A Found Film Negative from Chaco Canyon, Many Years Ago!
A found film negative – one that I looked for over a couple of years – is something to celebrate! This image of Chaco Canyon was, for many years, the only one of my photographs hanging in the house. A 26×20 inch print remains a fixture in my dining room. Over the years, although long ago, I had given prints as gifts to friends who knew and appreciated the area. This image was taken when Chaco Canyon was just called “Chaco Canyon.” It is now “Chaco Culture National Historical Park” and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Several years ago I thought it would be fun to obtain a scan of the 35mm film negative just to play with it in digital form, and perhaps make some smaller prints for other friends. I started going through all the film negatives I could find, which I had never filed in what I now would consider an appropriate manner. I looked everywhere. Film negatives were in multiple places. The negatives were sometimes with different prints. The dates on the folders did not always match the date of the negatives. I had finally given up on finding this particular one, although I found many that I probably should dispose of.
Regular readers here may have noticed I have been on an extended winter break, which will continue on for a bit after this post. (A slight digression – if you visited on January 8 or 9, you may have encountered “the white screen of death.” A Word Press plugin was broken, and I spent much of the evening of January 9 figuring out how to fix this when I could not login to the site, which had gone offline!) In my time off, I have been working hard on decluttering the house, which has taken me into closets and drawers which had not been looked at for some time. Last week – Eureka! – in a small envelope obviously placed in a very safe place, was the negative for this, and three others. The three others were unimportant, they were just attached to the strip that contained this image.
Conversion of a 35mm Film Negative to a Digital Image
I sent the film negative to one of the professional labs I use for large digital prints, not for printing but for scanning. In an email I saw a charge for “mask.” Reading about issues of color in scanning 35mm film to digital, and the use of color masks in the conversion process, interrupted my decluttering. I know a little something about color and digital processing, but this was the first time I really had to stop and think about color in the scanning process. It did make the time seem to go fast, the time I was waiting for the digital CD to arrive.
When the package arrived, I did not open it immediately. That is very unlike me. I set it where I could see it, and continued what I had been doing. After a couple of hours I opened it, and found the four negatives had been separated and placed in their own sturdy envelopes, along with their attached masks. This was all new and interesting to me.
Finally, I put the CD in the computer, and copied the images to a file on my hard drive. I then opened the images in Lightroom. That was the first time I was absolutely certain I had found the 35mm film negative I had been searching for for a couple of years. This is the image of Chaco Canyon that I carry in my head. The image that you are seeing here is one that I “color corrected” to my memory and to the print that has been hanging in my house for years. The color corrected one from the lab was too bright and shiny. 🙂
Working with the image on the computer, I noticed a lot of flaws. Only one can I blame on the age of the negative improperly stored for many years. I had to go look at the print, and I was more than a little surprised that all but one of the flaws I see now were there all the time on the print. I also had to learn at an emotional level something I knew at an intellectual level: film grain and digital noise are two very different things.
Do the flaws in this found film negative change how I feel about the image? Yes and no. I doubt I’ll be making large prints as gifts, and I won’t be entering it for jurying for shows. But this is how I see Chaco, a place I loved from the first time I was there, spring of 1966. It is a place where even people who are not particularly religious feel the spirituality and power of the land. I have been very fortunate to be there multiple times when there were not many other people around. This image reminds me of so much that is very personal to me. I am glad to have it now in a form in which I can work with it. Friends may get small prints, or I may use it on note cards. It represents a part of my life that shaped who I am now. Just a personal bias, but I also like this image as much as any of the images of Chetro Ketl posted on the Park Service site.
In Today’s World
If you have never been to Chaco Canyon, it may be hard to imagine the power that this place has, even to a casual visitor. I close with a link to an op-ed piece written by two young people with ancestral ties to the land.
Very cool. Nice shot. There are issues with color negs and color shift. If it’s not black and white or Kodachrome, the color slowly shifts and fades.
Hi, Tim. Thanks!
Yes, I spent some time reading about color shifts and scanning of color negatives. This is the first time I had a film negative scanned to digital, and I started reading about the color shift when I saw a charge for “mask” (the charge was minimal, and in LR I actually made the color match the print that has been hanging in my house for many years 🙂 ))))))))) )
My mom has thousands of Kodachrome slides and has been wondering what to do with them. Those slides have been in a dark place and carefully stored, but on casual look, they seem faded in a different way. She might want to test a couple that she considers her best or “worth saving” to see what happens.
This was a happy learning experience at a time I am taking a quiet, reflective winter break. (I did briefly freak out when I encountered the Word Press “white screen of death” last night, though.)
Thanks for dropping by!
Thank you for sharing this beautiful photo Susan. It does look like a very sacred and powerful place. I have not yet visited, but now I shall have to go. Your story reminds me of something that recently happened to me. I was mounting and matting six photos to enter in a rose show on election night and had the TV on. I had finished three photos and had three more almost done. I cleared the dining room table for dinner, we finished our meal and I went to finish prepping the photos. I found three but not the other three which were black and white. I never found them after searching high, low and everywhere in between. Maybe some day they will turn up.
Hi, Juanita! First, sympathy to you for the disappearance of your three black and white photos! Now, that is very curious! My little negative being hard to find after being put in “a very safe place” several years before is one thing. Three photos being matted to outside dimensions of 11×14 disappearing over dinner? That is very strange, on a very strange night. I do hope they turn up, and when they do, I hope you’ll share the story! 🙂
I know you would enjoy seeing Chaco. I also know you are very busy with many commitments. I hope you’ll be able to work a visit in sometime. (My ex resisted going for some time when we first moved here. Once he made the first trip in, I think he wanted to go more frequently than even I did!)
I just now heard you have a new appointment. Congratulations – I know you will do a wonderful job!
Thanks for dropping by today. Let me know after you visit, and also when those three black and white prints show up! 🙂
Susan, Nice photo perspective, articles and gallery of photos. Chaco is definitely one of those very special places that must be protected and buffered by a wide swath of land. I’m glad the Native American students are become more involved in such preservation, as well. Good to see you back online.
BJM
Hi, Barbara. Thanks for stopping by today. I so agree that the area needs protection for a great distance surrounding it. Whether that or the opposite will happen…I think almost anyone who has been there feels how special the area is, but that is hard to convey to people who look at photos and think dollars 🙁 Like you, I am very happy to see the Native American students involved in the struggle for preserving the land. Nice to see you.
I’ve never been there, but that is a beautiful photo, Susan. Glad you found the negatives. Preservation of old media and converting to current media can be challenging.
WordPress has made a few changes lately which I am getting used to working with, or around, myself.
Hi, Lavinia. Thank you! I’m pretty certain you would enjoy it, and I hope some day you get to visit it.
Yes, this was definitely a “learning experience.” Actually, though, once I found the negative, the learning was both fun and interesting.
I’m very glad you mentioned that you have noticed WordPress changes recently. Before I decided I needed a little break from FB just for the sake of mental health, I would check the blog pretty regularly and update plugins before they did really odd things. I about died last night when the blog was “gone” and I did not have a recent backup. After the blog was up again, the first thing I did was a full backup!!!!!
Very nice to see you today. Thanks for stopping by!
Glad you are giving yourself time to do things with focus. The finding of the negative (I often forget where my excellent safe places are if I’m making too many decluttering/organizing decisions at once!) was a joyous moment, I’m sure! And to be able to examine the qualities of each version of the image is a wonderful thing, also!
Chaco is an extraordinary place. I am glad they did not pave the entirety of the access road from the east. Yes, it would’ve given access to more people to experience the area but I think it would’ve hastened the degradation of the land and its wonders. Glad you have such a strong memory of how it was back in your formative years!
Laurie, so nice to see you!!!! Yes, it has been very good to just step back from the busy-ness of the world and deal with my own busy-ness for a bit. Finding the negative was the high point of the decluttering so far, but I found a couple of other things that either made me smile or think or both. I found the white coat I wore on the last day of my residency. I took it off and hung it in a closet (why????????) and did not see it again until recently. Both pockets were stuffed with little notebooks, little clinical books we used to look things up on the floors, and other things like that. That coat was *heavy.* I am very glad that many medical schools now give med students either an iPad or smart phone on the first day of first-year classes!!! I haven’t tossed that coat yet because I want to photograph it first, just as I found it.
I agree with all you say about Chaco. The first time I was there, the campground was on the west end. I was there in March with about 10 other people or so, and the only other people in the campground that week were a couple on their honeymoon. I’m really glad I got to see it like that.
This image was taken sometime in the late 1980’s or early 1990’s. The road in had been somewhat improved by then, but not as much as the last time I was there. I also hope they don’t pave the entirety.
Thank you so much for stopping by and leaving a comment!
PS – sweet potatoes are $0.98/lb at Sprouts through Wednesday. 🙂
Susan, as we have discussed before, I also have very special memories of Chaco. I had come by way of the back road from the south and had the place to myself, which allowed the maximum magic. Love your photo. That is how I remember it too,
Even better has been reading various of your comments here. Was concerned at your fb absence, but no longer. Happy puttering, decluttering and quiet pondering.
Hi, Christine. Thanks for coming by, especially to check up on me! The last couple of years a lot was going on with my family, and I reached a point I needed to just step back and take a deep breath. It has been good for many reasons.
I am really glad you think of Chaco this way also. The last time I was in on the south road, it was still a killer (that has been several years, though, so I’m not sure what it is like today). I’m hoping later this spring to get out to some of the places I have not been to in a while. We’ll see, I guess.
Again, nice to see you, and thanks for checking up on me!