How it started

The commission led me to Newark airport in the summer of 2007.  I was chosen to work on a production for a rock band that boasted legions of fans during the golden era of pop music.

Emerging from the arrivals hall, I see my name, held by a dude that looked like Joe Pesci, hand-drawn black marker on a white sheet. Pleasantries and suitcases exchanged, I walk outside to a white limousine, door ajar, and we’re off.  Two wise men, me and Mr Joe, on a journey to Bethlehem, NJ, where the holiest of recording studio stands before us. God Bless the US of A.

Over the next week we’re holed up in the studio, splicing and dicing footage, until a small trip to a downtown NJ film archive shines true light on what will become an eternal passion; America.  America, the open road. America, the dream, past, present and future.  So there, in that small Archive, here on this small website from this small country, I travel through time, a carousel full of Kodachrome nostalgia, all of it dust in the wind...

Kodachrome

During the Mid-Century modern movement the Americans urge to catalog every single holiday, family vacation, and birthday celebration using Kodachrome color reversal film. The so called slides became so increasingly popular that Kodak kept expanding their factory lines even during the swinging 60's. Meanwhile Kodak had become a photographic dinosaur.

Today, many Kodachrome slides became orphans after being trashed, damaged, or being sold through real estates. The photographers are often unknown, sometimes deceased while nobody cared enough to keep the slides. A true loss as some of these slides could possibly take us to places where we ache to go again. They might open that twinge in your heart far more powerful than memory alone.

Forgotten Slides

Intrigued I got by sights of street scenes and urban forms reflecting the commercial face of America, during the 1960s and 1970s. Often falling into the tradition of classic American genres that feel patently cinematic as well. And then there is this curiosity of a forgotten slide that fills my sense of wonder of what has happened in a scene or what is about to happen...

Sifting through Kodachrome archives I curated some unique scenery throughout the years. All the original film negatives that I was able to acquire (or rescue) were put under restorations. All in an attempt to give those a chance to be seen. And not to forget the contribution it makes to the story of life at a particular time in history.

Hi! I'm Wouter, creator of the Forgotten Slides project. Based in Amsterdam and living with my family across the Artis Zoo there’s not a day that goes by without us kindly have been waving to the giraffes. In my profession I enjoy working with pioneers of all kinds, whether they are creative visionaries or genius tech geeks. Merging those great minds is where the real magic starts to happen.