Group Panorama

[dle]

I'm having a good time working on this lovely giant group photo from 1920:



The photo is 8.5 x 48 inches, so to see the details you'll need to look at the full-sized original here.

I'm making pretty good progress, working on it as I find time. So far, this is where I am with it.



(The full-sized image of the WIP is here.)

Clearly, there is more work to be done on the left-hand part of the image. There, the damage is such that much of the information from the original is just plain gone.

It's about what to do in this part that's brought me here for your opinions.

How far do you think I should go with simply making stuff up to make the photo nice to look at? Personally, I'm completely okay with making up the background -- fixing the sky, the telephone pole and adding random trees -- and I can get in there and "restore" some of the  people who are sort of there and sort of not. But I'm pretty ambivalent about the left-most few folks who are nearly featureless. There's lots of material in the rest of the photo to borrow from, so it's certainly possible to make a believable interpretation, but calling it "restoration" would be a stretch, it seems to me.

Thoughts?

[Mhayes]

David, it would help if we could see more of the left hand side--a small crop--where the damage is heavy. I would say what you have done with the exception of what's on the left hand side looks good. I would leave the sky blown out as it is in the photo and you could extend the trees out on the left hand side. As to the faceless, I would leave them as this is a historical photo and I wouldn't want to change what couldn't be restored.

Nice work!

Margie

[Pat]

This old photo is a real historical treasure.  Thank you so much for taking on the daunting task of restoring it Dave.  Your efforts to keep it as authentic as possible will be much appreciated by the family.    

[dle]

Thanks for the suggestion on posting a small crop of the left-hand side. Here's the original:



and here's the WIP:



The vertical bar at the left-most edge is probably the frame the photo's mounted in and the dark gray part just to its right is probably the shadow cast by the frame. There's a similar bar and a small shadow on the right-hand edge.

On an historical photo like this and since, obviously, there's no reference photo to borrow from, I'd need to invent quite a bit to make it look pretty. I'd sample from people in similar poses from other parts of the picture and fill in where the washed-out people are. There are lots of people to choose from so that wouldn't be too hard. But if, as Pat mentions, if the owners are looking more for authentic than pretty (which is my inclination) that might not be the way to go.

I'd probably choose to even out the tone a little more, particularly in the background, but not try to make it look like the photo was undamaged.

By the way, the camera used to create this is a really interesting device. It took the picture by rotating around its vertical axis, scanning the crowd which was assembled in an almost-complete circle around the tripod-mounted camera. The process took many seconds which meant that the exposure of individual people took a substantial fraction of a second. People had to hold still while the camera passed by or they'd be blurred in the picture. As you can see from the man holding the little girl in the front row, not everyone was able to stop wiggling!

[Pat]

:up:

By the way, the camera used to create this is a really interesting device. It took the picture by rotating around its vertical axis, scanning the crowd which was assembled in an almost-complete circle around the tripod-mounted camera. The process took many seconds which meant that the exposure of individual people took a substantial fraction of a second. People had to hold still while the camera passed by or they'd be blurred in the picture. As you can see from the man holding the little girl in the front row, not everyone was able to stop wiggling!

Very interesting, thanks Dave!  The camera and method used to take this 1920 photo adds to its value as an historical document.

Pat

[seelcraft]

By the way, the camera used to create this is a really interesting device. It took the picture by rotating around its vertical axis, scanning the crowd which was assembled in an almost-complete circle around the tripod-mounted camera. The process took many seconds which meant that the exposure of individual people took a substantial fraction of a second. People had to hold still while the camera passed by or they'd be blurred in the picture. As you can see from the man holding the little girl in the front row, not everyone was able to stop wiggling!

Which means some of the people on the left side may be the same people on the right side! (An old trick played in every high school photo, back in the horse and buggy days when I was in school.)

Doug

[dle]

Which means some of the people on the left side may be the same people on the right side! (An old trick played in every high school photo, back in the horse and buggy days when I was in school.)

Indeed it does. I initially thought I'd spotted exactly that in the young fellow standing behind the matronly woman at the left-hand end of the group and the similar looking fellow at the right-hand end:



but on close inspection I think not. I guess the young folks in the Walther League were better behaved than most.

[Mhayes]

How interesting and that would make me look to see if there are any in the very same position that maybe were duplicated. That is a pretty large gathering.

Margie

[Candice]

Panos with a lot of people is tough.  I remember when I did one with General Patton.  What a challenge and an honor. 

Keep up the great work.  I feel your pain!

[PhotoBob]

Dave,

Anything of a historic nature such as this shouldn't be altered, just repaired as much as possible. Of course that's my opinion...  You know, if you change history you may find out that you were never born!  (Sorry, I couldn't help it  ::) )   Seriously, I would leave it the way you have it. Great job!

Bob

[dle]

Bob,

Thanks, yes I agree.

On many restorations it's a struggle to decide how far to go. When do I start straying over the line from restoration and wander off into retouching?

Different photos seem to call for slightly different standards. Wedding photos, formal portraits and snapshots seem to need slightly different amounts of "interpretation" during restoration. In some situations making the photo look good is a bit more important than sticking strictly to historical veracity. And then there are photos like this one where historical veracity seems more important than making them pretty.

[PhotoBob]

Your absolutely right Dave.

Bob

[dle]

Yes, I'm still working on this one. Busy times, but I'm making what passes for progress, I think.

Without completely going overboard with invented material I've evened out the tone on the severely damaged part on the left and continued the trees that appear in the background of the rest of the photo. And I've gone in and pulled out what I could from the nearly faceless folks at the extreme left. Here's the results so far, cropped as above.



I'm thinking that, except for doing a little toning work to make the "black" match the slightly warmer tone of the undamaged parts of the original, I'm coming to the end of my ability to pull much more information from the original.

Comments? Suggestions?

[Pat]

I bet you thought you would never see the end of this one Dave but all the hard work has really paid off and I'm sure will be very much appreciated by the family.  Outstanding job with those nearly faceless folks on the far left!

Pat

[Mike S.]

Dave,

You have done an incredible amount of work on the panorama.  It looks very good.

Mike