My grandfather, referred to as Papa by his grandchildren, was a quiet, mysterious man. A few months before he passed, my aunt gave me his archive—a collection of film, photographs, and documents that spoke of a life I’d never fully known. She hoped I could digitize it for him, to preserve the memories he had so carefully kept. I love scanning film, but after long days of working at a film lab, I kept putting his film aside, telling myself I’d get to it eventually. When he died suddenly in March of 2024, the guilt settled in. I kept saving his film for another day, thinking there would be more time—that he’d be around to tell me the stories behind the images. Instead, I was left with a collection of moments I could no longer ask about, memories that passed quietly with him.
I began scanning my grandfather’s archive shortly after he passed. It felt like a quiet act of mourning—frame by frame, moment by moment. His collection spans decades, but most of the film dates back to the 1960s, during his time in the U.S. Air Force, when he traveled the world with a 35mm camera by his side. I’ve been cleaning, scanning, and preserving each artifact, slowly piecing together the life of a man I wish I knew better. Within each photo, I get a glimpse into his world—fellow airmen on the tarmac, foreign cities I can’t quite pinpoint, the faces of strangers who briefly stepped into his path. In one frame, I imagine him handing off his camera to a friend, asking for a photo in front of a monument, something he could send back home. In another, I hear the roar of an air force jet, or the hum of a crowd at a baseball game, frozen mid-cheer.
As I work my way through his archive, I’m gaining insight into who my grandfather was and the memories he did not often speak out loud. Though I will never know the full story behind these images, I can feel him in the grain and fading cyan dye—in the way he looked at the world, in what he found worthy of remembering. What began as a task of preservation has become a deeper exploration of memory, a way of stitching together a life I missed while he was here, and honoring it now that he’s gone.
