Loyd Sandgren (1916-2001) was a Jacksonville-based commercial photographer who primarily worked from the 1940s through the 1990s. After his death in 2001, the Jacksonville Public Library acquired a collection of over 14,000 prints and thousands of negatives from his family. These are archived in cold storage as part of the Jacksonville Public Library’s Florida Collection. Digitization of the prints was undertaken to make some of the collection available for viewing online. The effort began in 2004 and was completed in 2011. That collection is available here.
The photography of Loyd Sandgren is a vivid time capsule of the history of Jacksonville, Florida. A treasure so important it couldn’t all be kept in one place.
Bob Self, local photography legend and Staff Photographer at The Florida Times-Union is the owner and director of Vintage Jacksonville, representing the Vintage Photography collection of Loyd Sandgren.
He tells a fascinating story of how he and Loyd first met
I first met Loyd Sandgren in 1997 as I was putting photo gear back into my car after a downtown Jacksonville photoshoot. This elderly gentleman with a bushy white beard and red suspenders approached me and started asking me questions about my cameras. I politely answered him and continued loading my car. He then exclaimed “I’m a photographer too.” I smiled and thought to myself, “everyone’s a photographer”. He then asked if I wanted to look at some of his pictures and handed me a red spiral bound notebook full of photographs. Again, I smiled and took the notebook from him, opening it up fully expecting to see amateur photographs of sunsets and flowers.
After the first couple of pages of photographs my reaction was “Damn, this guy is a photographer!” The notebook was full of 8X10 black and white prints from 4×5 negatives of Jacksonville skyline views, product photographs, portraits and the like, all shot in the late 40’s and 50’s. Classic commercial photography from the era and most all of the work was shot in Jacksonville. At that point he had me. I peppered him with questions about his work and his background and got contact information to get back in touch with him. This led to the first of many long visits to his small apartment in Springfield which had shelves full of similar photo albums with titles like Downtown, Girls, Bodybuilders and Interesting that represented a virtual time capsule of Jacksonville life spanning the 1940’s through the mid 1970’s. This led to a friendship that lasted until his death in 2001, a week shy of his 85th birthday.
It was a real treat to have Loyd as a friend and a special honor to represent his collection for his family. Loyd and I had many conversations about getting his work back into the public eye and an early story in The Florida Times-Union about Loyd and his life’s work started that process. It has been quite a few years in the making but I hope that this blog will be the next step in generating interest in his photography and keeping his memory alive for those who knew him as well as introduce him to a new audience seeing his work for the first time.
~Bob Self/Vintage Jacksonville
Vintage Jacksonville website
Vintage Jacksonville Facebook.
Ribault Drive-In
4819 Soutel Drive, Jacksonville, FL 32208
The Ribault Drive-In was opened prior to 1955. It was a Clark Theater and had a capacity for 400 cars. Also operated by Eastern Federal Corporation.
photo courtesy of Loyd Sandgren
Confederate Park Aerial 1955
“The street on the left is Main Street. The first street going to the left is Orange Street where Claude Nolan’s Cadillac was. In the center is Confederate Park which is still there. 1955. The white building on the upper right is the Scottish Rite building.” LS
photo courtesy of Loyd Sandgren
Florida News & Photo Service, Inc.photographer Loyd Sandgren developing a photo in the darkroom, 1946.
photo courtesy of Florida News & Photo Service, Inc.