Preserving Memories

One of the biggest reasons people buy a camera is to record the events of their lives such as birthdays, vacation trips, family reunions, etc. In the film camera era, the resultant photos were placed in an album, or just left in their envelopes and tossed in a box. That's not the best way to take care of treasured memories, but we all did it.

Sometimes we carried treasured photos in our wallets - definitely not the most ideal place to store photos. The wallet could fall out of your pocket while you are mowing the lawn. Maybe you wouldn't see it, and then you run over it with the mower on the next pass. Ooooops!

That's what happened to the photo below. Thankfully, the leather wallet kept the photo from being completely shredded, but there was still major damage. Between the mower blade, and years of being kept in a man's wallet, this photo had been seriously abused.

Original photo

A few years ago, the woman in the photo, a friend from church and now a senior citizen, asked me if I could "fix it". Her husband was recently deceased, and it was the only copy she had of this photo which was taken around the time of their engagement. I had once successfully pieced together a photo that had been torn in half, but I didn't know what I could do with a photo that had about a quarter of it missing.

Restored Photo

I was able to clean up the small holes, cracks, and creases, but restoring missing limbs was a little above my pay grade. All I could do was crop it cleanly to a 3/4 length pose - still not bad for a snapshot. My friend was thrilled with how it came out, and ordered a 5x7 print. It resides in her bedroom to this day, this time in a frame, not a wallet. (Click on photos to enlarge.)