Immenstadt - The digitization of the estate of the Fotohaus Zeller Hipp is progressing.
“This historical treasure should soon be accessible to the population.
Three years ago the Zeller family, owners of the former Fotohaus Zeller-Hipp, donated their photographic legacy to the city of Immenstadt.
Since then, the city archive has been working on digitizing the material.
Now the city has given its promise: The archive project should continue for the next two years.
Funding from the Leader program contributes to this.
This is what the new Leader badge is supposed to demonstrate.
“30,000 euros come from the city, 30,000 euros from the Kaiser Sigwart Foundation and 18,000 euros are Leader funds,” says Mayor Nico Sentner, breaking down the funding for the project.
Christof Endreß, Chairman of Regional Development Oberallgäu, presented the Leader badge to archivist Gerhard Klein.
He thanked all donors and supporters.
The photo house Zeller
"Digitization is necessary because 80 percent of the estate of the Fotohaus Zeller consists of negatives," explained Gerhard Klein. The Fotohaus Zeller was founded in 1902 and existed until the 1990s. knows small.
Therefore the postcards and passport photos, pictures of weddings, christenings or funerals as well as of important events in the city are of great historical value.
“This treasure should be made accessible to the population”, Mayor Nico Sentner is certain, “the images are very exciting.”
Estimated 200,000 image recordings
Stefanie Goldfuß demonstrated how negatives become positives again in the process of digitization.
The media designer and photographer carefully places each negative one after the other on a light panel that is reminiscent of an iPad.
A camera is attached to a device directly above it.
If everything fits, the negative is straight, the camera is triggered with a foot pedal and the photo appears as a positive on the computer screen.
It can still be edited here.
"Since we no longer have the original print, I have to decide for myself how the photo should look in the end," says Goldfuß.
Since she is a photographer herself and has developed a feel for historical photos, she can assess that very well.
If a picture appears too dark, it is made lighter.
Ms. Goldfuß creates around 80 to 150 photos in an 8-hour day.
Negatives become Tiff files
"The image is sharper than the print would have been back then," explains Goldfuß. This is due to today's technology. She and Gerhard Klein were particularly pleased that the city of Immenstadt had given the green light to save the photos in Tiff format, a storage format that requires more storage space than the more frequently used jpg format, but also has its advantages. "The photo can be printed on canvas at any time for an exhibition, for example."
Another benefit of the project is conservation.
In addition, the city archives received great support from the Immenstadt company Klug-Conservation, one of the leading companies in the field of special packaging for the preservation of cultural assets.
"We make age-resistant paper," said managing partner Michael Kühner.
It is important that the paper is not acidic and thus maintains the status quo of positives and negatives.
Little by little, the negatives move out of the old boxes into new custom-made boxes that were provided free of charge by the Klug-Conservation company.
One database for all images
After digitization and repackaging, it is entered into a database.
Gehard Klein takes care of this.
"The city archive is a service to the citizen," says Klein.
It is estimated that there will still be two years of work before the highlights of the approximately 200,000 image recordings have been viewed.
“We were contacted by a Czech historian who was looking for a picture of Josef Forster.
This was an overseer in the Theresienstadt concentration camp and is said to have stayed in Immenstadt between 1934 and 1936. "
In fact, Klein and Goldfuß were able to spot him in Zeller's photo register.
Bomb attack destroyed some recordings
However, it is questionable whether the corresponding negative still exists: "In a bomb attack by the Americans in 1945, the photo house Zeller was hit and the oldest recordings destroyed," says the archivist, "we have very little from before 1936."
However, everyone involved is certain that there are still many historical treasures hidden in the estate.