Skewed View
At the February 2004 PMA in Las Vegas, I'm talking to a photo retailer who'd stopped by the booth, and he's from the South. As we're talking about our photo restoration program, he stops me, takes a step back and says:
"Yeah, you'll fix photos from other areas of the country for that price maybe, but we got all these photos from Black people, and they don't take care of their photos for nothing. I mean, they bring in these photos with coffee rings on them, and their kids taken a crayon to it... You've never seen anything like it."
Interesting. I suppose if he were in Alaska he'd say the Eskimos don't take care of their photos, or in Utah that the Mormons (I'm Mormon) don't take care of their photos. I work for a large photo restoration provider, and... yeah... I've seen something like it. It's what keeps us in business. People treat their photographs like they do their family members - they love and cherish their photos but sometimes go a while between visits and phone calls.
The guy didn't end up signing up - which is just as well, I guess, because apparently all the photos he gets in for restoration are.... *gulp*.... damaged.
Here's a cool article by Mark Howells for Ancestry.Com. Titled "Questioning Photo Manipulation". He discusses the ethics of photo restoration/manipulation: How do we know what colors the bride wore in that 1900's wedding? (Was Great Great Aunt Wilson really virtuous enough to wear white?!) Concludes: "If the manipulation is an attempt to clean, sharpen, or otherwise make more viewable a treasured photograph...[the service] is easily available now and should be utilized."
"Yeah, you'll fix photos from other areas of the country for that price maybe, but we got all these photos from Black people, and they don't take care of their photos for nothing. I mean, they bring in these photos with coffee rings on them, and their kids taken a crayon to it... You've never seen anything like it."
Interesting. I suppose if he were in Alaska he'd say the Eskimos don't take care of their photos, or in Utah that the Mormons (I'm Mormon) don't take care of their photos. I work for a large photo restoration provider, and... yeah... I've seen something like it. It's what keeps us in business. People treat their photographs like they do their family members - they love and cherish their photos but sometimes go a while between visits and phone calls.
The guy didn't end up signing up - which is just as well, I guess, because apparently all the photos he gets in for restoration are.... *gulp*.... damaged.
Here's a cool article by Mark Howells for Ancestry.Com. Titled "Questioning Photo Manipulation". He discusses the ethics of photo restoration/manipulation: How do we know what colors the bride wore in that 1900's wedding? (Was Great Great Aunt Wilson really virtuous enough to wear white?!) Concludes: "If the manipulation is an attempt to clean, sharpen, or otherwise make more viewable a treasured photograph...[the service] is easily available now and should be utilized."
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