SSF: “Bill Bonner, Vintage Photo Archivist”

Last updated on: January 14, 2015 at 3:47 pm by Joseph Susanka

SSF: “Bill Bonner, Vintage Photo Archivist” 2015-01-14T15:47:03-07:00 Joseph Susanka

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Looking back through my smallish (but rapidly expanding) collection of shorts, I recognize something that I’ve known for some time: I gravitate greatly towards animated shorts. That’s not going to change — because STILL A KID! — but I can also promise that live-action shorts will crop up from time to time (especially sci-fi ones). The conciseness and “twistiness” of the medium itself has always drawn me, no matter the specific “genre.”

As evidence of my sincerity, today’s short is a live-action one. But it’s an even rarer breed than your plain ol’, garden-variety live short. It’s a documentary:

Bill Bonner has seen hundreds of thousands of photographs during his 31 years as the archivist at National Geographic. In fact, he watches over some eight million images in the vintage collection.

…

Bill works alone, in a cold windowless room in the basement of National Geographic’s headquarters in Washington. But even though he spends the days mostly by himself, he says he is kept company by the millions of people immortalized in the photographs. To him, they are his ancestors, and he treats each photo like it is the greatest treasure in the world.

Looking back on it, I realize that my love of photography in general and National Geographic photographs (and photographers) specifically made this a “wheelhouse” short for me, even if it’s not animated.

More (from National Geographic’s “Proof” blog):

He can look at a picture he hasn’t seen in five years and be able to tell you the photographer who took it, the location, the assignment it was taken on and what was happening in it.

The respect that Bill shows each photograph is heartwarming. He firmly believes that each image holds a memory, and in many cases those memories have been buried alive by time. They are forgotten and unseen by the outside world, even though they hold great insights into its past.

Archivists are fascinating to me, because they’re such an interesting bridge between the present and the past. And Bonner seems like such an interesting fellow; the little laugh of pleasure he gives while looking at some of those old images is really great stuff. And his interest in the subjects of his domain is so obvious. Love it.

Attribution(s): All artwork, publicity images, and stills are the property of their respective creators and/or distributors, and are intended for editorial use only.

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