Century of photos on display at new Northwest Louisiana Archives exhibit

Century of photos on display at new Northwest Louisiana Archives exhibit

SHREVEPORT - More than a century of photos of Shreveport-Bossier will be on display when the exhibit "Thurman C. Smith: A Photographic Legacy" opens at the Northwest Louisiana Archives on April 23.

The Archives, which is located on the third floor of the Noel Memorial Library, will display photographs from arguably the best photographer in Shreveport history.

The opening event, which runs from 6-9 p.m. celebrates a curated exhibit of Shreveport-Bossier visual history. The exhibit runs until June 5.

Smith spent more than seven decades behind the lens himself, and his collection dates back to the 19^th century as he acquired photographs from properties like Film Arbor Studios and Woody's Camera World.

Head archivist Dr. Laura McLemore and her staff have begun organizing the Thurman C. Smith Photography Collection since accepting it into the Archives this past July, and McLemore said the collection contains "tens of thousands of photos."

"One of the reasons this collection is so impactful is that it's really a combination of those three studios, the earliest of which (Film Arbor Studios) dates back to the 1920s," McLemore said. "Most of our photo collections in the Archives come from journalists, but Smith was in the advertising business and operated his own studio (Smith Photography).

"That makes this collection different from the others in that it isn't covering the news, it's a rich cultural collection that showed how we lived."

The 98-year-old Smith was on hand with his son Scot Smith when the collection was accepted in July.

"I had always admired my dad's work for its technical excellence," Scot Smith said. "There was a time when photography required extensive knowledge of cameras and lenses, factoring in light and balancing flash, a lot of chemistry involved in developing film, and a lot of optics and photographic paper in making a print.

"What these photographs represent as far as skill, craftsmanship and knowledge is unparalleled. It would have been a horrible mistake to have these photos end up in a landfill. I've been haunted by that possibility, but now that burden is off my heart and my dad's life's work has a home."

The art of making prints enriches this collection even further because families would bring in old photos, some of which dated to the 19^th century, that they wanted to preserve.

The collection includes the photo negatives of those prints, which expands the collection beyond photos taken in Smith's and other photographers' lifetimes.

McLemore, who has curated exhibits for the Archives for more than two decades, said the Smith exhibit was the most difficult to pare down to 30 images for display.

"There are a lot of great pictures of the Bossier Strip for example," said McLemore, referencing the famous entertainment hub from the Texas Street Bridge to Red Chute Bayou that featured nightclubs, live music, gambling and other adult entertainment from the 1930s to the 1970s. "Most people don't even remember the Bossier Strip, but it's a really big deal.

"Smith has pictures from all over the region, like northern Caddo Parish, Minden and Logansport, but we decided to stay more local and pick photos of things people know and recognize. This exhibit hits just the tip of the iceberg of the collection, and it's the hardest one to curate that I've ever done I think."

Another notable facet of the Smith Collection is its abundance of aerial photos.

"He documented the entire region from the air, and that was a tremendous amount of his business," McLemore said. "This collection has such a rich legacy."