Thursday, September 25, 2008

The old is new again


I love old photos. This is not a surprise to any of you. Most old photos have gone through years of being bent, exposed to excessive light or unkind elements. Countless treasures have been ruined because they have been pasted in books that eventually turn them yellow or disintegrate them.

Whenever I come across images that are precious to me my first task is to preserve them, both in books as well as digitally. Sometimes this means giving that image a makeover. This afternoon I found myself with a few minutes to spare so I got out one of my old photos of Mom. The original was about 1.5 by 2 inches and looked like Dad had carried it around in his wallet for years. In fact, the first time Mom saw this photo she didn't remember it.

This image had been worked over two years ago but not quite to my satisfaction. After two hours of cloning, bandaids and levels this is the partial transformation of Mom when she was in high school. There is still much to be done with the clothes and the background, but that is for another day.

Here is my pleading for anyone who might be reading this: If you have any photos stored in those old magnetic albums that were popular in the 70s and 80s please carefully lift them out and put them in an envelope to preserve what is left of them before they turn to dust. And while you are at it, you might want to identify them in some way. Who knows, maybe someone in the future will want to see where that curly hair or crooked smile came from. There in that envelope will be the photo of great-aunt Talula with that same smile.

Ahhh, it's Thursday!

$.88

1 comment:

JoAnn ( Scene Through My Eyes) said...

Great work on the photo. I agree with you - identify the photos - we inherited a huge old album of Don's family - babies, adults, very old people, very young - and none were identified so we have no clue as to who they are - or their stories. Very sad.