I have been asked several times why I decided to start this archive. The trigger for starting it was when I found a set of negatives hidden inside some old darkroom equipment which I bought for my main hobby of film photography. That story can be read here.
There are perhaps 2 reasons why I made the decision to do this.
The first reason is that I find the social history element of this project fascinating. I like to share images which show the many aspects of people’s lives throughout the years.
To that end, I prefer to share images which depict people or have human elements to them. The images I uncover give a glimpse in to our past and show how life has changed with the passing of years. Many of the images I post capture special events in people’s lives. These include weddings, birthdays, Christmas, new houses, new cars and family holidays. Events like this are often significant in people’s lives. These occasions will undoubtably have held a special place in the hearts of the people involved in them. The importance placed on these moments would have been so great that it compelled the amateur photographer to preserve them on film. The purpose, just like today with our social media outlets, was to enable them to look back at or share the images with family and friends.
Today, we take for granted the ability to take photographs “on demand” using either our smartphones or digital cameras. In the not too distant past the making of photographs was a costly, time consuming and often unreliable business, especially for the amateur photographer. To my mind, that makes the sharing of such images all the more important.
Secondly, I enjoy the technical challenge. This is three-fold. The first of these is choosing the development process for the films I develop. This includes choosing developing chemistry, mixing up developer and fixing solutions from raw chemicals and choosing how long to develop. I like to be methodical about this and I make copious notes on the results I achieve from different combinations of film types and developing chemistry. This gives me the best chance of achieving usable results from future films I will process.
The second technical challenge is sharing the images digitally. Photographic media degrades over the years. This is often a result of it being stored in less than ideal conditions. Such conditions include being stored in warm loft spaces or cold and damp cellars. These extremes degrade the film emulsions and reduce the quality of the images produced. Similarly, old slides, negatives and prints could have suffered physical damage such as mould growth, scratches, or tears to the paper on which they are printed.
In these instances, I try to give the images, what I call, a “sympathetic restoration”. I ideally like to leave the images in their original state. I do not try to “falsify” the images by using colourising apps, or in more recent times AI filters which “enhance” the images. I think that these types of tools distract from the original character of the images I share. I use Photoshop as the tool for undertaking this work. My aim here is to restore the images to their former glory. The work can be time consuming and painstaking but achieving a presentable result is very satisfying. One extreme example of a sympathetic restoration I have undertaken is the image of “Muriel”. Incidentally, the image of Muriel is one of my favourite posts on the the archive.
The maintenance of this website is also a technical challenge. It has been enjoyable to design, add features and customise various aspects of the site. Initially I set up an Instagram page to display the images I uncover. This soon became limiting for larger sets of images. Having a dedicated site enables me to group discreet image sets under one post.
What about the future of the Archive?
I simply want to see it go from strength to strength. I’d like to both vary and widen the span of time which the archive covers.
I would like to increase my social media following. It would be great if readers would follow my Instagram page or other social media outlets where I post regular taster images and information about new additions to the archive. Please feel free to comment on or like any images which catch your attention
Taking image donations from others who would like their memories shared would also be a great next step.
One other aspiration is that of trying to locate people or the relatives of people in some of the images. I would very much like to reunite them with copies. I have had limited experience of this, but I have never managed to see an example of the reuniting process through to the end.
Maintaining, growing and developing Forgotten Film Archive does cost me money. Costs include buying the photographic media in the first instance, purchasing the chemical substances needed to process old films and the ongoing website maintenance costs.
This project is a side hobby to my main hobby of film photography. If any readers or followers would like to support my little project, you can via my “Buy me a Coffee” page using the button below.
Any donations made will be much appreciated and will be used to help maintain grow and further develop the archive.
Thanks for reading.
I hope that you enjoy browsing the site.
Daniel.
