Pictures of the Day

I'm posting a picture because I don't have anything to write. So there.

This is a picture of a relative that was found among my Grandmother's stash of pictures. It is a tintype (or ferrotype), about 2 in. by 3 in., that is very hard to see. You have to get the light just right.

To get this shot, I put the tin in the corner of a picture that was already on my wall and focused the lens of my 6 MP DSLR to get the picture with room on all four sides. That way I know I got all of the picture in my shot. Here is the result that came out of the camera:

Once I got the file into Photoshop, I cropped the picture down to a nice size, keeping the originals unaltered. I used the levels and color balance controls to bring out the image. My eyes popped when I saw how much of the image was really there, but I could also see the damage on the image.

The time consuming part of picture restoration is in the clean up phase. I probably spent another 3 hours on this image and I'm sure that I could spend another 6 that would make a noticeable difference. This is the final product. From the 2"x3" original I got a nice sharp 5x7 and could likely push it to 8x10 without much loss of sharpness.

I love the eerie and powerful feeling of working on these images. I can't help but think about the man in the picture and what he would think about the technology that is now at my fingertips.

I mentioned above that this was a relative. I don't know that for a fact. I'm going by the features of his face and the fact that my grandmother had the picture. This man looks like several of my relatives on the Curtis side of the family. I suppose he could also be a Gray or a Temple. The Curtis' and the rest were located Southeast of Richmond, VA near present day Burrowsville. Being a tintype, that would put the date of this shot somewhere between 1870-1910. I guess it is possible, though unlikely, that someone will see it and know something about him. I'd love to put a name with the face.

I guess I had something to write after all.