Most of the photos on this site were extracted from reference images (high-resolution tiffs, 20 to 200 megabytes in size) from the Library of Congress research archive. (To query the database click here.) Many were digitized by LOC contractors using a Sinar studio back. They are adjusted by your webmaster for contrast and color in Photoshop before being downsized and turned into the jpegs you see here.
I currently work in health care in an administrative role. In a former life, I owned a successful photography studio in Oneida, New York and still enjoy taking digital photos for fun. As an amateur history buff, Shorpy combines my two passions nicely!