FotoBridge | Digitizing Photos Blog

Topics: Commentary, Announcements & News, Look Who's Scanning

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.

Topics: Commentary, Client Spotlight, Look Who's Scanning

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.

Topics: Commentary, Client Spotlight, Look Who's Scanning

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.

Topics: Commentary, Client Spotlight, Look Who's Scanning

Topics: Commentary, Client Spotlight, Look Who's Scanning

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).

Topics: Commentary, Client Spotlight, Look Who's Scanning

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.

Topics: Commentary, Client Spotlight, Look Who's Scanning

Topics: Commentary, Announcements & News, Client Spotlight, Look Who's Scanning

Archie Rand is widely recognized as the world's most prominent painter of Jewish themes. As a painter, muralist, designer, and graphic artist his paintings have been featured for years, around the globe at the most respected and prestigious  galleries, shows and museums. These include The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The Bibliotheque Nationale of Paris, The Israel Museum in Jerusalem, the Art Institute of Chicago and The Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

Mr. Rand studied at the Art Students League of New York under Larry Poons, who declared him to be the heir apparent of the 1960s art world. He then received his Bachelor of Fine Arts from Pratt Institute.  His first exhibition was in 1966 followed by at least 80 solo exhibitions and inclusion in 200 group exhibitions. He is a Laureate of the National Foundation for Jewish Culture, which awarded him the Achievement Medal for Contributions to the Visual Arts, joining him to the ranks of such talents as Itzhak Perlman, Philip Roth, Arthur Miller, and Elie Wiesel. He has been appointed as a Guggenheim Foundation Fellow and has received numerous other honors. Artforum has called Archie Rand “the most accomplished artist of his generation.”

Over the many years of his long career, Archie Rand photographically archived his collection of important painting and murals. "My inventory of transparencies was stored in binders that were shelved on bookcases, covering two adjacent walls. The entire archive needed to be digitally transferred so that the studio could update its organizational and communication capacities", said Mr Rand.

"Late to make the move to a pixelated reality, I conceded that slides are no longer the currency of image exchange -  I could no longer put off the inevitable." After researching secure ways to digitally convert his valued collection of thousands of 35mm Slides, Archie Rand choose FotoBridge for this important undertaking.

"The service at Fotobridge was terrific. Friendly, professional, and prompt - their offerings are priced competitively and they produced high quality results. Web-ready and print quality images were generated from each original and the index proofs offer a hard copy tally of each project.  Cross-filing data is now easily accommodated and immediate visual referencing and transmitting can be done at the keyboard.  Conveniently stored on discs, I can now slip selected histories of my production into my coat pocket.  I've put books on the bookcases." - Archie Rand, April 29, 2010.

Topics: Commentary, Client Spotlight, Look Who's Scanning