Category Archives: Photo Restoration

An Incredible Photo Restored From 1922 – Over A Century Ago!

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We love restoring old photos that people bring us – the stories we learn and being able to give them new life when we bring back the detail in a faded memory is just so rewarding!  This one was no exception.
 
When Diane brought this incredible 1922 photo (she’s pretty sure it was either ’22 or ’23) which included her dad and grandparents we were mesmerized.  What a photo!  But it was 100 years old and fading fast… 
 

An Incredible Photo Restored From 1922

 
Here’s the story of the photo from Diane:
 
“These were immigrants who came here (legally-lol) for a better life from Crni Lug, Croatia in the early 1900’s.  This picture was taken 1922-23 in Shingleton, Michigan.  The bride and groom are Josephine (Stimac) and Frank Lisak. The couple with the baby carriage are Joseph and Antonia Stimac.  The small boy in the carriage is my father Raymond.   Antonia died a year later from tuberculosis.  I received the picture which had been stored in a box for years.”
 
 
1922
We are pretty pleased with the result – we were able to bring back most of the detail, clean up the damage and recover this incredible scene.  Take a look…
 
1922
Just a fantastic moment in time over a century ago – recovered and restored!
 
Check your closets and shoeboxes and bring your history our way!
 
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Frameable Faces Photography
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Frameable Faces Photography is a small biz retail mom & pop shop of Doug&Ally Cohen located in the Orchard Mall in West Bloomfield, Michigan, United States Of America!
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Ally & Doug can be reached at the studio at tel:248-790-7317 or emailed at mailto:info@frameablefaces.com
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Social Media Services: http://M10Social.com
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Being “Frameable” is an attitude, a community, a way of life – a life you would want to celebrate and display on your walls for all to see!  Tell us… ARE YOU FRAMEABLE?
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The Photo Restoration Project – Jason’s Grandparents restored!

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Grandparents Restored

Photo Restoration is one of our favorite things to do – to help people restore and reclaim their history!  We also like the stories behind the photos we get to restore, and in this case Jason shared some background on the photo he sent us of his grandparents which was pretty badly damaged.  Jason (aka @LionCrownz) found us by tuning in to our Periscope broadcasts and you can join in on the fun there as well by following us at @frameablefaces at this link, or you can connect with us and check out the broadcasts on Twitter as well!

Jason’s Grandparents Restored!

In this case Jason shipped us the photo which as you will see was in pretty bad shape.  We scanned it – here’s what it looked like:

Grandparents Restored

So that’s the “before”.  You can see that it was basically in two pieces with some fading and plenty of creases…  

Now take a look at the “after”…..

Grandparents Restored

Cleaned up nicely right?

Let’s check in with Jason as he gave us the background on the photo.

FF: Who are the people in the photo?  

Jason: The people in the photo are my grandparents!

FF: What can you tell us about their story and/or your relationship with them?

Jason: Their story is they met in high school and were high school sweethearts.  My grandparents got divorced when my mother was in grade school and I really did not get to know my grandfather until I was 14 but that was over the phone.  He was really absent from our lives for the most part.  I remember our conversations on the phone and how kind he was.  He always liked to pick and make fun and ask if I had a girlfriend.  I know my mother and I both were very grateful to have him back in our lives but shortly after he came back into our lives he was gone again because he had passed away of a heart attack at the age of 55.

FF: What does having this photo restored mean to you?

Jason: Having this photo restored to me means a lot because we do not have many photos of my grandfather and having it restored makes me feel closer to him because I still think of him often even though I did not really know him that well.  So it’s like a small piece of him is still with us even if it is just in a photo.

 

It’s that last part that makes us happy – it means a lot to Jason and it means a lot to us to help people in this way!  We hope you enjoyed seeing Jason’s grandparents restored!

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Frameable Faces Photography
**********************************************
Frameable Faces Photography is a small biz retail mom & pop shop of Doug&Ally Cohen located in the Orchard Mall in West Bloomfield, Michigan, United States Of America!
************************************************
Ally & Doug can be reached at the studio at tel:248-790-7317 or emailed at mailto:info@frameablefaces.com
************************************************
***************************************­*******
Being “Frameable” is an attitude, a community, a way of life – a life you would want to celebrate and display on your walls for all to see!  Tell us… ARE YOU FRAMEABLE?
**********************************************
Join the Frameable Faces Community – sign up for our email newsletter for the best of the week in the Frameable Faces World!  Click here!

The Photo Restoration Project – A Polish Wedding Over 100 Years Old!

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Polish Wedding

One of the most rewarding aspects of our business is that we get to help people reclaim their family history by restoring damaged photos.  We’ve taken it to a new level with The Frameable Faces Restoration Project where we encourage people to share their stories with us and with our community!  Lisa was referred to us by a mutual photographer friend Heather in Georgia who saw us discussing photo restoration on Periscope.  That’s part of the beauty of this – we can help people restore photos from any corner of the world especially if they have a scanner – in this case a Polish wedding over 100 years old!  In Lisa’s case the photo she had didn’t fit on her scanner so she had to scan it in two parts.  I just laid them over the top of each other on my Mac and took a screen shot so you can see the whole original in one shot for the purposes of this article – that’s why you see the line of separation towards the left of the photo to go with all the crumbling pieces around the edges because this photo was in bad shape.  Luckily the main image of Lisa’s great grandparents was intact!  Sometimes if significant pieces of the main image are missing the photo can still be restored but it’s a little more work.

Polish Wedding

A Polish Wedding Over 100 Years Old!

We asked Lisa to share the story of this photo and she did!

FF: Tell us a little of the story of this photo and the people in it.

Lisa: This is a wedding photo of my mother’s maternal grandparents, Anthony and Maria.  They came to America from Poland, and it is assumed that the picture was taken in Poland over 100 years ago.  My mom has had it for quite a while and every time it is taken out it seems like another corner or small piece would fall off.

FF: Tell us what you know about the photo itself – Who took the photo?  Where was this photo stored?  Was it recently found?

Lisa: We do not know who took the photo, or much about the moment it was taken. It was stored by my grandmother in a drawer for years and then went to my mother when she cleaned out my grandmother’s home.  The gentleman in the picture, Anthony, was my mother’s grandfather.  She did not know her grandmother, as she died before my mother was born.  Anthony lived with her family on and off during her childhood and only spoke Polish.  My mom has old wedding photos of many family members (each of Anthony and Maria’s 3 children) and all are in good condition.  When showing this photo to a cousin (child of Anthony’s brother) a corner snapped off.  After that it began to deteriorate each time it was handled. Given the sentimental value, my mom asked to have this photo restored as a Christmas present to preserve it for future generations.

FF: What are you planning to do with the photo now that it’s been restored?  What has the restoration of this photo meant to you?

Lisa: My mom loved the finished product!  It is on display in her living room.  She cherishes the memories as she was only 9 when her grandfather passed away.  She particularly liked that the restoration was printed with a sturdy backing instead of plain paper.  The majority of larger photos she has from this time were also printed with backing as opposed to paper.

*Note – we restored this photo, printed it as an 11×14 per Lisa’s request and shipped it to her.  All photos we print as 11×14 and larger are mounted on a sturdy backing as Lisa mentioned.

Polish Wedding

Maria and Anthony – restored

We hope you enjoyed Lisa’s story and we hope you will join us!  Help us help you restore and reclaim your history!

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Frameable Faces Photography
**********************************************
Frameable Faces Photography is a small biz retail mom & pop shop of Doug&Ally Cohen located in the Orchard Mall in West Bloomfield, Michigan, United States Of America!
************************************************
Ally & Doug can be reached at the studio at tel: 248-790-7317 or emailed at mailto:info@frameablefaces.com
************************************************
***************************************­*******
Being “Frameable” is an attitude, a community, a way of life – a life you would want to celebrate and display on your walls for all to see!  Tell us… ARE YOU FRAMEABLE?
**********************************************
Join the Frameable Faces Community – sign up for our email newsletter for the best of the week in the Frameable Faces World!  Click here!

The Frameable Faces Restoration Project!

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Polish WeddingI have always had a keen interest in history on many levels.  In addition to my own personal interest in reading books and visiting historical sites I’ve tried to find ways to incorporate history into Frameable Faces.  Not only are we capturing moments and preserving them forever when we photograph our clients, I have blogged about historical photos of American Presidents, I’ve dabbled with my Life Preservers idea on and off to do interviews with people about their personal histories and I have written about photo restoration.  This leads us to the restoration project…

Photo restoration is a special opportunity for us to help people preserve and even recover a piece of their own history that has been damaged or thought to be lost.  When someone brings in a damaged photo, we have it restored to pristine condition and return it to them and we see the tears of emotion and joy that pour out when they see the results – these are some of the best moments we have here.

Here are a couple of examples:

A lady brought in this last photo she had of her late brother from before he went off to war.  He returned from fighting but he was never the same.  This photo was faded, browned, torn, taped, incomplete and stapled to a manilla envelope (you can actually see the staple at the top of his hat).  It meant a lot to her and it meant a lot to us to present it back to her completely restored.  This is such important work.  Helping people reclaim their history.

The Frameable Faces Restoration Project

Next one of our seniors had a photo of his mom from her passport from when she came to this country as a young child.  It is the only photo that exists of her from before she came to America.  It was tiny and had part of the raised stamping from the passport on it – not exactly in great condition.

Here’s the before:

Restoration Project

Here’s the after:

Restoration Project

Next we have a baby picture of a lady who came to the studio while in her 90’s.  Such a sweet lady, Lucille’s photo had some damage around the edges from the frame it was in, a couple of creases and stains, and the photo was fading a little.

Here’s the before:

Restoration Project

Here’s the after:

Restoration Project

Here is a case of some damage and significant fading on this one… the photo was really starting to disappear and it was small – we couldn’t make it much bigger but we definitely brought her back…

The before:

Restoration Project

 

The after:

Restoration Project

 

Here’s a color wedding photo that had been significantly damaged and faded over time that just needed to be brought back to life…

Before:

Restoration Project

 

After:

Restoration Project

 

We could go on and on with examples of photos we’ve restored…

Enter Periscope and the Restoration Project…

The element we are adding to make this more of a project is the live video element.  We have an amazing community of people we have connected with literally all around the world on Periscope.  If you are unaware of Periscope it is a live streaming app owned by twitter and you can download it and follow us at @frameablefaces at this link.

At any given time in one of our live broadcasts you can be a part of a social video watching and chatting in real time with people from Australia, Israel, Turkey, Brazil, The UK, France, Russia, Malaysia, Serbia, Nigeria, India, Pakistan, Germany, Spain, Morocco, Ukraine – the list goes on and on.  If someone in Sweden has an old damaged photo they want to restore they can scan it and send it to us digitally.  Periscope has allowed us to connect with people all over the world!

So with the Frameable Faces Restoration Project we are giving people the opportunity to come on to our channel to show the before and after photos and share the story of the photo with the rest of our community.  We can then record these and put them all together on a playlist on our YouTube channel.  If you don’t want to come on and do a live interview and would prefer to just give us the story separately for the blog that’s fine too!  The main thing is sharing stories with our community, bringing us together, reclaiming and restoring history!

Contact us for details if you’re interested!  You can call the studio at 248-790-7317, email me at doug@frameablefaces.com, or DM us on twitter at @frameablefaces

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Frameable Faces Photography
**********************************************
Frameable Faces Photography is a small biz retail mom & pop shop of Doug&Ally Cohen located in the Orchard Mall in West Bloomfield, Michigan, United States Of America!
************************************************
Ally & Doug can be reached at the studio at tel:248-790-7317 or emailed at mailto:info@frameablefaces.com
************************************************
***************************************­*******
Being “Frameable” is an attitude, a community, a way of life – a life you would want to celebrate and display on your walls for all to see!  Tell us… ARE YOU FRAMEABLE?
**********************************************
Join the Frameable Faces Community – sign up for our email newsletter for the best of the week in the Frameable Faces World!  Click here!

 

Photo Restoration – Restoring Vietnam War History

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Sometimes photo restoration can be just as rewarding as creating a new photo.  Mike is a client who brought in an incredible photo that was damaged, creased and tattered to see if we could fix it.  You can see the results below and after learning that this was what Mike called home while serving our country in Vietnam we can only imagine what this photo means to him.  Actually I’m sure that most of us cannot imagine it, but you can feel that you are looking at an important piece of history – personal and national – when you see it.  To be able to restore this image to such a pristine state is a very rewarding thing and Mike was gracious enough to allow us to share it on our blog.  The next time you get annoyed about your living conditions – you wish your kitchen was a little bigger or you can’t stand the draft along the floor in your bedroom, think about what the soldier deals with while he/she is out there defending our country.

Vietnam photo - before photo restoration

Before restoration

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Vietnam photo - after photo restoration

After restoration

 

 

We asked Mike a couple of questions about the photo and here is what he had to say:

Frameable Faces:  So Mike, tell us what is in this photo?

Mike:  This is a picture of what I called home for some time when I was serving in Vietnam.  I prefer not to talk too much about my time over there, but the photo definitely means a lot to me.

Frameable Faces:  Can you tell us more about the photo?  Did you take the photo yourself and did you have it developed once you returned home?

Mike:  I took the photo myself with a throwaway camera.  I wasn’t going to take an expensive camera over there and my mom actually sent over a disposable camera for me to use.  I had to just keep the camera on me since there was obviously nowhere to get it developed where I was.  I brought it back to the U.S. when I returned in 1967 and that’s when I got it developed.

Frameable Faces:  Well we are glad we were able to restore it for you and we hope you are happy with the way it turned out.  Thank you so much for sharing and for your service!

Mike:  You are welcome and I couldn’t be happier – this photo deserved to be restored and I’m putting it in a frame so I can display it properly.  You guys did a perfect job on this!

**********************************************
Frameable Faces Photography
**********************************************
Frameable Faces Photography is a small biz retail mom & pop shop of Doug&Ally Cohen located in the Orchard Mall in West Bloomfield, Michigan, United States Of America!
************************************************
Ally & Doug can be reached at the studio at tel:248-790-7317 or emailed at mailto:info@frameablefaces.com
************************************************
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Facebook: http://facebook.com/frameablefaces
Twitter: https://twitter.com/frameablefaces
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***************************************­*******
Being “Frameable” is an attitude, a community, a way of life – a life you would want to celebrate and display on your walls for all to see!  Tell us… ARE YOU FRAMEABLE?
**********************************************
Join the Frameable Faces Community – sign up for our email newsletter for the best of the week in the Frameable Faces World!  Click here!