Russell T. Coughlin was a Wantagh, NY photographer between the 1960s-80s. In his 20 years of photography, Coughlin shot over 700 rolls of 35 mm and 120 film. He was versed in both color and black-and-white photography but truly excelled when shooting black and white. Coughlin believed that color photographs were an excellent way to document life, but that black and white images showcased the true art of photography.

He spent many summers on Long Island photographing the “Artist and Writers” baseball games in East Hampton.

He left his extensive portfolio of work to his late son, Russell J. Coughlin. Recently, Ryan Kraus, Russell T. Coughlin's great-grandson, inherited his impressive portfolio and has begun the process of preserving these images. Kraus republished six of Coughlin’s works in the local exhibition “Film Like Vinyl’ which was displayed in Kingston, NY for the month of February.

With the help of my grandfather, I discovered the history of my Great Grandfather's professional photography collection. Between 1965 and 1985, Russell Coughlin built a dark room in his house, shot, processed, developed and mounted hundreds of prints. In twenty years he shot nearly six hundred rolls of 35mm, medium format and large format film. These rolls contain nearly 21,000 images, which I had the good fortune of receiving. 

I have been organizing these negatives roll by roll to preserve the images in a long term way. With these negatives, I am now able to reproduce his images that have not seen the light of day in forty years. 

~Ryan Kraus