The Leo J. Kohn Photography Collection Has Been Digitized

We did it.

We are proud to announce that WAHF has completed digitizing Leo J. Kohn’s extensive collection of aviation photographs.

• 73,880 negatives and envelope images.
  
• Over 25TB of RAW images.
  
• 2,334 master photo set pages

What’s next?

Digitization is only the first phase of preserving and sharing these photos.

“90% done, 90% to go”

We are actively working to build out the website and database to make Leo’s photographs available online. The first batch of photos and website is planned to launch this fall.

We still need your financial support to complete this project. 100% of your donation goes towards our efforts to share and preserve these images.

We need your support!

Donate to WAHF's Leo J. Kohn Project Fund

• Immediate Need: Hard Drives - We need to buy more storage. Our initial allocation of hard drives are full! We keep multiple copies of the collection in multiple offline locations, to ensure it is backed up.
  
• Immediate Need: Software Licenses - Our photo editing volunteers need access to tools like Photoshop and Lightroom. These tools are used to process photographs.
  
• Future Need: Digitization Hardware - We require additional devices to scan a portion of Leo’s collection that you might not be aware of - an extensive collection of contact prints and developed photographs.
  
  

Many People Have Made This Possible.

A huge thanks to everyone who has donated time, donated money, attended our talks, sent emails, requested photos, and listened to me talk your ear off about airplane photos – thank you!

Thanks to everyone at the Kelch Aviation Museum for housing our little exhibit and giving the collection a home. Also, a huge thanks to Mark Buehl, who spent a ton of time with the collection. Your efforts with a very slow flatbed scanner inspired a period of discovery - capturing a negative can take seconds instead of minutes.

Thanks to Scott Green for a long-term loan of his camera equipment. The project would not have gotten off the ground without it.

Thanks to John and Rose Dorcey for their continued efforts to push this project forward.