shooting locations.

The film collection came to me in the box of canisters shown above. All but three were labeled with enough information to help me determine where some of the shots were made, but as I discovered, the labels didn't cover everything I found on the film. Of course, there is no guarantee that the film in each canister was in the correct canister. More time and effort will answer many of the "where" questions.

When I first took the film out, it became quickly apparent that the images seemed to be a good shape, but the film itself was like uncoiling spring steel. Handling this film would be difficult without getting it to relax a reasonable amount. On the advice of a retired photography professor friend, I carefully rewound each roll onto a developing real and rewashed it for about an hour, treated them with PhotoFlo, and hung them to dry. This worked, restoring the film's elasticity to about 80% or so.

The next step was to cut the rolls into 5 frame strips and store them in archival sleeve pages in a binder with weight on the pages. I hoped that the weight would help to re-flatten the film over time. After nearly four years, it has helped.

The next step was to scan each negative in order to build an archive, organize it and begin identifying as many images as possible. I have worked on this phase for the past couple of years, as time permitted. The initial scans are real basic, just good enough for cataloging purposes. and for building this web gallery. My next phase is to do much more comprehensive scans starting with the priority images. Since the archive has about 1,500 images, this next phase will take a considerable time. The prints offered on this site are digitally printed to archival standards. The images I deem to be the best of the best I plan to make traditional photo prints from remastered negatives.

The best exposed frames on original film, considering the state of the technology in the 1920s and 30s, are generally in good shape, but 80 year old film simply has a lot of scratches, stains and other issues that need attention. These flaws are easily fixed digitally, but would be difficult to impossible on a traditional print. Therefore, my intent is to make a new traditional negative from the restored digital version. However, it will be some time before that phase can happen. So much to do, so little time!

Be advised that the quality of the images as you see on this website is not necessarily an accurate reflection on the image quality of a print. This applies mostly to tonal range. The film often recorded shadow details to a higher degree than comes out from the basic scan. HIgher resolution, multi-pass scans will help bring out more detail. You also may notice on some images a blurriness on either the left or right edge. This is on frames that were on the end of a strip and have a bit of a curl. The final scans will completely eliminate curl.