BEFORE - DURING - AFTER

Two photographs arrived at my studio from Gary Johnson, he had rescued them and sent them to see if I could do anything with them, and, perhaps put them on my website.

I had an interesting two days of fun and games.

Here is the saga.

They will head back to South Dakota tomorrow, with two finished images to accompany the originals.

First I scanned the image and wondered how I could resurrect the old photograph. The missing piece I noticed was on the back of the other photo, well and truly stuck onto it!

I e-mailed Gary to ask if I could try to get the stuck piece off...I got the go ahead. I scanned the other image and cleaned it up...just in case there was a meltdown!

While the photograph was soaking in the bathroom sink all day, I tried to build the missing area. I knew I could not do the wheel area easily. I stopped at the point in image two (above).

I kept prying around the stuck section, using a small brush, a very slight bit lifted...I decided to keep soaking, prying, soaking etc. By late evening I managed to lift off most of the piece, with the exception of one small stubborn section which refused to come off. I then dried the photograph and placed the removed pieces under a weight overnight.

The second day (February 1st) dawned. The print had dried remarkably without any further damage. The removed piece had dried. I glued the bits to the photograph and got at the last piece with my scalpel. It came off with part of the substrate of the other photo. Into a tumbler of water that small piece went. After an hour I removed the paper on top. Success..I had the last part of the wheel.

Most of the day I worked with Photoshop CS and what you see is the result. It was an interesting exercise for me. Sure glad I did not have to pay someone to do this!!

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