The Restoration of My Favorite Family Photo

If I had to wager a guess, I’d say we all have that one favorite family photo that calls to us. That one photo that reaches into our hearts and asks us to look deeper. That one photo where everyone is looking at the camera (or no one is looking at the camera) and we just want to share it with everyone we know and love.

But maybe that photo has been damaged in one way or another. Maybe it got bent, or written on in the wrong way. Maybe something got spilt on it or maybe it’s been torn.

And maybe, just maybe you’ve thought about having that favorite family photo restored but you’re not sure how to make that happen.

This was the case with my favorite family photo.

A photo taken in the mid-1950s in New York City of my very young mom, her three older siblings, and both of her parents.

The only photo I know to exist with all six of the Featheringills together and, miraculously, all looking straight at the camera.

But this photo, as magical as it was, had seen better days.

It looked at though it’d been carried in someone’s back pocket for a bit (maybe it actually had?)…

And it had a solid tear that cut across my grandma’s forehead…

And it had been written on the back in a way that not only dented the center of the photo, but also bled through into the picture.

It was a mess.

So I tried to put it through a couple of those basic photo apps but it warped my grandpa and added glasses to his face.

Then, I asked a Facebook group for help and it came back a bit better, but still obviously warped in ways that twisted my brain.

Resigning myself to the fact that I’d need to eventually find someone to professionally restore it, I decided to step back from it and trust I’d find the right person at the right time for the right price.

Well, it’s been a couple of years but eventually came in the way of a photo restoration account on Instagram that I thought worthy of giving a try…

And goodness am I grateful I did!

Not only was she able to clean up all the dents, wrinkles and tears, but she was also able to play with the shadowing a bit to create some structure between the white background and all their crisp, white clothes.

She was also friendly, quick, and reasonably priced.

Of course, I will always keep the original, but with all six of the people pictured here gone from us now, I am so very happy to have a restored version of their likenesses to share with my remaining family and to pass on to future generations.

So, if you have an old favorite family photo hat’s seen better days, trust that your patience will pay off and you’ll find the right person to restore it when the time is right. It’ll be worth the wait :-)

Onward,

Melis