Orphaned Negatives...

If you are joining my blog for the first time, please find the first entry below so you can catch up on what we are all about here.

Mr. Ninomiya kept pretty good records for all his files.  I usually am finding a name, a date the photos were shot and a description of what they are. Like this one:

This is the envelope that contains the portrait of the Governor of Hiroshima, Hiroo Ohara.  I managed to figure out how to shoot the negative.  Looks like he is in charge..

I am working steadily thru the pile of bags.  This is my desk area and work space...

I am rapidly running out of floor space to work here.  Ideally, what I would love to have is the use of a small office for a few weeks to sort, stack and classify these photos.  I am not sure how much longer my living room will last.  

This is the pile of bags I still  have left to go thru. As you can see, there is still a lot.   Cat not included in archive materials....

While looking thru the envelope of orphaned negatives I have, I found these two images.   This is, I believe, Mr Ninomiya in a posed portrait...

And another I found of him standing in front of his shop.  This shop is no longer there, if I am reading Google Earth, correctly. I believe this weekend will be good for a field trip to the area.

The scan of this negative was less than desired but that's also another of my challenges.  I am limited in my ability to scan and record these negatives as I dont have the proper equipment.

I do like seeing this image though. I think it says a lot about Mr Ninomiya.

I shot this photo trying to illustrate how much I have sorted so far.. the many stacks that are two and a half feet high...

At first I thought I would not use it because I forgot to move the can of Febreeze sitting back there.  But I thought I should tell you all that its there for  reason.  These files are old.  Some over 50 years old.  They all are deteriorating.  Some quite fast and some rather slowly.  And they all have some version of rot going on in these envelopes. 

The smell from that mixed with aging chemicals on the film and papers make a rather overwhelming smell in my living room.  So it gets a regular shot of Febreeze to help control it.

I have had some people ask me what I need.  Right now I need to buy archving materials to get these negatives and prints out of these old paper envelopes and into something a little more photo-friendly. 

I need a space to work on these that is not my house and is climate controlled.  An office that I can work in would be a grand donation.

I need a high end scanner. I need a fast computer with a significant storage capacity so I can digitize and store all these images.  I need either a RAID hard drive set up or many good external hard drives.

There is so much more but that seems to be my immediate need.

I met with a really great group of photographers tonight.  And I showed them some of the works I have both good and bad and there seemed to be agreement that this work is very important and the find is too good to pass up. 

I hope you will feel this way as you read my blog and see my progress.   I hope that you will consider clicking the donation button to the right here and helping me get there. 

Ten dollars, five, a hundred, a thousand.   Every penny you donate goes directly to saving this work from just turning to dust.  No amount is too small, and no amount is too large. 

Your support, financial and otherwise, greatly helps to achieve what has now become my passion; showing more of this work to the world.

As always, questions, comments, offers of help are always welcome at my email:  la_photoguy@yahoo.com

Thanks for reading todays update!

Michael