The Early Years In Black And White

     My grandfather shot thousands upon thousands of rolls of film throughout his life.  My father and I both spent countless hours, days even, saving what film we could find when we were moving my grandmother from their home in New Canaan years ago.  Precious few roles from the 30s, 40s, 50s have survived the test of time.  They are tightly wound up in small metallic canisters with barely legible scribbling on them.  They have titles like "Chuck - folks at Woodstock, NYC BLDGs, East River, Geissman and family, etc."  

They are dangerous and hard to handle so I've only looked at a handful of them.  They consist of mostly family scenes, but some are field research he conducted for his illustrations, and some may be of him and his fellow artist friends from inside his studio at home or the Charles E. Cooper Studio in New York.

     While these rolls have been developed into negatives, scanning them is no easy task.  The older roles have a layer of nitrate embedded into the exposed side of the film stock, which is fascinating to look at but extremely volatile: if ignited it will literally continue to burn even under water.  I don't have the funds to send them off to some specialty store, nor do I feel comfortable mailing such rare and intrinsically valuable material.

 
 
     Enter Benjamin Lipiecki.  He's a friend and coworker, a recent graduate from Emerson College who has a degree in Digital post-production.  He has a love for old cameras and old film, with quite an impressive collection of his own, and approaches his material possessions and projects with a keen eye, thorough and scientific.  He's got a respect for old film like the rolls I have inherited.  It's because of my grandpa, my father and Ben that we are finally, after all these years, getting to see this film come to life in a photograph format: high resolution scans on a computer screen.

     In this blog I will post some of the photographs Wally, Glennie and their friends have taken through the years.  To preserve their originality I've decided not to touch them up, such as remove scratches, improve contrast and exposure (yet).  I hope you enjoy them, they have already brought thrills galore.  I will upload every single photo I scan to this blog's corresponding Flickr account, so look for more pictures there if you are interested.

Thanks again to all who have read this blog! 2,600 views from around the world and counting!