Dawn Schmidling York - 68
About a year ago Dawn gave me a photo that I took of her in 1968, in my garage studio in Concord. The print is below and was in terrible condition. Surface damage was really bad and I was pretty sure that I would not be able to restore it. I didn’t want to let her down so I did tell her that I would try to restore it. I made many attempts, and I came up sort each time. But I kept remembering techniques I had learned along the way that I would try. Each attempt resulted in a little better outcome. Then I remembered a masking technique from my darkroom days and things we did in the composing room for printing press work. Collin, Pidge’s husband, told me about photographing art through a sheet of mylar to through surface debris and scratches out of focus. Finally, something I could try that was not something you would learn in a class or from a book. It worked.
The second image below cracked open the secret door and allowed me to make edits that resulted in what I consider a full restoration of a very bad original. I feel like I just erased 57 years. I presented a finished print to Dawn today. I hope you like it too.
