Vintage Photographs #2

You probably recall awhile back when I posted about learning how to restore photos for my digital photography class, and then using what I’d learned to restore some pictures for my grandma. I posted the before and after versions which you can find HERE if you’d like to see them again. You might also recall that I mentioned I was working on some more to use in a Christmas gift for her.

Well, I finished the last 6 that she had given me when I started the photo restoration assignment for school. I put them all into an album which I gave to her for Christmas. She really liked it and I told her I would do some more and have them printed and keep adding to her album. And of course, I will share my progress here as well, so here are the most recent pictures for my grandma’s album.

That is my Grandma on the right. That may be her mother in the middle, but I’m not sure who the little girl is. You can’t really tell with these pictures, but there were little cracks and scratches, and tiny little pieces missing from the original. The online version is too small for those imperfections to be very noticeable.

  

This is a picture of my Grandma and Grandpa.

  

I do not know who these two women are.

  

My Grandma.

  

I don’t know who this woman is. And again, most of what was wrong with this photo you can see at this size on the internet, with the exception of that crusty spot over her fingers.

This is a picture of my Grandma’s mom, and those are her two older brothers. There was some writing on the back from her mother who had sent this picture to a friend some time in the distant past. She wrote to her friend, “Don’t look at me.” Which I found to be hilarious. :D

Grandma recently gave me an envelope with more pictures that she would like to have restored, so when I get the chance, I will be working on them. But, school starts again tomorrow already, so I’m not sure when I‘ll have a whole lot of free time. When I finish some of them I will post them for you all to see.

I’m Done!

With school! For now!

Digital Photography! A!

Biology! A!

Painting! A!

Geography! A!

History! B!

But, a B is still amazing considering that was the absolute worst class I have had so far, and I was fully expecting, and had made peace with the fact, that I was getting a C. On all 5 of the exams throughout the semester, there was not one that I completely finished. As I got to over halfway done each time, a little message would pop up saying “There is two minutes left. Please save your work as it will be submitted for grading.” And I would panic and quickly race through the rest of the test franticly clicking random answers hoping I would get some right. I never did. On the very last exam, however, I only had one single panicked click. One. And I missed three questions. I was fully expecting to get another D or a C on the test, because normally I always missed so many. I never had trouble on any of the assignments. I got full points on just about everything, except the exams. But since I did so well on the final, it pulled my grade up instead of down, and I ended the class with a final score of 84.66. I am very happy with that B.

My second worst class was Biology, but it turned out to not be nearly as bad as I had expected. The “horrible” teacher who made Joel and I split up in lab the first day, turned out to not be nearly as awful as she seemed. In fact, by the end of the class, I felt sorry for her because just about everyone else in the class talked about her behind her back, using language that, 70 years ago, would have gotten them 12 bars of ivory soap crammed in their mouths. She may not have been the greatest teacher in the world, but she did not deserve the names they called her when she couldn’t hear them. The only thing that made her “awful” was the fact that they didn’t like her tests, mainly because it was obvious they didn’t study enough, and half of them didn’t show up on the time, if at all. By the end of the class, 6 people had failed just because they missed so many labs, and most of the rest came very close to failing. It was their own fault they didn’t get good grades, but of course they blamed her. They were all adult age, but they acted like babies. It was very pathetic.

On the day of the final I was sitting outside the class studying, waiting for Joel to get back before I went in, and she came up and told me that she just wanted to tell me that it had been a pleasure having me in her class. I’m sure if Joel had been there she would have expressed the same thing to him, because out of all the other students, I’m pretty sure we were the only two not to either give her any grief or gossip about her with the other students.

Geography was an okay class. I took it because I had to, but I did choose it out of a bunch of other classes because I don’t think I know enough about geography. I still don’t but I know a lot more now that I did, and I plan to keep learning. You may recall THIS post, well, I still have that coloring book, and we actually only used it during the last two weeks, which is a shame since I think it really helps you learn. So I plan to just keep working on it, and I’ll just keep on learning as I color in it.

Digital Photography was my best class. besides the reports I shared from geography, that was the class that I shared the most on here from. I learned the most, and it was the class that in the long run will probably benefit me the most career-wise.
My other favorite class was Painting 1. I had a lot of fun in that class, and now that class is out I have all my paintings back, so I will start sharing them on my blog. I just need to get them set up and photographed. That will have to wait for a little while though because most of my free time will be spent getting ready for Christmas. Thanks to my Digital Photography class, I will be using my newfound knowledge of Photoshop to restore more pictures for my Grandma’s Christmas present. (See! It’s already coming in handy!) :) She knows I’m restoring them, as I had told her a few months ago that I needed to for a class for school, but she probably isn’t expecting me to get them all printed up for her for Christmas. So if I have time before Christmas I might get some of the paintings up on my blog, but otherwise it will have to wait until the holidays are over. Either way, I’ll get them up here eventually.

Next semester I am taking a graphic design class, just a basic one to brush up on the subject, since it has been about 4 years since I went to ITT Tech. That will be an online class as it wasn’t available in a classroom setting. Not sure how it will work, but I’ll find out I guess. I am also taking my LONG awaited Design 2 class, with one of my favorite teachers. I loved taking that class in my first semester. If you’ll recall that was the class where I learned how to use a sewing machine and I made a kite that wouldn’t really fly, except to swoop down and attack the person who was launching it. :p You can re-read all about it and see the pictures HERE if you’d like. :) This time Joel and I will be taking Design 2 together, as he had a different class to take during that semester and he took Design 1 the following semester. Joel and I are also taking a class called Digital Drawing, which is another graphic design class. Due to the name of the class we are hoping it will be making use of drawing tablets, (The computer kind). The other class we have together is Painting 2. No waiting over a year for the second class here. :) I loved the first class, and we had a great teacher, so I am really looking forward to this one as well.

Well, that’s all my news for now! I’d better get busy on Grandma’s pictures, only 6 days left until Christmas!

Vintage Photographs: Before & After

I’ve been working on a bunch of pictures for my grandma in my spare time this week. It takes a long time and a lot of work, but it it so much fun! I already shared the first one I did for a class assignment, but I’ve done a few more since then, so I thought I’d make a new post so you could see what I’ve been doing.

These first two weren't too much work. I got them done just today, in less than an hour each. The little girl is my grandma, and I believe those are her brothers. At least two of them are. Ken and Stanley. I’m not sure if the other one is or not. I was thinking she only had two brothers. Maybe the other is a cousin or a friend.

Anyway, here is the before:

And here is the after:

The next picture is of my grandma and grandpa when they were MUCH younger.

Before:

After:

The next 4 I’ve been working on all week. They were significantly damaged, and have taken a LONG time to repair.

This is my grandma with a friend of hers. The back of the picture names her Rose Marie McCullay. Grandma is on the left making ice cream, and her friend is on the right. If you look closely, you can see that Rose is holding a cat. I didn’t even notice that until I’d scanned the picture into the computer and blown it up huge.

Here it is after I’d fixed it. The sky still looks a little odd, but I decided not to fix it further because I thought it looked sort of like clouds, and it made the picture more interesting.

The next one is a picture of my grandma with another friend, but I can’t read much of what the back says, so I’m not sure of her name. Grandma is on the right.

Here is the finished version. And again, after I’d scanned it, I noticed a cat. Can you find it? :)

The next one is another picture of my Grandma and a friend, but she is not named. She looks similar to Rose from the earlier picture, so it could be her again.

It struck me how much my Aunt Ruth looks like grandma in this picture.

Here is the fixed version.

Other than the very first one that I chose for my school assignment, this last one has been the most challenging. Not only was it damaged, but it was over exposed, and was taken through a window causing multiple ugly reflections to obscure the image.

I really had my doubts as to whether or not I would be able to fix that but I did!

This is grandma as a little girl along with her brothers Ken and Stanley.

I still have a bunch more to work on, so I‘ll be doing another post like this soon!