Catching the Torch

Welcome to Catching the Torch

I don't know about you but I often feel a pang of sadness when I look back at old photographs. It's almost as though I wish I could travel back in time and see those in the picture as they were then, vibrant and real; not as a grainy sepia image depicting a moment frozen long ago.

Well, thanks to friends and family I have recently been able to access some of my family's pictorial history which until now has been stored away by my great-uncle. However, not content to leave it at simply cataloguing them, I am on a mission to forge a new connection with these forgotten lives, to give substance to the ghosts that stare out from the paper that holds them.

Thanks to modern computer technology and an awful lot of time and patience I am slowly working through the many albums we have unearthed and taking hi-res scans of some of the most emotive photographs and retouching them with colour. In due course I am hoping to bring those unknown ghosts of the past back to life in our imagination whilst putting together a more detailed understanding of where I come from.

To view the photos at a better resolution, please click on them.

I hope you enjoy accompanying me on my journey of discovery into the past.

Sunday, 17 February 2008

Well, I have just got hold of a huge amount of photographs from my maternal side of the family and all I can say is 'wow'. There are photographs dating back to before the turn of the century. I have now got medals from my Great-Grandfather who served at Ypres in the Royal Horse Artillery for the Suffolk Yeomanry and photographs of my Great-Great-Uncle who died of his wounds in Flanders fields, as a boy younger than those I teach. I always post the Flanders Fields poem on Remembrance Sunday but now it's even more poignant for me as I never knew about this side of my family's history. The CWGC has his details and turned up this information; no-one knew exactly how he died or where he was buried but now we do. I intend to visit his grave at Bray-sur-Somme next year. Incidentally, his first name was Mapes. Does anyone have any information on this name? I have never heard it before. Anyway, we also found some photographs of my Great-Great-Grandfather who was one of the last remaining itinerant shepherds of Suffolk. We even found a newspaper clipping verifying this information, as an intrepid reporter seems to have ventured into the fields to spend a few days with him for a story, living in his hut similar to these. I did a hi-res scan of one of the pictures and had a go at bringing back a bit of the magic from that time.

Here's the recoloured version although the images uploaded here are not the high quality versions. You can click both images to see them in better detail.

2 comments:

John Ranford said...: Nice work sir, what software are you using? Just me being overly critical below.

It looks like to me that you havent added any colour to the sheep (yes I know they are white), but you can tell they are still in greyscale!

Also, instead of using a single shade of a colour, ie green for the grass, you end up with a noticeably "colourised" photo, but by using tricks to, such as burn and dodge, or just adding some noise to the layer, you can start to make it more realistic.; 18 February 2008 at 10:30
Steve said...: Thanks John. I know what you're saying, although the idea isn't to make them look realistic as such. Rather I am trying to imitate the style of genuine period colour photographs which often had that sort of 'painted' look about them and that's hopefully been achieved to some extent. The sheep have actually been coloured using the 'marble white' palette and the heads have a slight bluey hue to them. I deliberately avoided too much messing with them as when I compared the picture to other genuine period colour photography the grey-ish colours seemed to come out in this way. I guess the whole look of the old photos is due to the rather crude photographic process compared to today's processes. I've added some info to the page on what software I use for the colouring. I'm not really very adept at using it, it's merely a labour of love to 'do' something with the family history rather than lock the pictures away in a cupboard. :D

More comments always welcome!; 18 February 2008 at 21:27

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Colouring the Photographs

The Software
Each of these photographs is 'restored' using commercial software. I use Blackmagic by Neuraltek for the colouring process and Adobe CS2 to remove blemishes and scratches and for some of the finer detail. Adobe CS2 has been superseded by CS3 but I prefer CS2. For details of the websites for more information and how to purchase this software, see the 'Links' box a little further down. They aren't cheap but they're priceless for endeavours like this one. Both are available as trial versions if you fancy a go at something like this yourself.

The Aim
The aim of this project is not to make these photographs appear as though they have been taken using modern equipment; quite the opposite in fact. There's something about an old photograph that has an ethereal magic about, a certain 'soul' that most modern photography has to deliberately emulate rather than natively capture. I want to keep that feel; to make sure each picture obviously comes from another time. We are too used to the garish digital world that we live in and I think that's the charm of old photographs. Adding a bit of colour makes the past a little easier to imagine, but making it look like it was recorded using the latest 15 megapixel SLR camera would steal a little of its soul I think. I like the imperfections that Blackmagic leaves in, the 'analogue' feel as opposed to pin-sharp digital photography and the lack of detail and focus that leaves that old world still slightly mysterious.

Credits

Tony for pointing me towards the right software, Matt for the original blog idea and David for recommending Blogger.
My Mum for her hard work in putting all of the photos into some sort of order, my great-uncle Pat for letting us have all of these wonderful images from the Razey side and my grandparents for filling in the information blanks and providing additional photographs and to everyone else who's helping me along the way, especially with the constructive criticism on the photo restoration.