The Collection
Clarence “Korky” Korker is a photographer who, along with his wife Geraldine, purchased the Ridgefield Photo Shop in 1951. The Shop was in operation until 1991, and along the way Korky recorded the goings-on in Ridgefield through his camera lens. If it was happening in Ridgefield, Korky photographed it, which included weddings, passport photos, portraits, high school yearbook photos, buildings, events, and much more. A photographic history of Ridgefield over a 40 year period, the collection of his negatives was donated to the Ridgefield Historical Society in 2007, where it was in storage until 2023.
Restoration
In 2023 the computer system at the Historical Society enjoyed a major upgrade through a generous grant from the Ridgefield Thrift Shop. Along with new computers, several new scanners were purchased, which included an Epson 850V Pro scanner, for the purpose of high resolution scanning and digitizing black and white and color photo negatives. In August of 2023 scanning and digitizing the Korker Collection began. With the help of AI technology, the negatives have been restored, and beautiful high resolution digital photos of the collection have now become available on the Ridgefield Historical Society’s website.
With the help of the new technology, the meticulous restoration of the negatives takes on average eight to ten minutes per negative. To date, we have scanned roughly 2600 negatives! More negatives are scanned and uploaded to the website weekly.
Scope of the Collection
The Collection’s negatives are kept in shoe-box size, specially designed storage boxes, with each negative now in a protective sleeve. They are stored in the climate-controlled vault beneath the Historical Society’s Scott House headquarters at 4 Sunset Lane. The 35 storage boxes each contain 800-900 photo negatives for a total of 30,000 to 35,000 negatives. We have only scratched the surface of the valuable history contained in this collection.
The Historical Society’s Web Site and Korker Collection Info
To view the ever growing collection of images from the Korker Collection, go to Ridgefieldhistoricalsociety.org > Collections> Our Collections> scroll down to “search the Korker Collection here” > click on the “click here to view photos” link. The Folders are listed in alphabetical order by last name, what the folder contains (wedding, portrait, etc), and the year. In many cases, we just have a last name and the year.
Take a look, search, enjoy. You never know what pictures you might find!
Keith Russell has been with the historical society since 2023, as a volunteer and a board member. Keith’s primary focus has been the Korker Collection, he has dedicated countless hours to editing and repairing the negatives so that they can be enjoyed by the public.
