Remember the days when you put your family photographs in a photo album? You know the ones: sticky pages to hold your images and a very thin plastic sheet to cover the photographs. Or maybe you were the type that kept everything in a shoe box? It is a lot different nowadays with images stored on computers and mobile phones. Well keep reading to learn about some family photo ideas my friend had using images of her daughter.

At my house we used albums. We did not have many albums compared to other families I knew, maybe only a dozen all up, but from the mid 1970’s onwards all our family images would find their way in there.

Prior to 1975 however I only have 3 family images that I know of. Why? Well, being brought up in Sri Lanka, photography wasn’t a big thing or priority to my parents. One of the images was of me at maybe 6 months of age; a sepia image where I was lying on my tummy. This is my one and only baby photograph but sadly it got misplaced many years ago. The second is of my parents in their early twenties sitting on a beach while they were dating. The third was a photograph I discovered maybe only two or three years ago. It was a formal wedding portrait of my grandparents (mums side) taken about 75 years ago.

You can imagine my delight when I saw this as I did not even know what my grandparents looked like. I discovered its existence when my mum’s brother, who had the photograph, asked mum whether I could restore it and get extra copies printed. Could I restore it? Hell YES.

It was such a buzz for me to work on it. As I zoomed in on their faces during this process I found myself studying them, introducing myself to them and reconnecting with them through all the stories I had been told while growing up.

How many of you out there have similar old photos of themselves, their parents or grandparents? How valuable are these? Priceless I bet. I wish I could find my lost baby photo! More often than not these images are damaged in some way. Either faded, ripped, creased or worn out.

Family Photo Ideas

I have retouched many images over the years. Recently, Alison a friend of mine came to me with a very interesting family photo idea and concept. Alison had an old black and white photo taken of her when she might have been 3 or 4 years of age. She wanted me to restore it and put it side by side next to an image of her daughter, Coco. I was to photograph Coco in a similar pose and design a wall canvas for their home. How cool is that! What a wonderful way to celebrate the relationship she shares with her daughter.

Here is the original photo of Alison. Not too bad. I have seen images in a lot worse condition, but still a lot of work needed to be done on her skin.

The final restored image.

Alison’s gorgeous daughter Coco, was such a pleasure to photograph and really loved the whole process including giving me advice on the best way to pose her.

The final product. A lovely canvas wall piece for their home.

Alison is a lot younger in her image than what Coco is but I think the final piece looks great and like I said before what a great way to celebrate their bond.

What I wouldn’t give to have more old family photographs to look at so that I can connect the pieces of my family’s history.

One final point. If you think that fading and worn photographs are not an issue to you because your images are safe forever because you are storing them on a disk or hard drive or even in the cloud, think again. However this is a discussion we shall have another day.

If you would like to discuss having portraits of your children done or even a family portrait session, then contact the studio on 9570 6191 or email us here.

Take care

Warren