Donald Martel

Janet & I paid a visit to our local funeral home & had an amazing conversation with a local funeral director about the dying, compassion & helping people in a time of great need. As part of our conversation we talked about the funeral industry's need for a very specific type of photographic enhancement or as it is sometimes called in funeral circles - photo restoration - where people who have lost a loved one need help in reading images or photographs of their deceased loved ones for the obituary, the funeral’s stationery, memory cards, portraits & service guides, but want to provide something more formal than the photos they have can offer. Not having a formal portrait for a funeral is oftentimes a stressor for the grieving & being able to provide a quick solution really helps those in a time of great grief.

This type of enhancement provides a formal portrait while also enhancing, restoring & sometimes even colorising. The key to this type of restoration or enhancement is the quick 1-2 hour turnaround time these portraits require within the funeral industry. These turnarounds are quick because funeral directors don’t like to leave grieving loved ones waiting long periods of time before funeral material is presented to them & often these requests come in after hours & cater to the grieving. And providing 4 to 5 backdrop options is a must. Because of the nature of death & the funeral industry practices designers or firms who design these portraits have to be on call 24/7. In fact there are design & consulting firms that are available 24/7/365 to cater to the funeral industry.

We talked about how often loved ones who need help often don't have many if any photographs of their dead loved one & finding suitable images is often a challenge & a potential stressor for the loved ones so providing something that is realistic & quick while still maintaining the essence of the loved one is a must. Not over processing the image is key to ensuring the grieving still make a lasting connection with their loved one in the portrait.

Often 8x10s will be provided to the families by the funeral home so resolution & detail is also important.

After our discussion, Janet & I went back to the studio & studied many funeral home’s memory cards & obituaries that used these enhanced or restored photos & got to work building our own.

For this project we used Janet’s dead grand-father, Donald Martel. The photo we used of him was from a small 4x4 polaroid c. 1970-1980, faded & damaged & vintage. It was ideal for our restoration & enhancement. We examined the types of artificial backdrops that were used & we studied the details, tones & process of each image to help inform our creative decisions here.

The work was one in 1.5 hours & as a result we now have a workflow that can create these types of portraits in as little as 1 to 2 hours with 5 background options. This photo can be presented as a an 8x10 print.

I did the major repair & enhancement work.

Janet provided oversight, critical eyes, challenges & suggestions for improvement.

We did our best to elevate & refine our image. What do you think?

If you have a photograph that needs restoration, enhancement, or colourisation contact us below.

Thank you for your inquiry. One of us will respond to your email within 2 days. Take Care!

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