FotoBridge | Digitizing Photos Blog

FotoBridge, the national photo scanning service picked by New York Magazine as "Best Photo Digitizer", recently completed a significant photo scanning engagement to digitize NBCUniversal's corporate photographic archives.

Based at Rockefeller Center, in mid-town Manhattan, NBCUniversal is a collection of some of today's most valuable media assets owned by Comcast and General Electric (51% and 49% respectively). The company traces its' history back to predecessor companies Vivendi Universal and MCA Inc. Formed in 2004 through the merger of GE's NBC with Vivendi's  Universal Entertainment and subsequent buyout by Comcast in 2009. Today, the NBCUniversal family of brands include NBC, Universal Pictures, NBCUniversal Television Group, NBC News, CNBC, MSNBC, Bravo, The Weather Channel and Hulu.

The most recent photo scanning effort included digitizing nearly 40,000 - 35mm slides from the NBCUniversal archives. The collection included one-of-a-kind images of studio leaders, executives, staff, production facilities, costumes, offices, marketing campaigns and events. Now digitally preserved, backed-up and accessible - the collection can be easily leveraged for future events, publications, internal communications, and public relations purposes, among others.

Photo Credit / David Shankbone via Wikipedia

Big adventure on the high seas has come in many forms throughout history. For Bob and Nancy Griffith, it had been a way of life that put them in the record books and made them part of modern seafaring legend.

Starting in 1959, Dr. Robert Lyle Griffith started a series of round-the-world voyages with his wife Nancy and son Reid. The first circumnavigation was aboard the Awahnee I, which was latter lost on a reef near the Tuamotu Islands, the largest of the Tahiti-Polynesian archipelagoes, while on a rescue mission for an American yacht. That first voyage was east to west around the Horn and Cape of Good Hope.

The family's second circumnavigation was aboard their self-built, ferro-cement cutter the Awahnee II and was east bound via Japan. The third trip was also aboard that vessel, and was a southernly route around Antarctica from New Zealand with stops at the American, English, Russian, Chilean and Argentine scientific outpost stations. They roughly followed the course of Captain James Cook, the first to circumnavigate the Antarctic. During the voyage, Captain Cook's 205-year-old journal was kept aboard and read aloud by Nancy as they followed his track. The circumnavigation had taken 111 days (the fastest on record and following a route never before attempted by a pleasure craft), 84 of which were sailing days and 27 of which were in port or partial sailing days.

As one might imagine, the Griffith's have a treasure-trove of wild stories and perilous tales from their many adventures on the high seas. From shipwrecks to being thrown overboard into shark-infested waters, they survived and thrived under challenges and odysseys  most of us only read about. Fortunately, the Griffith's were not only expert sailors but photographers that captured the images of their voyages on high-quality Kodachrome slide film.

"We were delighted to be awarded the project to digitally convert and preserve this large, highly-valued collection of photos from the Griffith family archives" said Julie Morris, President of FotoBridge, a New Jersey-based photo scanning service . FotoBridge digitized thousands upon thousands of spectacular images from 35mm slides dating back the the 1950s. "The resulting images were fantastic, due largely to the excellent exposures, the archival qualities of the films used and the FotoBridge digital capture processes and systems", added Ms. Morris.

In 1972, Bob Griffith was awarded the prestigious Blue Water Medal by the Cruising Club of America. In bestowing the award, the late John Parkinson, commented, "In all my years of serving on this committee, in my opinion we have never had a recipient so deserving of this honor". After nearly 200,000 miles under sail, Bob and Nancy Griffith wrote and published Blue Water: A Guide to Self-Reliant Sailboat Cruising

 

NOTE: Images and information source, Blue Water via insidemystery.org

Professional football has perhaps the richest history of any sports pursuit in America. The lore and legend of the game has been artfully and dramatically captured on film by many organizations and individuals over the years. NFL Films is known world-wide for their award-winning films that bring the epic battles of the game to fans in powerful, highly produced documentaries and news clips. But in addition to the vast film archives NFL Films has been building for years, there are other large collections of film and photographic archives collected and managed by the teams themselves.

FotoBridge was selected by the Indianapolis Colts to digitally archive thousands of rare, one of a kind 35mm slides and negatives. The vast collection of images, a gold mine of franchise history, is now digitally accessible and preserved forever. The effort included advanced high resolution digital capture, TIFF and high quality JPEG image processing and enhancement, media burning and index printing.

The Colts trace their origin back to the mid 1940s. Their story includes NFL championships in 1958, 1959, 1968 and Super Bowl V in 1971 while in Baltimore and Super Bowl XLI in 2007 after moving to Indianapolis. Hall of Fame Colts players include Johnny Unitas, Lenny Moore, Marshall Faulk, Eric Dickerson, Art Donovan, Jim Parker, Raymond Berry, Ted Hendircks, John Mackey, and Gino Marchetti.

Ice Hockey is one of the most exciting and popular sports internationally, and in the US, it's huge and growing. Since 1936, USA Hockey, Inc. has been successfully promoting the growth of hockey in America. From it's headquarters in Colorado Springs, CO, USA Hockey is responsible for developing both men's and women's team's for competitions such as the Olympic Winter Games and IIHF World Championships. It is the official representative to the International Ice Hockey Federation and the United States Olympic Committee.

USA Hockey selected FotoBridge to digitally preserve it's vast photographic archives. The collection spanned the history of the organization, including over 23,000 photographic prints, slides, and negatives.

The organization also works closely with the NHL and the National Collegiate Athletic Association to promote shared interests in the sport of ice hockey. Core to it's mission of supporting the growth of grassroots hockey programs , it oversees 11 geographic districts across the US, coordinating and sponsoring tournaments, safety programs, referee and coach development activities, clinics and much more.

USA Hockey publishes USA Hockey Magazine, the largest hockey publication in the world distributed monthly to members.

For over 25 years, Joe Giron has been at the forefront of music industry photography. After graduating Ohio University and stints as a staff photographer for two major newspapers - he switched gigs to focus on shooting musicians, band portraiture, and concerts for record companies and editorial clients. He was the official photographer for legendary heavy metal band Pantera, documenting their career over a 20 year period.

"FotoBridge does great work, scans are clean and well processed. They have always been responsive to my needs and concerns and provide wonderful customer service." - Joe Giron, February 17, 2011.

Based in Los Angeles, California, Joe was introduced to FotoBridge by an accomplished New York City colleague, who was also using the company's digitizing services to digitally preserve a vast collection of photo archives. Digitizing decades of analog photo archives not only creates a lasting, secure legacy documenting music history - it opens new commercial avenues for photographers and expands digital image markets with classic, one-of-a-kind content.

In 2001, Joe went digital and thereafter began shooting commercial and editorial work in the gaming industry, primarily the fast growing world of competitive poker.

Cathy Church is one of the foremost underwater photographers, authors and teachers of our time. For nearly 45 years, she has been capturing the diversity and other-worldly beauty of the undersea world. Together with her late husband, Jim Church, she authored well over 200 articles for prominent diving publications, wrote four underwater photography books (including the Nikonos Handbook), and has produced video guides to underwater photography. She has been accumulating awards and accolades for years. Including induction into the Woman Divers Hall of Fame and being selected to receive the prestigious NOGI award for the arts.

Her latest book,  My Underwater Photo Journey (with forward by Jean-Michel Cousteau, Ocean Futures Society) is a must-have for both expert and aspiring underwater photographers. The ingenious aspect of this book is that it fulfills a dual purpose rarely found in even world-class publications.  It delivers both a super high quality, hard-back photo book suitable for display with over 250 spectacular shots and many extras....AND lessons for each and every photo, detailing the equipment and techniques used to create each shot.  Truly a unique artistic and educational value.

Today, Cathy continues to write and teach underwater photography from her base in the Cayman Islands where she also manages  "Cathy Church's Underwater Photo Center & Gallery" and she conducts underwater photo tours throughout the South Pacific.

From it's base in Washington D.C. and offices in Brussels, Belgium - the General Aviation Manufacturers Association (GAMA) has been representing the world's leading aviation manufacturers for nearly 40 years. It's critical role is to advance the interests, safety, and activities of general aviation on behalf of airplane, engine, and avionics manufacturers.

"We selected FotoBridge to digitize years of company 35mm slides and photographic prints (a 15,000+ legacy image collection).  Throughout the entire process, we were most impressed with Fotobridge's exceptional customer service.  They were always prompt to respond, provide frequent status updates and are a pleasure to work with." - Rachel Gilbert, GAMA

General aviation includes all aviation with the exception of military and commercial airlines. It plays an important role in economic growth and represents one of the most important and dynamic industries on the globe. In 2006, general aviation contributed over $150B and $53B to the US economy in output and wages (respectively, including direct, indirect and induced). General aviation also supported 1.2M jobs during the same period.

Legions of Anne Frasier fans can now get a rare glimpse of a few real world images that may have figured in her soon to be published memoir, The Orchard. The prolific, awarding-winning author of thriller and romance novels recently gathered up hundreds of decades-old color slides and sent to FotoBridge to be digitally preserved forever. A few sample gems have been posted on her popular blog, MONKEY WITH A PEN, as a preview for devotees.

"Color me impressed.  FotoBridge exceeded my expectations in all areas—from communication throughout the process to the quality of the final images.  I highly recommend FotoBridge for digital conversion needs!" - Anne Frasier, author, June 23, 2010.

Anne's contemporary romance novels were written under the Theresa Weir pseudonym. In 1999, she was awarded a Romance Writers of America RITA Award for Best Romantic Suspense for Cool Shade. From 1988 through 1999, she penned 13 top-selling romance novels. During this period, Frasier's editors would often ask her to loose the "blood and bodies" from her plots. It was then she transitioned fully to thrillers beginning with Hush in 2002. Since then, her novels were published under her name and included Sleep Tight (2003), Play Dead (2004), Before I Wake (2005), Pale Immortal (2006), Garden of Darkness (2007).

To say NJ businessman Henry Vaccaro has a story to tell could be the understatement of the year. In fact, he's got several stories that would knock your socks off. The saga of how he came to own a trove of Jackson Family memorabilia is the stuff of Hollywood movies, novels and a soon-to-be-released publication. It began more than 30 years ago when Jackson’s father Joe contacted him about a real estate deal at the Jersey shore and still continues to today.

In the 1980s, Mr. Vaccaro met Tito Jackson when making guitars for him as part-owner of Kramer Guitars. The guitar company achieved world-wide success for it’s innovative guitar designs and stable of high profile players like Eddie Van Halen and Richie Sambora. But despite it’s early success, in 1992 the company filed for bankruptcy. A company owned by the Jackson family agreed to purchase the guitar company from Henry Vaccaro, but soon defaulted on the payments. Thus began the decades-long series of legal battles that ultimately resulted in the legal transfer of priceless Michael Jackson and Jackson Family items to Henry Vaccaro. The collection is reported to include over 60 unreleased master tapes, costumes, letters, documents and gold records. It also includes thousands of never before publically seen photographs captured on Kodachrome slide film. The photos include professionally shot Jackson 5 concert performances and other images spanning years of Jackson family history.

Understandably, safeguarding this one-of-a-kind photo collection had been a top priority for Mr. Vaccaro from day one. Michael Jackson’s tragic and untimely death in June 2009 created a burning imperative to commission the professional digital archiving, preservation and backup of the entire photographic collection. Henry Vaccaro and a group of expert advisors chose FotoBridge for this important undertaking.

“We were delighted to be selected for this high-profile project”, said Julie Morris, President of FotoBridge. “The collection includes extraordinary images, many never seen, not only of Michael Jackson, but the entire Jackson family. It contains an important visual heritage of one of the most remarkable musical celebrity families of modern times. The commercial value of the collection was likely incalculable at the time we initiated the effort. Clearly, our strict absolute-privacy practices, facility security and advanced media handling process earned the confidence of Mr. Vaccaro’s team.” added Ms. Morris.