Creating a photo wall

Like most people we had a collection of photograph frames given to us as presents over the years.  After having children  I always had the intention of framing some of our family photos and putting these on the wall...

...I read books on hanging artworks to try and give me inspiration.....but getting all the photos together was an ongoing process...... deciding what to hang and how to make the most of the arrangement of the frames my stairwell just got put in the "too hard basket".....

......it just wasn't happening...



Then recently I saw an article in a Your Home and Garden magazine where the owner of a house had just hung a whole lot of  white frames on her wall...
some had photos in them ...
some were empty....









The designers reasoning was - I have all  these frames  - lets just  arrange them on the wall to look good and I will fill them as an ongoing project.   At last, a solution to my problems! I didn't have to store those old photo frames in a box in the roof anymore - I could just hang them on the wall and over time I would fill them with images of my family.....

Hanging our photo frames proved quite a mission, because over the years we had amassed quite a collection....in fact we had nearly 30 frames....fortunately we have a large hallway!   I laid all the frames out on the floor and arranged them so they looked balanced.  I didn't have one consistent wood colour, or even frame colour ....but my decorating experience has taught me that you can mix different woods together and they will work....and gold and black and silver can complement the wood as well.  Using a straight edge, chalk and a spirit level I hung all of them.  It took me three days

Now I have a work in progress that I add to as I restore and add to my family photographic collection.

Scanning Glass Plate Negatives

 

Recently I was given a number of glass plate negatives to scan.  Their owner thought they dated from the late 1800s but wasn’t too sure what the images were as they were difficult to see.   The negatives had been stored away flat in wads of newspaper...

 

 

We have a special tray in our scanner that enables us to scan glass plate negatives with the emulsion side uppermost so the delicate emulsion does not need to be in contact with the glass of the scanner - many other scanners cannot do this. 

 

Can you imagine my excitment, these images had not been seen for many years! ....What would we uncover?  Below are a couple of images from the collection....



Click to enlarge

 

 

Glass plate negatives require careful handling and storing to avoid damage.  To protect these negatives it is best that they are stored vertically on their longest side and in individual archival envelopes. For more advice see http://natlib.govt.nz/collections/caring-for-your-collections/photographs

 

Copyright Carterworks (NZ)

Hidden information - Neville's Discovery

Some time ago I was asked to restore a small photo of Neville's father who was a scout in the early 1900s in Wellington.  The photo was quite small and faded and was taken in Hay Street, Oriental Bay.

 

I restored the photo and printed it at a larger size.  I was able to enlarge this photo because the original image was quite sharp and I can scan and print photos at a high resolution.  The resulting print showed a lot of the detail not obvious in the original. 
 

After looking at the print, Neville was surprised to notice an officer's ranking shoulder of his father's uniform.  He said he never realised his father had obtained that rank as it was not obvious in the original photo.

Copyright Carterworks NZ