At first glance at this old family photograph, you might think something went wrong with the print's dimensions: everything appears far too wide for its own good. However, that was my grandmother, Harriet Ellen Burnett, and she really was very small and very wide. And that was the door of her house on Arctic Parade … Continue reading Small And Wide In The Arctic
Category: Family Photographs
Happy Birthday
Sometimes words aren't really necessary: Happy birthday to my beautiful wife and my very best friend.
Yes, It is Me
What finer representation of 1950s Britain can there be? It's the summer holidays and the family's annual week at the seaside (in this case, Bridlington in Yorkshire). The weather is such that plastic raincoats and heavy overcoats are standard issue. People sit on deck chairs and stare out at the grey, rain-soaked clouds. And the … Continue reading Yes, It is Me
Albert
I took this photo of my father around the time I was doing a photography course at the local Tech. We were studying lighting, and the homework was to produce a dramatically lit portrait. I achieved this with a couple of reading lights and an old blackout curtain. These days, all you would have to … Continue reading Albert
Oxford Days
A 40-odd year old photograph of me, surrounded by textbooks and typewriter, and captioned "Oxford, 1984" might suggest an involvement with some of the famed academic institutions of that city. In fact, we were simply staying with friends for the weekend, and the lecture I was writing would have been delivered in the far less … Continue reading Oxford Days
The Celebration
This photo has been in that suitcase of memories I call the "family archives" for as long as I can remember, and I always assumed the cake was celebrating the birthday of one of my relatives born in 1851. On closer inspection, it doesn't say 1851 on the cake - it says 85. Given that … Continue reading The Celebration
Revealing Dress
You can have great fun with artificial intelligence by asking it to transform a familiar picture of your favourite relative into an image of a 19th century Victorian gentleman - or whatever you like. More revealing, though, is taking a century old studio portrait and using AI to dress the subjects in modern clothing. My … Continue reading Revealing Dress
What’s In The Parcel?
This is a picture of my Uncle John and Auntie Doris, taken 75 years ago. I have lived with this picture all of my life - seeing it as a child, sticking out of crumbling photo albums; as an adult, confined to cardboard boxes of family memories; and as an old man, where it has … Continue reading What’s In The Parcel?
Let’s Face It, AI
AI-driven image restoration programmes are undoubtedly getting more sophisticated, and their use is clearly much more widespread than in the past. However, I still have reservations about how they treat faces. That little extra smoothing and additional touch of colour too often seem to change a recognisable face into something indistinct and slightly foreign. Interestingly, … Continue reading Let’s Face It, AI
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