Picture This! Making the Photo Archives Podcast

Behind the Scenes

How a Curator Created the Podcast, Picture This

BY JILL HARTKE, PHOTO AND DIGITAL ARCHIVIST

THE PHOTO ARCHIVE OVERFLOWS with stories waiting to be told. I began making a five-to-seven minute podcast called “Picture This with the Albuquerque Museum” to highlight overlooked stories within the Museum’s collection.

My first stop is the photo archives collection. How many images do I have to tell the story? Is there a new angle to a wellknown story that I can share? Do I have supporting images of locations or subjects? The answer to each of these questions helps determine the content for a podcast. Take the Dawson Mine podcast, for example. I had heard of Dawson, New Mexico, from people who had toured the ghost town and saw the rows of white iron crosses in the graveyard with the date of mine explosions. I looked at seven photographs, donated by Dorothy Diver, showing a rescue training session that her father, Dr. Frank Diver, ran from his surgery room at Dawson’s hospital around 1910. The story of Dr. Diver and the rescuers seemed overlooked and perfect for a podcast.

The accession record for the collection had information about Dr. Diver. I researched mine rescues in the 1910s to learn the men attending Dr. Diver’s training were known as “helmet men.” Newspaper accounts of the 1913 disaster shed more light on the helmet men and I learned from the US Bureau of Mines how many helmet men were trained in Dawson. All of this research helped me to write a script for the podcast. Next, I start recording.

I use a podcast application on my smartphone called Spreaker. Trial and many errors taught me that life is easier if I record the podcast in bits, rather than all in one go, so I generally have six or seven segments of a podcast that I record and upload separately. Once the audio is recorded, I move on to compile

This page left: Men Being tested for NASA at Lovelace Clinic, 1959 PA2001.034.033 Albuquerque Museum, gift of Minton Schooley

This page right: Elsie Westerfield on the steps of a Streetcar PA1993.018.015.A Albuquerque Museum, gift of Grace Miller-Redd

Facing page: Mine rescuers at the entrance to a mine, Albuquerque Museum, gift of Dorothy Diver PA1974.070.006

the audio and images together into the podcast.

I use software called Filmora to do my podcast magic. Filmora allows me to put in opening and ending titles, zoom in on images, pan across images, cut out audio, insert sound effects, and save the podcast in several formats. I use sound effects to enhance the storytelling, often for humor, but sometimes for drama. For the Dawson Mine story, I wanted to create an atmosphere of peril. The newspaper reported that rocks fell on rescuers as they rushed into the exploded mine. I used an online sound effect collection to find “rocks falling into a well”, which brought to life an image of helmet men in the mine and connected it to the storyline.

The podcasts allow me to creatively present the collection to a larger audience. It’s a chance to give incredible stories new life in the imaginations of listeners.

PICTURE THIS! EPISODES Episode 1: Van Tassel Balloon Launch Episode 2: Dawson, New Mexico Episode 3: Lovelace Astronaut Program Episode 4: Itinerant Photographer Episode 5: King Albert I Visits Isleta Episode 6: Streetcars and Motorettes Episode 7: Let the Sunshine In Episode 8: Albuquerque Dukes Episode 9: New Mexicans in WWI

LISTEN TO PICTURE THIS! PODCAST CABQ.GOV/PICTURETHIS