When legendary Kodak photographer Neil Montanus died last month at the age of 92, his son Jim, a renowned photographer himself, decided to honor his late father. 

It resulted in a trip that took him to places his father famously photographed, and a journey that’s far from over.

For Jim Montanus, each day at his late father's house is a new adventure.  A room is filled with boxes of slides, old film and Kodak mementos, like the signed portrait of Walt Disney, which his dad shot early in his career.

“This room is filled with hundreds and hundreds of photographs,” said Montanus.  “At some point, I'm going to have to go through and archive this stuff."

Neil Montanus lived a photographer's dream life. Working with a team of Kodak photographers he captured images of presidents, athletes, beautiful people, and beautiful places.

“He was an amazing photographer,” said Jim.  “I think he was one of the important photographers of the 20th century."

Jim Montanus says he wasn’t really into photography as a child.  By college, he was photo editor of his campus newspaper.  After a career in corporate marketing, he didn’t seriously follow in his dad’s footsteps until about five years ago.  Now, he is dedicated to keeping his father’s legacy alive.

“I think my dad's story is an important story to photography,” he said.

Part of the story can be traced to the Adirondacks, and a boathouse, which Neil Montanus photographed in 1966.  It’s an iconic picture, part of Kodak's famed Colorama project at Grand Central Station in New York City.

“I've always seen that beautiful Adirondack picture,” said Jim.  “I've looked at that picture and marveled at that for years."

Montanus says finding that spot was always in the back of his mind.  But half a century later, he had doubts, having no idea whether that boathouse still existed. After his father's death, Jim posted his intentions on social media. 

“I had this unexpected, incredible response,” he said.

Within days he received word that the boathouse was still there.

“Once I found out people had basically located where it was, I became excited about that,” he said.  “It was really a deeply emotional experience for me."

A week and a half ago, Montanus boarded a boat, speeding across a foggy Lake Placid, approaching that sacred spot. Incredibly, that foggy day was almost identical to the one his dad experienced during the shoot. Those moments were captured on 16mm film in the fall of 1966.

“Just to imagine my dad standing there, 53 years ago almost to the day, taking this magnificent picture which hung in Grand Central Station,” he recalled.  “It was an amazing, almost indescribable experience for me."

In the Montanus studio, in the basement of his late father’s Greece home, there is so much more to do and many images to be discovered.

“A lot of these things no one has seen in 50 years,” he said.  Jim figures it will take the rest of his life to go through them all.

Yet still, there are those mountains.

“I want to go back,” he said.  “The mountains are calling me back."

Back to the spots precious to Neil and the ones Jim Montanus hopes to visit again. It’s a son's tribute to his father.

“It's a story that needs to be kept alive,” he said.  “That's one of the missions of my life, is to keep the memory of my dad's amazing career alive, and to share it with the rest of the world."