During a visit with her mother Jean four years ago, Cathy Panebianco came across some family memories — her father Glenn’s Kodachrome slides.

“He started taking these photos when he was probably 14 or 15 years old,” she said. “Every Christmas he would bring them out and use this projector that someone gave him from like the 1940s and tell stories and each year the stories always got a little more exaggerated like any family story does.”

At the time, Panebianco was engaged in a daily Instagram photo challenge. The theme for that day was “From Where I Stand.”

“I pulled out the photo of my mom in a boat with her on a boat — the photo is from a lake in Canada we go to every year,” Panebianco said. “I didn’t know what I was going to do with it, but I took it down to Chautauqua Lake and took hundreds of photos.”

“All of a sudden the backgrounds matched up and could see the lake in the background of my dad’s slide,” she continued. “Even then, I thought it was just a cool photo, but my mom suggested that I do it with some other slides.”

What began as a personal photography project for Panebianco, who serves as Jamestown Public Schools’ communications coordinator, has evolved into one that has received recognition worldwide for its creativity and melancholy. Entitled “No Memory Is Ever Alone,” she calls it a “visual conversation” between her and her father.

Panebianco moved to the area in 1989 to be with her husband George, a local attorney, and started taking photography classes at Jamestown Community College.

“I always wanted to do it and never tried it,” she said. “I almost took a class in college and didn’t so I took black and white darkroom classes at JCC and then started going to workshops in Maine and Santa Fe.

It’s probably been like 10 or 15 years since I’ve been serious. … I’ve always loved it. It’s such a nice, relaxing release to take photographs and be creative.”

In September, her work was recognized with a Critic’s Choice Award from the photography website LensCulture. The creative utilization of her father’s slides have also been featured in United Kingdom and Italian publications. Discussions with book publishers have begun.

“It’s funny because I’m not a super artsy person,” Panebianco said. “I’m creative, but I hate when things are too pretentious or too artsy. Probably the nicest compliment I received from people was that they got (the project’s meaning). A lot of times you see fine art and people don’t understand.”

With this project in particular, however, she feels as though she was in the right place at the right time.

“With everybody being home with the pandemic or family, everybody is with their family right now so I think it just hit at the right time,” she said.

While capturing her father’s slides against the light of present day backgrounds has been a labor of love, it also has served as an education about her family history.

“I knew all the stories about my parents, but I still learned a lot more about my family and family history that I didn’t know,” she said. “There are some people in those photos that I’ve never met.”

“And even though these are my family’s photos, they’re really every family’s photos,” she said.

Most importantly, it’s made her understand the importance of physically taking and printing photographs.

“I hope that people take away from this how important it is to print and keep your family memories,” she said. “If my dad hadn’t done that 50 years ago, I wouldn’t have those things. It’s that visual thing that you can hold in your hand that sometimes is missing. I think it’s great that you can share on Instagram or Facebook, but future generations need to be able to see and remember their family.”

That has taken on greater importance in recent days — if anything, the photos have provided a sense of comfort for Panebianco, calling them “little spirits” that come alive when placed in front of the current place or environment.

“It’s comforting to know those people are still around,” she said. “They’re always in your heart, too. … But it’s comforting that they still are here around you. With loss, you learn things like that. Even though it’s a sad thing, they’re always going to be a part of you. Your family and your loved ones are always going to be around.”