Before he grew up taking photos on film, Jim Sollows was a teenager struggling to fit in.
“I was your typical science geek,” Jim says, adding that his high school was predominantly sporty.
Young Jim felt lonely until a supportive teacher suggested he try photography, which proved empowering.
“People that had shunned me for not being on a team were going, ‘Wow!‘” Jim recalls. “‘I saw your pictures in the front page of the school newspaper, amazing job!‘”
But instead of pursuing photography professionally, Jim embarked on a career in emergency medicine.
“I was interested in the excitement of it,” Jim says.
When he wasn’t hanging from helicopter stretchers, Jim was helping to save lives in the operating room.
“The most satisfying part is when you really made a difference in someone’s life,” Jim says.
But after the most devastating days when he couldn’t, Jim would pick up his camera and go outside.
“When I’m looking through that viewfinder, everything else that went on that day just kind of disappears,” Jim says.
Because with film — without digital’s multiple takes and computer fixes — you must live in the moment.
“You have to work for every image you produce,” Jim says. “And as a result, it’s extremely satisfying when you get something good.”
Leaving Jim extremely grateful that this practice seems to have saved him from suffering the symptoms of PTSD that have proved debilitating for too many of his former colleagues.
“It’s been a lifeline,” Jim says.
And now that he’s retired from fixing people in peril, Jim is focused on preserving people’s past.
After finding discarded rolls of old film in thrift shops, Jim develops the negatives in his dark room at home and then searches for the people in the prints.
“I eventually made contact with the granddaughter of the little baby here,” Jim points to a black and white photograph dating back to the 1920s.
In a time when digital photos can be used to fabricate or conceal, Jim is fixing vintage film cameras and teaching people to use them — inspiring inclusion, healing, and ultimately connection.
