The ad hoc setup included what McCann described as their “happy lights” - the military-issued sun lamps that help Arctic-based personnel ward off Vitamin D deficiency during the long nights of the winter months. Ultimately, their team set up a copy stand where Connaher and others - civilian Joey Miller, Airman 1st Class Julia Lebens and Senior Airman Patrick Sullivan - took photos of the vintage prints. Connaher, luckily, had worked in archives during a college internship, so he knew where to find techniques and instructions. So McCann and Connaher researched what archival techniques and equipment they would need to produce original-quality resolution scans of the photos. “Some of the photos were falling off some of the cutlines were falling off.” “The binders were not in great shape,” McCann, who deployed to Iraq twice as an enlisted public affairs soldier, recalled. Clay Lancaster, realized they were obligated to preserve the records, but wanted them to be made as accessible as possible. Both are Army veterans.Īfter discovering the photos, McCann and Connaher quickly realized the enormity of the task at hand. The project provided a unique visual window into the Army’s Arctic lifestyle more than 60 years ago most such photographs are held at the National Archives and are not easily accessible online.Īrmy Times spoke with the two Air Force civilians - McCann, the base’s webmaster and public affairs editor, and Justin Connaher, the base’s lead photographer and visual studio manager - who led the digitization effort. The photos were taken by uniformed Army Signal Corps photographers.Īnd thanks to her and the other airmen and civilians of the wing public affairs office, all of them, less a few duplicates, were digitized and published online three months later. 15, when Senior Airman Jordan Smith was helping her colleagues clean out storage areas in the 673rd Air Base Wing public affairs office at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, she wasn’t sure what she would find.īefore long, she happened upon a piece of Army history, tucked into dilapidated binders - 1,444 silver gelatin large-format black-and-white prints, virtually all complete with typed captions, documenting three major Army training exercises that occurred between 19.
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