Introducing the Restoration Obscura Field Guide Podcast

I’m excited to share something new with you today: the launch of the Restoration Obscura Field Guide Podcast—an ongoing audio companion to the work I’ve been doing here with words and images.

Each episode of the Field Guide is a standalone journey into forgotten, hidden, or overlooked history. Some episodes are solo explorations—narrative stories told through deep research and firsthand observation. Others will feature interviews with historians, preservationists, photographers, and storytellers who help us bring the past back into focus.

Whether we’re following the path of a buried river, decoding ghost signs on old brick walls, or tracing the rise and fall of an industrial corridor, Restoration Obscura is always about one thing: finding history in the places we thought we knew.

Episode 1: How to Read the City Like a History Book

We start close to home—in Albany, Schenectady, and Troy—where history isn’t just preserved in museums. It’s embedded in the landscape.

Episode 1 shows you how to read a city like a history book. From faded advertisements to cobblestone streets breaking through asphalt, every street corner holds a clue. The Erie Canal’s footprint still shapes Albany’s layout. Brick row houses in Troy speak to generations of laborers and craftsmen. In Schenectady’s Stockade District, Dutch Colonial homes sit beside Victorian mansions—architecture as a timeline.

We go below the surface too: tracing waterways like the Poestenkill and Rutten Kill, finding manhole covers stamped with the names of long-gone foundries, and exploring how even street names—like Mill Lane or Water Street—are artifacts of the past.

Episode 1 is a guide to seeing what most people overlook. It offers practical ways to interpret the built environment—how to recognize buried infrastructure, decode ghost signs, and read the subtle clues left in brickwork, street layouts, and old industrial sites. It’s about understanding that cities aren’t just built—they’re built over time, and each layer leaves something behind. History isn’t lost. It’s built into the streets we walk every day.

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What is Restoration Obscura?

The name Restoration Obscura is rooted in the early language of photography. The camera obscura—Latin for “dark chamber”—was a precursor to the modern camera, a box that transformed light into shadow and shadow into fleeting image. This project reverses that process. Instead of letting history fade, Restoration Obscura brings what’s been lost in the shadows back into focus.

But this is more than photography. This is memory work.

Restoration Obscura blends archival research, image restoration, investigative storytelling, and historical interpretation to uncover stories that have slipped through the cracks—moments half-remembered or deliberately forgotten. Whether it's an unsolved mystery, a crumbling ruin, or a water-stained photograph, each piece is part of a larger tapestry: the fragments we use to reconstruct the truth.

History isn’t a static timeline—it’s a living narrative shaped by what we choose to remember. Restoration Obscura aims to make history tactile and real, reframing the past in a way that resonates with the present. Because every photo, every ruin, every document from the past has a story. It just needs the light to be seen again.

If you enjoy stories like these, subscribe to Restoration Obscura on Substack to receive new investigations straight to your inbox. Visit www.restorationobscura.com to learn more.

You can also explore the full archive of my work at www.johnbulmermedia.com.

Every Photo Has a Story.

© 2025 John Bulmer Media & Restoration Obscura. All rights reserved.Content is for educational purposes only.

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