By COLlive reporter
Walking by the Rebbe to receive a blessing and a dollar for charity at Lubavitch Headquarters 770 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn, usually didn’t last long. Its effect, however, lasted forever.
With almost every movement at the ‘Sunday dollars’ photographed and videotaped, those memories will now be relived again through an ambitious project.
Some 85,000 still photos taken at those encounters have been digitally scanned and will be uploaded to a special website for identification and individual use, COLlive.com has learned.
Photographed by Chaim Baruch Halberstam of WLCC, which documented the Rebbe’s life at 770, the photos are now in the possession of Jewish Educational Media (JEM).
In an effort that lasted several years, JEM’s Mendel Gourarie supervised a massive scanning project along with Shaya Gopin, working with a professional digital images company.
“After all the scanning, they worked out a partnership with a top photo developer so people will be able to buy their picture, frame it for their home or office, or give a photo as a gift to a friend,” a source told COLlive.
Meir Simcha Kogan and the Chabad.org staff – also underwriting the project – recently began to upload the photos, planning to have the first batch ready for Gimmel Tammuz 5770.
These 85,000 new photographs will be featured in a revamped interface built to accommodate the huge amount of images.
The new website – donated by Florida businessman Nossi Dubrawsky – will make it easier to streamline and identify the individuals pictured with the Rebbe.
Rabbi Elkanah Shmotkin, Director of JEM, confirmed some of these details to COLlive and said “this collaboration between our staff, our donors, Chabad.org and the photo experts,” will finally be realized.
“I’m sure the tens of thousands of people who met the Rebbe – and their children and grandchildren – will be pleased with the results. ”
An additional 100,000 captures from video footage were already available online at MyMomentWithTheRebbe.com (and we’re told that another 100,000 are ready to go). The quality of those screen shots do not allow printing, but the video can be ordered on DVD.
The Los Angeles branch is really proud.
how do i do this?
I just found myself for the first time!!!
u already had my last name and all i had to find was which one was me!
i’m trilled!!!!
Apple’s iphoto has a really cool feature that when you identify one face it finds other similar ones. i wonder it they can integrate such software so people can find their pictures easier..
Amazing amount of work. Kol hakavod!
what is the web location?
yasher koach mendel. we always new that you are behind some wonderful projects.
What’s the name of the site?
Its great to see you in the news, Hatzlocho Rabbo.
AYR
ur amazing!
Very nice Mendel!
We’re so proud
thanks for making avalible the pics
we all owe this group a tremendous yesher koiach, this is vital stuff to us all.
Not likely .. its nowhere near accurate enough and beards tend to mess around with the accuracy aswell. I dont think JEM is about embark on a project to build this feature that has eluded the computer science world until now
how much would each photo be around?????
85,000 photos while a very large amount only average about 300 photos per week. where are the other many 100s per week?
iphoto has an awesome face recognition feature that once you identify one face it finds similar ones. I hope they integrate something like that..
Great work, Mendel!!
They should also use shmidi goldshmidt photos.