Still on theme for this Sepia Saturday, but I went with damaged negatives instead of photos! Afterall, the photos are made from negatives, so in the long run, it works out. These negatives are square format and were subject to some kind of light leak, likey while inside the camera since there are a series of photos with evidence of the same light leak in the same spots. The photos are of Romayne (Greenaway) Kitko (1936-2013), my grandfather’s second wife. While we were going through yet another trunk of photos, we found an old paper photo sleeve stuffed full of negatives. Being the preservation nerd of the family, I grabbed them up and scanned them, because you just never know what you’ll find. I’m still using a super old scanner, the Canon Canoscan 8400F because it comes with negative carriers for the most popular film types (except for 127 film), and it gets the job done. Unfortunately, damage like this is just impossible to undo – the negative was overexposed from the light leak and it’s not possible to reconstruct data that isn’t there or was blown out by the light leak. There’s also a little bit of dust/scratches and other damage from age and being improperly stored for so long.
Ghosts?
HA! I’m too rational of a person to say ghosts – I know that’s camera light leak!
What a shame, but still, Romayne looks lovely, although quite different in the first photograph, with different hairstyle, clothing and older too – are you sure it’s the same person?
Oh that’s definitely her! She looks older in that first one, definitely is wearing makeup and has her hair done up nice. But the nose, smile, and eyes all stayed the same up till her passing. She’s so easy to pick out in photos!
Neighbor’s or friend’s children, they must surely be sisters – they look so much alike!
Damaged maybe, but still photos to be treasured I’m sure.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen photographs that look like this before, with this kind of imperfection. I wonder if there’s any kind of hope for digital repair to improve them? (Not an expert in that area, myself.)
I’m a photographer (film and digital) and a photoshop nerd, so there’s really not much in the realm of digital (or analog) repair that can be done. Once an area of the negative is that over-exposed, it’s basically like a document that someone redacted with a sharpie. The data there is just gone. I could probably rescue some of the not-too-over-exposed areas, but the photos aren’t that high quality to begin with and it’s probably not worth the time. You can still see her face, it’s just the edges that are shot.
On a color photo, the light leak would show up as a red splotch.
You are so right — well worth preserving even with that “Twilight Zone” quality.