Sep 15, 2026 2 min read

Preserving a Trove of Visual History

Me eating a candy bar - Boston area, mid 50s

The past few weeks I've been scanning my parents’ Kodachrome slides from the 1940's through the 1980's. I have unearthed wonderful photos of me and my family, and the places we lived and visited.

I've been astounded by the rich colors that still remain on these Kodachrome slides. The few Ektachrome slides did not hold up nearly as well.

Japan, 1970s: My dad pointing at an octopus on a stick, obviously amused by it. It's incredible that these ikayaki stands have not changed AT ALL in the intervening 50 years.

This one is of me - age 12 - in front of the Unisphere at the 1964-65 New York World’s Fair.

It was a different world 60 years ago. The 1964 World's Fair was bristling with optimism about technology and the future. Donald Fagen wrote a song about the promise of those times.

This World's Fair photo went through a long process. I rarely do so much processing, but this was a great photo that needed a lot of help. It was more of a restoration rather than an adjustment...

As with all these photos, the Kodachrome slide was scanned by shooting it with my usual Sony digital camera (a7r3), equipped with a macro lens that allows taking a photo at 1:1 magnification. This means the size of the image on the digital image sensor is the same as the subject (the slide).

Some usual edits in Adobe Lightroom, then a trip to Topaz Photo to sharpen, and remove the film dust and scratches using AI.

But the cleaned up photo was too clean. So then I opened both the original and cleaned-up photos in Photoshop and mixed some of the original photo back in. And while I was there, used the AI in Photoshop to open my eyes that were closed in the original.

These changes make this photograph - taken 60 years ago - resonate today, in a world where people have much higher expectations of quality than in the old days.

This is how I want to remember that time, like it was yesterday.