Great News!

[Mhayes]

Hi Everyone,

Jan heard from Scott today and the printing deadline has been extended to early March. This is wonderful, because it has been a race against time and we were running out of it. Thanks to all of you that have have been getting your photos back and taking more out. Right now all of the photos in our galleries are the most difficult. This has been real discouraging to a lot of volunteers, because there are no photos they feel comfortable with working. Don't despair, because we hope to do a copy run soon.

Even though we have only reached 30% of our goal of $5,000, this money will go towards doing one or more copy runs this year and for printing cost.

On a different note, I contacted a Nadeyda Phillips this evening to get some information about a photo we were restoring. She was so thrilled to think she might get her photos back and she had talked to a woman in their Wal Mart who had received her photos within the last month. The woman broke down crying when she got her photos, because they were hoping that they could get the photos back before their elderly mother passed away. They made it in time. Back to Nadeyda, who said the photos were so important to her to pass on to her children. The sad thing is that she lost her husband 2 months before Hurricane Katrina, so this was a double tragedy.

Thanks for the joy you are giving these families!
:hug:

Margie

[jneil2]

The best part of my job is getting to call each family before sending out their order. 

I call them to make sure their address has not changed.  They are ALWAYS so SURPRISED, HAPPY, and THANKFUL.  They probably do not have any idea of how many hours each of our volunteers has devoted to their photos, but we really can not have any idea of what it means to receive restored photos after losing so much.

I love this organization.  I hope we can plan another copy run as soon as possible. 

Jan

[TerryB]

Hi Margie:

Just out of curiosity, how/when are copy runs scheduled?

Is the run to a recovering disaster area that has a backlog of damaged photos which were not copied in the original run?  Or are copy runs scheduled after a disaster?  Maybe both?

Another question has to do with the length of time within which the OPR Distribution Coordinators expect the restorations to be finished and returned.  I read somewhere on the OPR site that one week is preferable.  Sorry, I don't recall where I read it and I can't find it right now.

One week is reasonable for most of the easy and moderate photos, but generally unrealistic for most of the difficult group, especially for those of us unable to work on them for the number of hours required to do a proper job within that one-week time allowance.

That one-week time limitation has dissuaded me from requesting a difficult resto...not that my restoration skills are all that finely honed, but some of the difficult ones are certain to be exceptional learning opportunities.

Which leads me to another question regarding the difficult group: it's fairly easy to drop in an acceptable  fake wabbit ;D, chair or window, but how does one replace a face without running the risk of alienating the photo owner or the person receiving the fake face?

[Mhayes]

Hi Terry,

There are no fast rules on copy runs, other than a need by those in a disaster area. Last year we had to rein in any more copy runs until we could get our backlog down. We also have to make sure that we have enough finances for the trip and the ability to pay for printing. As to the timing we have found that you need at least 3 to 6 months after a disaster before you can come in to help. Before 3 months the people are  too busying cleaning up and you will not have a good showing. Another factor is to scout a good place to hold a copy run such as a library and to have enough time to send out press releases announcing our visit.

As to the length of time to return a photo depends on how difficult it is. For an easy one, yes, a week is plenty of time. For the ones left in our gallery, it might take up to a month. Any time a volunteer needs more time, just drop one of us an email and let us know.

Since our in house wabbit escaped back into the wild, you could probably get by with a fake "wabbit" with  us, but no way on fake body parts.  :knuppel: If too much of a person face is missing, we will tell the owner it can't be restored. On some photos, if you have the an eye missing or parts of the face missing, you can try coping parts that are still intact and moving them in place. A perfect mirror image of a person's face will not look right either, but hopefully playing with the perspective will help. I have some baby photos in my gallery where the child was missing the parts of his face. If that had been the only photo of the child, it would have been rejected, but luckily there were some other photos of the baby taken at the same time where body parts could be copied and put in place. It usuall means transforming and working with Curves to get the colors to blend together. On one of the photos returned, I could tell an ear and hand were added that didn't belong to the child. These will be rejected. I also had in my gallery a class photo of students where at least 8 of the students were beyond repair. At the time of the run we told the owner that these could not be repaired. She understood, but didn't care, because they were not her children. The volunteer took the squares and did a blur on those students. Yes, it catches your eye, but it is an improvement of letting the damage remain on the photo.

Margie

[TerryB]

Thankew!