Tag Archives: Family History

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
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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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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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Life Preservers by Frameable Faces Photography

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My Grandpa Louie was the best grandpa a kid could have.

Louis Ackman "Grandpa Louie"

Mostly because he was just hilarious. I remember he would put on these skits for me that would have me doubling over in laughter.

Grandpa Louie and I played a lot of gin rummy. He’d keep score under the headings “you” and “me.” It was great when I beat him because he’d curse with words that weren’t swear words. “Sacramento, California!” was his favorite expletive.

Grandpa Louie’s sister died a couple days before my bar mitzvah back in 1983, so he didn’t dance. You’re not supposed to dance during shiva. But he did chant the prayer over the bread and he talked on camera for the videographer for about 30 seconds or so. He talked along with my Grandma Lillian, who I loved very much.

I also was very close with my Grandma Ann.  I remember our little “discussions” together when we would talk about practically everything. Grandma Ann made the greatest noodle kugle ever.  She is also on that bar mitzvah video.  Talking for only about 8 seconds, she said, “He’s one-of-a-kind! That’s it!” (referring to me). There is also video of me dancing with her.

My Uncle Eddie was my dad’s older brother and he was quite a character. Uncle Eddie talked on the video for about 30 seconds and he was hilarious.

They are all gone now and I will always cherish the memories I have of each of them.  The clips of them on that videotape are priceless to me.  I am so thankful I have them to show to my children, but I wish the clips weren’t so brief.  I would give anything now to have had any one of us sit them down in front of a video camera to talk about their lives for an hour.  It would be like a personal video documentary that I could show my kids, who are named after them.  They could have learned about their great grandparents and maybe even gotten to know them on some level.  That would be the greatest treasure of all.

We keep the memories of our loved ones alive when we pass down stories and reminisce. But as the years pass, our memories grow dim, generations pass, and these family histories erode.  Our grandchildren deserve the awesome gift of knowing our grandparents and hearing about their lives straight from them, as they would tell it.  Drawing from my own past with this mission Life Preservers was born.

The time to get your parents and grandparents in front of a professional videographer is right now. Don’t put it off for another day.  Let their stories be told in a quality, high class, and fun way!

We’ll bring all the cameras, lighting and sound to your location to preserve a wonderful life story for generations to come.  We will also use old family photos and even film or video footage to illustrate the story and weave a full narrative worthy of your family’s legacy.  We take the time to consult ahead of time with the subject to prepare for the event and craft a framework for telling the story, and then the magic begins!

Legacies.  Now you can create one forever with Life Preservers by Frameable Faces Photography.