Recovering lost moments...

This was originally a journal entry I have on my livejournal from October 17, 2005. My friends liked it a bit so I would like to share it with the artsy Etsy following I have, as well as any friends who missed the original :). I added in some notes.

Have you ever been curious and looked at the negatives when you had pictures developed, only to find half of a picture no one bothered to print?

Obviously with the advent of digital cameras, this doesn't happen at all...so moments like these are going to fade.

Anyway, when Nick was over on Friday, we were going through pictures of mine to add to his collage, and I spotted something odd on one of my pictures that looked like a ghost face in one of my windows. I went off in desperate search of the negative and instead found this picture that I've never seen before!



So I tried scanning the negative, and nothing worked, so I got the brilliant idea to take pictures of the negative with my awesome camera--which can take semi-clear close-ups, provided I hold the damn thing still.

After messing in photoshop, here's what I got!




Peter and Mom, at Lyndhurst, Tarrytown, New York, November 1, 1998

I turned this overnight obsession into a project! Results include shots of Norwich circa 1978, Glenn's apartment, Ford Theater in Washington D.C., Hollywood Broadway Review, and other pictures.


Bookcase at the Lockwood Matthews Mansion, Norwalk, CT.





What's this?


It's my backyard haha. around March 16, 2001


I don't know what this is, except that it was taken at the first EWS gathering.
Norwich Ten Pin, July 21, 2001


This was in the set of pictures of my bedroom taken for my journalism final project. June 16, 2001


Washington DC trip, October 1997

Smithsonian




Ford Theater


Christmas Tree


Flowers near the picture window in Sterling, September 8, 1998


Barbie from Barbie and the Rockers! in a crochet dress, summer 1989.


Birdhouse out the picture window, 1987


I honestly have no idea why there's a beer can hanging in front of my picture window. Note, I found out much later that the beer can was a weight for the hummingbird feeder, which hung on a thin wire. The wire would curl up out of reach without the weight when the feeder was being changed. April 1998


Mr. D! April 1998
Mr. D retired this year...omg...that makes me feel old (but probably makes him feel even older! LOL)


Glenn's apartment, July 17, 2002


Sterling Memorial graduation, June 18, 1998


1978


numbers on the negative


At the Miss Preteen Connecticut Pageant, May 27, 1995


Salem, Massachusetts, August 18, 1998


I have no idea who this is, 1977



This wasn't a lost moment, but my cat rocks my socks (like it's 1987).


This picture was apparently printed, but I've never seen it in my life. And it's me with a dog, which you would almost never see now. The dog's name was Saina and she was put to sleep the next day; she was 14 at the time. 1989


No, it's not Indigo, it's my mom's cat (that I should know the name of, but don't remember...) 1978 aww...and my Indigo died in March 2007. I miss that cat!


If you have ever lived in Norwich, you should know where this is!
Near the Laurel Hill Bridge, 1979.


Mom as Rachel Drummond at the Dark Shadows Festival, 1997.
We knew about this picture too because we saw it on the negative when Mom wondered why there weren't any pictures of the costume contest. Well, there's one!


Zack walking to a payphone at the Norwich Walmart, May 17, 2002. Note that we used payphones back then, because none of us had cell phones LOL! (Well, we did, like Heather, because we went to the Crystal Mall that night and played phone tag (literally) with Mike, which wasn't possible without cell phones, BUT ANYWAY ZACK AND I DIDN'T HAVE THEM THEN SO THERE!)


A table on Memere's patio, summer 2000


Whipple's Chapel, December 1999.


No one I know remembers my kitchen in Sterling looking like this, because we gutted it just after this picture was taken. For those of you who remember my old house...you may or may not remember the huge hole in the wall window thingy between the living room and the kitchen. That hole in the wall is where the fridge is in this pic, taken in 1987.
So 70's!



Swans on the Shetucket River, 1979.

If you would like to attempt this project yourself, here's how!
This was done in Photoshop 5 so the menu paths are quite outdated (but if you're familiar with photoshop then it shouldn't be much of a problem).What I did was hold the negatives against a white piece of paper that had a bright light shining on it, and took a picture. It's a little hard to explain, and some of them came out blurry so I'll have to re-take them. Use the same macro settings you would use for closeups on your etsy photos. :)

Then I put the pictures into photoshop, and inverted the colors (Image\Adjust\Invert).

Because the colors were off (the negative has that sepia tint), the inverted colors look very blue and washed out. So I messed around with the color balance. (Image\Adjust\Color Balance. Color levels= +100, 0, -100 on midtones only, don't mess with shadows and highlights) Basically I upped the red and yellow to balance the cyan.

Then I cropped the photo (Some I didn't, but others I had to otherwise the negative images and other stuff like my thumb would mess with the image a little)

Then I did auto levels. (Image\Adjust\Auto Levels)

Overall it comes out very close to an actual photo! Colors wise it's right on (because I did a couple actual photos that I had prints of for comparison). It's obviously not as clear because I can't hold the camera or negative 100% still, but you get the idea.