PNN's slides

Directory /home/photo/pnn contains digitized versions of PNN's 35mm slides. Most of the slides are Kodachrome originals, but a few are duplicates (now mostly faded, while the Kodachrome originals mostly remain vibrant). SAN digitized these starting 7/30/08 using a Nikon Coolscan 5000, 5782 x 3946 pixels, TIFF output, 16 bit color depth. The scanner produces huge TIFF files, subsequently reduced by ImageMagick to full-resolution JPEG images and JPEG thumbnails, with the huge TIFFs archived. About 3000 photos are digitized as of 1/17/10; some later slides remain undone, mostly because they are less interesting to me, but eventually I'll finish the project.

PNN stored almost all of his slides in Kodak Cavalcade slide trays, up to 40 slides per tray. Some trays were serially numbered, some not. Trays from 1962 and later were dated, earlier were undated. Most trays were grouped by date, some by subject ("Dave", "Jack & Lorraine"). ERN made some notes on individual slide subjects, but usually without much detail.

Kodak dated Kodachome slides with the development date starting in 1958. This Kodachrome slide dating guide helps determine dates of earlier slides. In brief:

• 1936 to 1939: Unmounted.
• 4/1939 to 5/1949: Red border, "Kodachrome", number stamped (embossed) into mount.
• 5/1949 to 5/1952: Red border, "Kodachrome / Transparency", number stamped (embossed) into mount.
• 5/1952 to 8/1955: Red border, "Kodachrome / Transparency", number inked (printed) on mount.
• 8/1955 to 7/1957: Red border, "Kodachrome / Transparency / Processed by Kodak", number inked (printed) on mount.
• 7/1957 to 5/1958: [not listed in dating guide.]
• 5/1958 to 7/1958: Red border, "Kodachrome / Transparency / Processed by Kodak", number inked (printed) on mount, stamped date.
• 6/1958 to 9/1961: Yellow corner, "Kodachrome / Transparency / Processed by Kodak", number inked (printed) on mount, stamped date.
• 9/1961 and later: imprinted date (although SAN's slides developed in Germany 1963-1964 are not datestamped).

SAN reorganized PNN's slides by the Kodak development datestamp, with estimated dates for earlier undated slides. Undated slides are in directories pnn/year/year_a etc.; the earliest appear to be from 1949 or 1950; no mounts have just "Kodachrome" rather than "Kodachrome / Transparency". Dated slides are in directories pnn/year/year_month, sometimes broken up by subject into pnn/year/year_month_a etc. A single subject on multiple rolls developed on different dates is filed by the earlier date. The development date may of course be much later than the actual photo date (e.g., Queen Mary slides: 4/62 for one roll, 7/63 for next).

The chronological table below summarizes date, location and description information for each group of slides. A readme.txt file in each directory gives more detailed information.