Behind the operation
It takes more than a camera. Here is the work of turning nearly a million photographs into a living, searchable archive.
Preserving an archive of this scale — roughly one million images across more than 12,000 rolls of film — is steady, deliberate work. It happens on four fronts at once.
Capturing today
The work didn't stop in the film era. Dalton continues to photograph Houston's nonprofit galas, community gatherings, and milestones — adding to the archive every week so today becomes tomorrow's history.
Rescuing the archive
Decades of negatives are carefully scanned at high resolution before the film degrades. Each roll is digitized, organized by event, and stored safely — a race against fading film that gets a little further along with every gift.
Recognizing faces
Once photos are digitized, we scan them for faces using facial-recognition technology. Faces are catalogued and, with care, matched to the people in them — so the collection becomes searchable, and anyone can find themselves or a loved one across thousands of events.
Building community
Every photo is tied to the event where it was taken, and events are organized so you can browse by year and by organization. The result is more than an archive — it's a way for Houston's community, and especially its LGBT+ community, to reconnect with its shared history.
How the foundation is run
The Dalton DeHart Photographic Foundation is a nonprofit guided by a volunteer board that stewards the collection, sets priorities for digitization and preservation, and ensures the archive stays free and publicly accessible for the long term.
Board of Directors
Dalton DeHart
Jerry Simoneaux
Greg Jue
Trey Yates III
Michael Volo
Lea Bogle
Glynda McGinnis
Jason Doxey