As I continue scanning and uploading my collection of 35mm military presentation slides, you might have some questions. If your questions include any of the below, you’re in luck:

1. What are these?

Earlier this year I found and purchased a collection of 35mm film photography slides from a seller on eBay who had acquired them at an estate sale in New Mexico. They appear to be a broad a variety of U.S. military training materials, primarily from the Air Force and Navy and dating, as best I can tell, from the 1970s and 80s. Beyond that, I don't know very much, but you have any information I would love to hear it—please contact me at sambiddle@protonmail.com.

2. How were the slides scanned?

I scanned the slides using a Plustek OpticFilm 7600i SE scanner paired with VueScan to create high resolution, uncompressed TIFF files. Some of them have been color corrected in instances where the slides had faded or become tinted so much that the images were hard to see, but I tried as much as possible to leave them in their original form. I've uploaded some color corrected copies along with the originals, which are denoted as such.

3. Why do these look blurry/bad/weird?

These film slides are decades old, were stored god only knows how and where, and may have been copies of copies of copies. I tried to capture the actual state of the 35mm film as best I could with my limited resources. Try to consider the analog degradation part of the charm.

4. Are these copyrighted? Can I use them for _________?

Materials created by the federal government, including the Department of Defense, are generally not subject to copyright and squarely in the public domain. Please download them, edit them, share them, and use them however you'd like.

5. How are these files named/organized?

I've tried to stick to the original naming conventions, uploaded in batches corresponding to the boxes they were stored in with file names corresponding, where possible, with labels printed on the slides themselves.

6. Did anyone help you out with all this?

Yes! I want to thank Jason Scott, Talya Cooper, Jason Woolfolk, Emmi Bianchini, Ryan Collerd, and Regina Harsanyi, for fielding a bunch of annoying and clueless messages from me about film scanning, preservation, and 35mm film generally. Big thanks as well to everyone who DMed and emailed me with advice.

7. Are there more?

Yes, many more! I will be continuously scanning and uploading them to the Internet Archive as I'm able to find time.