Images used with kind permission of Levi Bettwieser of The Rescued Film Project
Levi Bettwieser is the founder and film technician for The Rescued Film Project - an archive of images from 'lost and forgotten' rolls of film, sourced from all over the word. Last year, Bettwieser acquired 66 packages of undeveloped film from the 1950s, totaling an estimated 1,200 rolls.
Each package is made up of several rolls of undeveloped film, meticulously wrapped in aluminum foil, newspaper and athletic tape and as Bettwieser explains, 'this is way more film than I can process myself.' The single roll that he has developed shows some degradation but has yielded usable images.
Blue Moon Camera in Portland has agreed to take on the task of developing the rest of the unprocessed film, but even with a discount, processing so many rolls is going to cost a lot of money. Bettwieser has launched a funding campaign on Indiegogo.com, and at time of writing, his team has raised roughly a third of the total funding goal of $15,000.
If you're interested in this project, you might enjoy reading a series of articles that we published in 2014.
The business model behind the Rescused Film Ptoject is an interesting one. They will develop your old rolls of film in exhange for the negatives and the rights to the images. For a lot of folks this is a fine tradoff indeed. The Project in turn builds a vast collection of salable historical images at a relatively low cost., presumably to license and to develop even more film. And who knows, there may be a Vivian Maier-like find at some point. Overall, I think this is an interesting enterprise both historically and as a business venture. They need to do more than one roll of film to get me interested in supporting. This particular find. But I wish them luck.
"Levi is a film technician and founder for The rescued Film Project looking for lost and forgotten rolls of films". When he actually finds something big, he cannot manage it himself and ask for money. Why he started such venture then in the first place? And has this "film technician" only money for developing 1 roll? And if he cannot cope because of the sheer amount of films, why he does not provide more info about the source? It seems that nowadays the people can ask for crowd-funding even without bothering to do any preparatory work or give sufficient background information. Do your homework first, man.
On reflection, the real crowd-sourcing opportunity here is to process 20 random rolls, and post the images for the public to identify where and when the pictures were taken and identify the photographer. More publicity, more likelihood of money being spent on doing something of merit - oh and more fun for participants.
Project leader is missing a trick here: the key thing people want to know is "Why would anyone take all these pictures and (apparently) have no plans to process them?" If they tackled the crowd sourcing finance task exploiting this interest they may be more successful. Preceding comments on basing project on a more statistically representative sample are very sensible, and should be part of the eventual project.
looks like there is nothing useful on these rolls, there are plenty of good old slides available on ebay for sale. I have stumbled across a book with homicide photos with some graphic scenes. One example a father shot his teenage step daughter and shot himself. I couldn't sleep all night after seeing these images. These look like they may just be some family photos... No value in them if that's the case, the problem is that one roll is not a reason to develop everything, Develop 5-6 to see if the batch is worth developing before making it news on dpreview.
"Paul". Why no last name? Anonymity? He purchased this from someone selling it for the family, so should know the guys last name and his life details. Was he a pro photographer, or just a point and shoot guy that chronicled his family life? No one is going to be interested in developing point and shoot images of someones family.
If they were never developed there is almost 100% possibility that those photos have no artistic value. But being a so huge number of photos they can probably have an historical value, as it can be a full sight of the society of the time! In my opinion it's worth to give something to help him with this project!
Vinnie was in jail, unable to help his dear old daddy to dig the tomato garden. He then sent a letter asking the old man to dig the garden to get rid of very important pieces of evidence that he buried there. The next day the FBI and the local police arrived at the old man's house and started to dig holes all over the garden. They left empty handed. That same day the old man received another letter from his son. Dear Dad, Go ahead and plant the tomatoes now. That's the best I could do under the circumstances. Love Vinnie. ***Why didn't you just drop the box marked JFK FILES at your friendly FBI Quarters, or called them as a concerned citizen who found that while cleaning the garage? PUT YOUR TAXES AT WORK.
I fear it might be the work of a lunatic who thought a nuclear war was at hand and about to reset the human civilization. He then hurried to take pictures of anything making the 20th century american reality/way of life to transmit the knowledge to future generations. This is a chair ! This is a dog. This is a car... this is a pen !
I think that questions about the project could be answered by visiting the link to the rescued film project. I see it as a form of social anthropology. Home made movies and old photos sell well on ebay and Etsy, so its a popular thing, perhaps a view through someone's window in times gone by.
And, of course, there may always be a valuable Elvis or Beetle photo or other potentially priceless image.
I'm sorry I have my own 35mm slides to scan and process. The scanner I have takes about 12min to scan each slide once, more if i want noise reduction. No one gave me money to purchase this dedicated 35mm scanner. I had to buy it with my own money. Why cant you buy your own scanner? Lots of good ones on ebay for fair prices these days.
The Konica Minolta scanner will not scan any faster in 40MP mode. I want the full details of each slide, due to being my dad's slides he took in the military in the 1950's. They are really good scan quality but painfully slow scanner.
Anyway, this guy should just buy a scanner himself instead of asking public for donations to scan family photos that were hoarded in boxes over the years.
You've only processed one of likely 1200 rolls, showing a few utterly banal snapshots, and want me to pony up hard-earned cash so you can pay to have the rest (of these likely snapshots) professionally processed?
I have to agree with many others, Levi. It seems odd that you've been moved to process only a single roll in over a year. You seem not to have much optimism that you'll find anything but mundane family photos, and you haven't shown us why we should if you don't. Process a dozen, scan and post the results, and we'll decide whether to contribute.
And what are we to make of the VERY odd way in which the photographer chose to handle his work: Seemingly to leave it to posterity to process, by what seems to be obsessional packaging and storage of unprocessed film? Is there reason to think that someone with so little interest in seeing the result of his own work nevertheless made images that the rest of us would want to see – at our cost, no less?
Why don't you contact The Black & White Lab in San Clemente, CA. ? See what they can do as far as a discount goes. I'm not convinced yet why I should donate to this cause. I need some donations too but I am not asking anyone. I am not cold hearted but hey let's be real. Is there a real story here like he is a DAV?
He's developed one roll...that's it...one roll??? Now a FundMe campaign to do the rest?? Come on man....you've had the film for a full year and only developed one roll?? It's fine if you want to use the argument that you 'can't possibly develop 1200 rolls' but don't then tell us you could only be bothered to develop one roll in the last year.
With no clue as the source of all this film, I don't see much reason for excitement. If someone had done a sampling of film dropped off for processing for the entirety of the 1950s, 99% would have been crap except to the family that was doing the development.
I wish that Levi had revealed more information about this treasure, such as more details about the source, legality, copyrights (are they going to be published publicly?), and how or why these films were sent to him in particular, etc.
Judging by the way they were meticulously wrapped and documented, it's clear that these were shot by a professional. The random film that was processed and printed may not be an indication of what these rolls contain. As for why they were never processed, it remains a mystery. It may even remain a mystery after the processing. The $15000 cost is debatable, but I think $12.50 per roll is not terribly excessive because of the special care and extra time needed for handling such a very old batch of film. If Levi had revealed more details, I would consider donating to the project. After all, it's curiosity, although I know that curiosity killed the cat ... :)
I don't see the connection between silver foil, gaffer tape and professional photography...to my way of thinking, if s/he was a pro, then they would have been developed so as to get paid. We don't know yet if this is a work of genius, like Vivian Maier's collection, but we can hope of course. But the work of an amateur, I think.
Hard to tell. He or she could've been ahead of the times (or had access to someone who is knowledgeable in electrical engineering or physics/electromagnetics) for advice. The metallic foil protects against radio and magnetic radiation, as well as forms an extra layer of protection against light leakage. Early metal detectors (magnetic gates) at airports (or some of them, at least) ruined lots of film before people began to realize it.
I doubt very much that this is the work of an amateur, especially in that day and age, where cameras weren't anything near these days. Not many could afford such a hobby in those days, let alone 1200 rolls. We may never know why they were not processed, but there must be a good enough reason. In any case, we all are guessing and speculating, and Levi has chosen not to reveal much detail.
Interesting. I note that more and more articles are appearing on dpreview concerned with silver based photography. All very nice as I myself date from the era, but have the editors run out of digital information? Dpreview seems to be becoming a general photography site rather than focusing on digital. Nothing wrong I 'spose, but it's not what I come here for. I put it down to the colour change, the negative (!) of what we had before.
Hmm, I prefer to read about analog photography much more, than about electronic gadgets like smartphone cameras and that like. Thanks to all those "gadgets" I find myself googling more and more for more photography sites last year. As always, YMMV ;-)
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The most interesting question here isn't "what is on this film" by "why does this film even exist?"
Even back in the 1950s we knew film had a shelf life. We knew it had to be used and processed quickly. Yet someone shot 1200 rolls and never processed any of it. Instead, he wrapped it up for "posterity" or something.
Just based on the one sample roll developed it is clear this was no eccentric artist like Vivian Maier. These are some very bad snapshots.
You really have to wonder why they were even taken, much less preserved for processing at some future time. A time when recovery would be difficult if not impossible to do.
This will probably always be a mystery. If there was one decent photo on that roll, then someone might be motivated by curiosity to develop all this film.
But right now, it looks like Vivian Maier's legacy is safe.
Not sure I agree with this take. Photography does not have to be artistic to have value. The bottom line is that photographs contain information. My first digital photography was fish gonads through a microscope, to identify cell types. These rolls undoubtedly contain information about what buildings looked like, signage, etc. that will be valuable to someone. And there might be more. Actually, it is almost assured that there is more.
I don't see the need for the crowd-funding appeal though. I mean, seriously? I could do a lot of the developing with the bottle of HC-110 in my closet. There is no need to pay premium prices to have a certain lab develop the film, unless part of the deal is to support the lab. Why doesn't he just ask for the cost of the chemicals?
Rare to disagree with you, Marty, but looks like some interesting social documentary stuff. Anyway, 620 film is much easier to develop and work with than 35mm. A pre-development water bath would probably help with curl. There's probably some C-41 120 lines still in existence that could be converted to B&W.
I will donate, but not before 10-15 random rools have been developed, to see if it is worth pursuing. Very strange to have only developed one roll before starting such a big project and before going out begging for money.
Give us some more samples from random rolls and the money will start rolling in (Pun intended) :-)
Be scientific. Go through the various packages of film and pull out 10% of the total and develop the negatives - it's not that expensive. Geez use Rodinal, 100:1 stand for an hour. If it's all crap then don't worry about the rest. $15,000 fir 1200 rolls of just negative processing is a little steep IMO. That's a retail price, not a do it you self price. Send me 100 rolls and I'll do it for you, I've got a darkroom. I'll do it free of charge.
Agreed. This article leaves out about 80% of the story. An even better question, "Why do these people think they have the right to process and look at this film?"
@racenviper Something that was never mentioned in the article or the video. The only mentions were that this person "acquired" (in the article) and "found" (in the video) these 1200 rolls.
Perhaps a salient point to this article would be the disclosure of whether or not the rightful copyright holders of these images have transferred complete copyright ownership to these people... Who are asking us for money to complete the transaction.
The other question that needs to be asked is what is he going to do with the images after they have been processed (using other people's money)? Sell them like the guy who "acquired" Vivian Maier's photos?
If he actually has legal copyright ownership and intends putting the photos out in the public domain I could understand why people might donate to the project but this sounds like a scam. If he was truly passionate about saving these photos he would have processed as many rolls as he could afford (ie. more than one).
I don't quite get the request for financing when the only developed one roll of film. Surely they could afford to develop a sample size of 2% which would be 24 rolls over a wide date range to see if it's worth perusing the entire project?
Is it just me, or does this seem a bit "suspect"??
I agree, that was my first thought as well. There are 3 images shown in the project presentation clip, but sampling some more, could give a better idea of what to expect. From that only processed film, it could likely be the full life of his family caught in images. Not a bad project, but hitting some other areas (landscape/towns in that period, etc) could spur more interest.
1,200 rolls for $15,000, thats $12.5 per roll of film for only developing without printing or scanning and thats after the big discount he got from them for high quantity and for helping him for his project. Your local photo store will charge you about the same or even less and without any discounts. I know that developing b/w negatives is more expensive than color but still...
If you watch the video, he describes what the money are for. Also think that developing film that old, need some extra care to enhance contrast/details (probably more expensive substances or more developing time per roll, etc)
Also if you don't care of his project, why do you throw such an ignorant and insulting accusation with no support? He didn't ask you money, he asked from the ones that think it's a project worth doing.
Developing b/w is more expensive than color? No. Developing b/w is quite cheap. Developing with something like Rodinal R09 cost about 30 cents plus a few more cents for fixation. That's it.
For years, a company near my city called Film Rescue (http://www.filmrescue.com) has been processing old film using original and modified processes. Although I don't have any affiliation with them, I'd trust them to know how to do the processing properly to get the best possible results. That's all this company does. No matter who ends up developing these rolls, it's a VERY tricky process, especially with colour films where not only the latent image in the emulsion, but the geletin itself deteriorates. The longer anyone waits to find out what's on the rolls, the less likely decent images (if any) may be found.
Amazon is a business, not a charity. They BOUGHT DPReview, they PAY their staff, and the tremendous pool of knowledge and talent here helps them make MONEY. I love DPReview, but I don't see their owners putting $15k into a project that makes them NOTHING.
To Archiver: Matthias is right. Amazon/Dpreview could do that, if they wanted to. Bags of companies do that sort of thing every single day in the world, it's called "mécénat" or "sponsoring". The company doing that can get nice returns on investment in various mean. It's far to be inconceivable, are you born yesterday ?
This one place I worked at and processed film, we had a regular client who would bring in rolls, and like some distorted clock he had odd requests and everything had to be done in a very specific fashion. If anything was out of place - like a film strip in the carrier the wrong way - he would be sure to let us know so it didn't happen again. I was there for two years watching him do this every week without fail. From a design theory standpoint his images were junk. Not even fun family photos of people having special moments. Everyone in them looked bored, or as if the photo was taken just before or after the expression you want to remember. Just photos for the sake of photos. I know those images weren't important to anyone but him and his family, so it didn't really bother me cause he wasn't claiming otherwise.
Moral of the story is that just because someone has OCD doesn't mean they have some profound artistic vision.
But something like 1200 unprocessed rolls.. I want to see more.
Yes, as some other pointed out already - before starting a project to process 1200 rolls, maybe it's a good idea to process about 20-50 random rolls (not only one), to get a better idea of what you may found.
After that you might decide if it's worth going further to see the full life of "Paul's family" (as that one roll suggests) or maybe this Paul was a sport shooter, or maybe he got interesting images from some towns/regions in that period.... or maybe just not wort the investment...
A friend selling old cameras got 1000 slides after one of his customers died. Told me this guy had a very good Minolta, so would I check the slides?
Titles like desert villages Sahara, Croatia 1965, New York 1962. Wow... Well, after 6 hours 50 good images and maybe 10 very good, too many animals in zoos and wasted slides. Not complaining, but not doing it again. - Just wonder, who will bother to check my images in 40 years?!
I donated to this. It seems to me the social history aspect to this story is interesting. It has a time capsule feel to it - the deliberate packaging of the film to last as long as possible may have been the photographers motivation. Perhaps it's been discovered to early - after all the 50s is only very recent history.
I think it was discovered on time. I agree it might be much more interesting in 1-2 hundred years, but the film might get already too degraded to get reasonable good images. Also i suspect that by then it will be almost impossible to develop films. :)
I suspect that in 200 years the film would have been too degraded to save much detail, thus making it very difficult to salvage anything. Also, most likely in a few decades there will be no film manufacturer, and a few generations later the concept of film will be something so ancient that it will be in the field of archaeologists to do such tasks :)
How about some optimism here, folks ... these film rolls could hold genuine photos of alien UFO's, artifacts and extraterrestrial beings, as well as famous superstars of music, film, art and science.
"Photographer finds 1200 rolls of unprocessed film from 1950s" and they want us to pay to develop it so they can claim full print/publish copyright so they can profit from it even more.
That lack of a money flow chart and redistribution mechanism to donors if value is uncovered, and the failure to at least test several randomly selected rolls are the glaring flaws in this.
Sounds like a great scheme indeed. When i read, "And he needs your help" in the teaser text, my interest vanished and i wondered if i ever read those words on DPR before.
My partner bought a box brownie off ebay that still has a roll of film in it. I've often wondered whether we should try to develop it and what we would find if we did.
...the second shooter on the grassy knoll... what really happened to Jimmy Hoffa (US)....what really happened to Harold Holt (Aus) ...the moon landing studio.... oh the possibilities
Why would anyone want to spend money to develop 1200 rolls of film from an unknown amateur photographer? Hoping he'll be the next Vivian Maier and he'll clean up?
Develop some random rolls - not just one - and see if the photos are at all interesting - which is very doubtful.
They commented that they just sent 50 rolls as sample to develop. DPreview should publish it after they have more photos to show (if they are indeed interesting and valuable).
Most prolific film photographers will have varying amount of unprocessed film. I saw a documentary on Garry Winogrand, and at the time of his death he had "about 2,500 rolls of undeveloped film, 6,500 rolls of developed but not proofed exposures, and about 3,000 rolls only realized as far as contact sheets being made." (see Wikipedia...https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garry_Winogrand)
My guess is the vibes come from those who have never loaded a roll of film.
C'mon, it's a digital photography site. Defend this flawed, film photography crowdfunding project as you wish, but not having loaded film oneself does not discredit younger posters or those who picked up photography later in life, in the post-film era.
He didn't discredit younger posters, his point is very valid: 1200 or unprocessed film is not such a big deal. It looks impressive to the persons not familiar with film when you see such a pile of rolls of film, but if you think about it there are just around 40k images.
It is very possible that this guy developed the interesting/work related/etc film, and saved these for later "if I have the time and money" as they weren't so interesting. Or it's possible to hold very interesing stuff. I know i probably have 3 times that amount of images saved on my PC and backed up on external drives, and at least 10 times more deleted ... images that are quite important to me, but i'm pretty sure no one will care if i loose them or save them to eternity...
Well, things are not that easy when time and money are a concern.
Take a simple example: you are doing some shooting, and your client wants 2 images for newspaper article. You shoot here and there, and so on, change a few rolls, but you know you've got really interesting moments on roll 2 and 6 out of 10. So you process those, you are satisfied with what you've got, chapter closed. Why would you bother spending the time and money to develop the others? Just stack them in a package, wrap them well, and say: "maybe sometime i'll develop these" :) ... just saying...
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