“…say ‘Hello’ to the folks that I know…”

Our fingerprints in this life are a funny thing to think about, aren’t they?

We begin life, start growing up and experiencing the world, seemingly without consequence. And at some point early on, for most of us, the switch turns on and we’re “here”, self aware, cognizant, and begin “living.”

I tend to get lost in thinking about how we, as a species, existed before language.

Imagine for a second that the thoughts you are thinking - that there weren’t words attached to them.

If there is a singular wall that I can’t break through in thought experiments, it’s that one. The way we do everything - the loving thoughts, the angry feelings, the manner we interact with nature and our pets - we tend to anthropomorphize everything around us, fitting it into the box where our “selves” exist. It’s so burned in there, it truly makes my brain hurt trying to think outside of the humanity that forms the lattice work of who I am. Who I’ve been, who I will be, and who will be lost when that time comes.

And I wonder about the past. Thinking of history and the eons that happened before me - the way time passes - and the inability of our minds to understand it, there’s this yearning to connect with it.

I think that’s part of what lead me down the road of becoming a photographer. It definitely started from a desire to simply document the most valued and loved parts of my surroundings. Mainly my old dogs, two Boxers named Odin and Loki - who, like all dogs - come and go far too quickly, however many years that we’re graced with. Maybe in part because I grew up caring for a loved one with a terminal illness, and the looming knife, ever hanging - that my job was to make sure they were as comfortable as possible for as long as they were here - but also knowing there was no stopping that inevitability. It drove a need to capture those little snippets of time to save for a later day, long after the moment had passed, and the memories foggy - a photo could bridge the gap between the longing to see them again, the fondness and adoration that never fades, and the physical failing of our bodies, and minds.

And that is basically where my photography resided for a long time. It’s a bundle of skills I’ve worked on for a hot minute now, and to my own surprise, a little over a year ago, I decided to learn how to shoot film. It’s not how I began photography whatsoever, and up until then, all of those tools I’d used were digital.

But I wanted a few of things when I made that move.

Firstly: I wanted a tangible record of the moments I was trying to capture. A print could do it from a digital capture, but there seemed something I’d romanticized about having a roll of negatives that I couldn’t stop thinking about.

Secondly: I wanted to learn what film ACTUALLY “looked like”, and not just a digital recipe that claimed to replicate the film it claimed to. What DID Portra look like? What DID slide film look like? I didn’t want to take the internet’s word for it, I wanted to see with my own moist orbs.

Thirdly: I needed a break from being able to rapid fire off a billion digital captures only to have them wither on a hard drive somewhere.

Now fast forward right to the 1 year anniversary of learning to shoot film, and, like most - I’d gone far into that rabbit hole. I’d discovered slide film - the magic of slapping that little piece of emulsion on a light table and watching the photons get blasted back into my optic nerves had completely engulfed me.

So when this smallish, fancy-ass metal case made it’s way back to the house, and upon opening it - a dense brick of red-bordered cardboard slide mounts waved at me - a feather could’ve knocked me over. At first glance I would just be stoked that it was a brick of original Kodachrome slides. For those that don’t know, generally, you can quickly date a Kodachrome slide by which slide mount it is in, the color of the text, font, placement, whether it has a stamped number in ink, or embossed, etc. The earliest Kodachrome slides are very simple. Cardboard mounts, Red Text, embossed frame numbers in the rear, top, left, corner. “Kodachrome” on one side, “Made in U.S.A” on the other. Donezo.

You find one of those, you know the photo was taken and processed between 1941 and 1949, and you know it was developed by Kodak, directly.

And there was a whole mess of ‘em in that case.

Oh, yes.

Some had little notes on them with very short captions: “Homecoming 1951”, “Delores’ Graduation Party”, “On plane to NYC 1948, Miss Dewitt”, etc.

Within a few minutes of popping randomly selected slides onto illuminated viewers - it became clear what was there was special.

Commercial Passenger flight in 1948…that’s not a common thing. Why are the seats of said plane simply a bench bolted to the inside of the fuselage? Why are the passengers gambling and playing cards. Why would one fly to (from) NYC in 1948? Who was Miss Dewitt? Who was the photographer?

A litany of questions started exploding in my head and I needed to figure it out.

What has come from chasing the answers to those questions, is what I sat down to chat with Tyson for his 50th Episode of the Life Of Phys Podcast a couple of weeks back. (listen here!)

From homecoming games, to parades, to weddings and births…the collection of slides in that case spanned from roughly 1947 to 1953. 511 slides in total from the estate of a woman, come to find out, who is in the Texas Women’s Hall Of Fame. The slides were of and from her late husband’s family, and in those slides, captured there, were memories and events, milestones and smiles, accomplishments and promotions, family dinners and Christmases - last appearances and first births…of a family and their friends.

A collection of slides with faces long gone from this place. Homes and streets and cars and footprints of feet - fingerprints of lives lived.

I’ll detail the pros/cons of using a digital Leica M to do film scanning at some point.

I decided to digitize all of them, building out family trees, attempting to connect context clues and bring the stories back to life, from a pile of photos the better part of a century old now.

The Queens t’were not grumpy on this day.

And this is where I’ll do that. I’ll be sharing selects from that collection, and if there is a background to the image - here it will come back to life for y’all to learn about. And maybe at some point, one of the later generations might stumble upon a long lost photo of a loved one they wish they could remember a smile from, and it might light their day.

Baby Elaine’s first voyage into this world, surrounded by her Mom Liz, Gramma Lucille, and the fam friend (I believe), Colleen.

Hope it’s enjoyed by all who would like to follow along.

“We'll meet again, Don't know where, don't know when…But I know we'll meet again some sunny day.”