![]() Watson left The Signal in 2003 and rejoined in 2009, when the paper was still owned by Savannah, Georgia-based Morris Multimedia Inc. I kept beating guys over the head to do it.” I put the published photos on a disc for each month, and then all the raw stuff, too, from each photographer. “I was very meticulous about archiving those discs with names and dates. “In 2000 we went digital, so there are also a lot of discs in the archive,” Watson said. He reorganized the archive and began keeping the negatives in an ever-expanding collection of large three-ring binders. ![]() Upon Watson’s arrival, The Signal’s photo archive mainly consisted of prints and negatives dating back only about 50 years, even though the paper was established in 1919. “The daily (photo) shooting – I like finding the features around the valley, meeting interesting people, the veterans, the older people, and the daily sports. “I took the Signal job in 1998 because I always liked small community news and wanted to learn the computers,” Watson said. Screenshot from the SCVTV documentary, “The Mighty Signal: The First 100 Years.” ![]() Signal photographer Dan Watson shows the camera gear he used over the years to document events in the Santa Clarita Valley. papers for decades one of them is the most famous same-day aerial view of the 1928 St. Watson family news photos were published in the L.A. (His two daughters have successfully pursued other professional careers, he said.) He is co-curator of the Watson family photo archive, whose first glass-plate negatives were made in 1888. Watson, a fourth-generation community news photographer, is last in a line of 10 Watson photographers. But Dan diligently preserved all of the negatives going back at least to the mid-1960s.” “Those of us who worked at The Signal had always been told that prior publishers threw things away. ![]() “I was floored when Dan told me the photos still exist,” said Worden, who is also vice president of the Historical Society and a former Signal editor from 1998-2007. Longtime Signal Photo Department chief Dan Watson, one of the key Signal staffers who was interviewed, mentioned the existence of the photo archive to SCVTV President Leon Worden while the documentary was in production late last year. “Through this donation, it is my intention that the images be made available for the education and enjoyment of the Santa Clarita Valley community and its public, nonprofit, educational and governmental institutions,” Budman wrote.īoxes containing an estimated 1 million negative and digital images from The Signal newspaper’s archives are packed up for transport Friday.īudman’s gift to the Historical Society came about as an unexpected result of a video documentary that the local community television station SCVTV produced for the paper’s 100th anniversary in February 2019. Under the terms of The Signal’s donation letter, the images are to be accessible for any noncommercial use. ![]() “We intend to preserve the images and eventually get them digitized so they will be available to the public.” “It’s a huge increase in the documentation of our valley’s history for the last half-century that we’ll be able to explore and preserve for the future,” Pollack said. “We are very grateful to The Signal for giving us this opportunity to be the custodian of this amazing, massive archive of photographs,” said Alan Pollack, president of the Historical Society, which in 1975 embarked on a mission “to preserve the best of the past for the good of the future.” “The Signal has chronicled the rich history of the SCV for the past 100 years, and with this donation, these images will be made available to the citizens of the SCV for all to see and enjoy,” said Budman, who along with his wife, Chris, purchased the century-old newspaper last June. “On behalf of The Signal newspaper, I am very happy to donate our photo and negative archives to the Santa Clarita Valley Historical Society,” Signal Publisher Richard Budman said. The owner of the Santa Clarita Valley Signal newspaper has donated the entire Signal Photo Archive – an estimated 1 million individual negatives, prints and digital images documenting the goings-on in the SCV from at least the 1960s to the early 2000s – to the nonprofit Santa Clarita Valley Historical Society. ![]()
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