About

Jim Cummins is an American photojournalist whose work became best known from the iconic photographs he took of the legendary rock, rhythm and blues, soul, jazz, gospel and country-western performers during the 1960s and ’70s. Over 900 music albums from that era, many of which went Gold, Platinum, or Diamond, used Jim's photos as their album covers. Many of these photos of celebrated musical performers were published as magazine covers, as concert posters, and in feature articles in national magazines such as Newsweek, Rolling Stone, and Life. They captured "the moment" like no other photos of Hendrix ever did. Then they got packed away, in a basement, not to be seen again for forty three years.

Jim's body of work includes never-before-seen photos of Jimi Hendrix. Hendrix was photographed in studio while recording his hit “Izabella” for the album Rainbow Bridge, in performance at Fillmore East on New Year's Eve 1969, and at the Madison Square Garden performance on January 28, 1970 (made famous for the fact that Jimi Hendrix walked off the stage after just the second song).

The Restoration

Each of the original 35mm negatives and slides from Jim's shoots of Jimi Hendrix will be manually restored by our imaging team who have become world-renowned for their restoration of art, historical documents and photography for libraries, museums, universities, and other cultural institutions.

Each 35mm frame will be scanned on a Durst Sigma Scanner at 4223 pixels per inch and 16 bit color depth. After scanning, each raw digital photo file will be manually "cleaned" and the image restored to its dust-free and scratch-free state. It will then be color corrected and "exposure" adjusted to compensate for changes to the film stock that occurred due to aging. Jim Cummins will oversee the restoration and have final approval on each restored photo.

Unrestored/Restored Example

The photos will then be printed on acid-free Hahnemühle Photo Rag Baryta, 315 gsm weight FineArt photographic print paper. This paper complies with the highest archival standards for photo print longevity and meets the highest industry standards regarding density, color gamut, color graduation and image sharpness. Hahnemühle has been producing the world's most superb FineArt paper since 1584.

Upon completion of the digital restoration these photos will be archived and preserved within our DigitalFortress system, which was designed to meet the U.S. National Archives' preservation standards.

Lost Photos with a History

Our restoration of the Jimi Hendrix photos includes conducting interviews with Jim describing all of his shoots of Hendrix so that we can create "Photo Autobiographies". These will tell the story behind each particular photo. By marrying these interviews with the restored photos, our goal is to create a viewing experience that feels like you've stepped out of a time machine, it's 1969 and 1970, and you're looking through the viewfinder of Jim's camera as he captures these rare moments of Jimi Hendrix in performance.

A Sampling of the Photos to Be Restored

As a backer at the $50 level or higher, you will be able to choose your Fine Art print reward from any of the restored versions of these photos as well as from the other Jimi Hendrix photos we will be restoring (not shown here). Fine Art prints will NOT have the Jim Cummins watermark.

Click to see more of the samples

Our team has restored and preserved:

-Presidential correspondence

-Rare photographs taken by prominent 20th Century photojournalists

-Documents written by George Washington

-Correspondence by Ernest Hemingway

-Works of art by Rembrandt

Meet The Project Team

Jim Cummins - Photojournalist

Jim is an American photojournalist whose work became well-known through his photography of the legendary rock, rhythm and blues, soul, jazz, country-western and gospel performers of the 1960's and 1970’s. Over 900 music albums from that era, many of which went Gold, Platinum, or Diamond, used Jim's photographs as their album covers. Many of his other photographs of celebrated music performers from that era were published as magazine covers and in feature articles in magazines such as Newsweek, Rolling Stone, and Life Magazine.

Jim attended New York City's famed High School of Music & Art. He studied art, drawing and painting at the New York City's Museum of Modern Art, at the School of Visual Arts, and at the Art Students League of New York. In addition to photographing the music legends of the 1960's and '70's for the music labels, Jim worked as a photojournalist for Newsday and the New York Times.

Bob Pokress - Project Photo Editor

Bob grew up in a family of photojournalists and developed a love of great photography at an early age (the renowned photojournalist Arthur Fellig, aka "Weegee", used to be a regular Sunday dinner guest of his folks when Bob was little).

Bob has spent his career in high tech. With the co-founding of Image Fortress, Bob has finally gotten into the "family business" in photojournalism by marrying his technical background with his lifelong love for great photography and desire to bring the world's great photojournalism back to life for future generations to appreciate.

Matt Pokress - Project Technology Czar

Matt planned to become a physicist, but discovered it was far more interesting to build highly reliable distributed systems than to worry about the weirdness of the very small and very energetic subatomic world.

As a co-founder of Image Fortress, he has been designing, creating and enhancing cloud services for digital image preservation since before the marketing world created the term "cloud services".

Matt still regrets selling his first camera, a Pentax Spotmatic, to upgrade to an autofocus Nikon. He is hanging onto a Nikonos that he, sadly, doesn't get to use often enough. Mike Johnson - Project Quality Assurance Master Mike grew up in a family of engineers who had a strong appreciation for photography and music. Nearly all family members played at least one instrument while his father's favorite hobby was snapping pictures with his Olympus SLR. As a co-founder of Image Fortress, Mike plays a leading role in the development of software for digital image preservation. Being both an avid photographer and audiophile on a budget, Mike finds it particularly rewarding to work in an environment where both intersect. Ali Donohue - Project Multimedia Editor Ali is a graduate of Boston University with a degree in multimedia journalism and the recipient of several awards including the Scarlet Key Award, the Blue Chip Award and an award from the Associated Press for her work as a radio producer. Ali is a graduate of Boston University with a degree in multimedia journalism and the recipient of several awards including the Scarlet Key Award, the Blue Chip Award and an award from the Associated Press for her work as a radio producer.

Ali has worked as a producer and editor on projects for a diverse number of media clients including the Boston Phoenix. She teaches teens radio production and editing at the Academy of Media Production during the summers, and in her spare time hosts a weekly radio show as an alumni DJ for Boston University's online radio station.

Unrestored/Restored Example

Other Important Information

1. How will the selection of Fine Art prints as rewards work?

When the restoration is complete, we will have a web page set up that will enable you to select the particular restored photo(s) you wish to receive as your reward.

2. How will funds raised above the campaign’s target be applied?

We have been entrusted with the entirety of Jim Cummins’ collection of the negatives and slides of over one hundred of the music world’s legends. Funds raised in excess of our target will enable us to begin the restoration of his photos of these other legends. The next to be restored are Jim’s iconic photos of Janis Joplin.

3. Patrons Limited Edition Fine Art Print Rewards

The Patrons Limited Edition rewards will be a special Fine Art limited edition produced exclusively for project backers. These will include a photo of Jim signing your specific Patron Limited Edition print as part of the Certificate of Authenticity that you will be receiving with the print. The photo of Jim signing your Patron Limited Edition Fine Art print and your Certificate of Authenticity will also be digitally archived by Image Fortress to provide for secure, tamper-proof provenance of your Fine Art print.

4. The Hendrix Shoot Contact Sheets

In film photography, contact sheets are used to review photos prior to being printed or published. Contact sheets are created by placing the negative strips from a roll of 35mm film directly on a sheet of 8x10 print paper to create a single print with all of the photos from that roll. The top two of our Limited Edition reward levels include one of the five original contact sheets that Jim Cummins made from his shoot of Jimi Hendrix recording tracks for the album “Rainbow Bridge” at The Record Plant studio in New York City.

International Shipping

Can I have my reward shipped internationally?

Yes!

How much is international shipping and handling?

Fees will be calculated based on your distance from Boston, MA. International S&H fees will be collected after the conclusion of the campaign.

We have calculated fees for five countries (Canada, UK, France, Germany, Spain). If we are shipping you multiple photos they will be combined into a single package equal in size to the largest single photo.

If you live in a country other than those listed here and would like information on shipping fees please contact us at: kickstarter@imagefortress.com