Hundreds of images from Oswego’s history have been collected by Oswego State students and staff who plan on displaying 15 of these community visuals in an upcoming showcase.
The Found Negatives project is a collection of images from the 1960s that will open on Nov. 2 and expects to continue indefinitely.
The content for the exhibit was collected through a collaborative effort from Oswego State art students and faculty.
“From the start, we recognized that this was a very big project,” said Julieve Jubin, a photography professor at Oswego State.
Jubin made the most of the opportunity by creating an internship for photography students. Last spring the internship was filled in its inaugural semester by Kelsey Thomas and in the fall the role was taken over by Zahra Zavery, both photography minors.
Jubin was able to establish the position as an on going internship because there were hundreds of images to be restored and Jubin said they plan to keep acquiring more. This only furthers the connection with Oswego, since there can only be more to be learned.
The project is more than just an internship for credit; it helps both those working on it and those viewing to connect with Oswego and its past on a scale that was not available before.
Jubin viewed it as positive that it was not a project with a clear cut end. In addition to finishing the current negatives, Jubin was also optimistic that she could acquire images from different generations as well. This would not only provide even more variety, but it would make the project more personal for each viewer as well.
While there are many more to be sorted, there were 15 images that have been completely restored and these will be the ones headlining the November showcase.
The photographs showcased fall across a wide spectrum, including portraits and candids, as well as color and black-and-white prints.
One such candid displays two men and a pickup truck outside of Gentile Studios. The image uses concepts such as a defined foreground, middle-ground and background to differentiate from a portrait.
The angle of the image also indicates candid. Whereas the portraits in the series were taken from a more direct angle, the subjects are standing on a gradient, implying the image was taken at a lower point on the road.
The photo includes a reference to the photographer’s employer as well, since he was an employee at Gentile Studios, a photo printing studio and camera shop located in downtown Oswego.
Since during the ‘60s the concept of color photos was still gaining popularity, the photographs fluctuate between color and grayscale.
The project did not just restore the old photographs. Another major component of it was the printing project, where the prints were blown up to several times their original size.
Not only was the venture valuable due to its historical significance, but for how much work is done in the editing process as well.
“It made me learn a lot about Photoshop, that’s for sure,” Zavery said. “How to clone perfectly, that’s one thing I’ve learned.”
Another aspect Zavery learned is how much editing was necessary. Both Zavery and Jubin said that they sometimes chose to not perfectly edit the images in order to maintain their authenticity.
The exhibit will debut in Penfield Library at 2 p.m. on Nov. 2. Anyone interested in the internship can contact professor Jubin via jubin@julievejubin.com.
