Evelyn Mabel and John Alfred Lindsay Burge 11 December 1943. While the photo is loading, let me tell you the story of this shot...
After mum died, dad walked away from the farm, leaving the house intact with all furniture and fittings sitting in it. The old house, unmaintained, began to disintegrate, and eventually became a ruin, as did anything left there. As far as I know, dad didn't get anything from there until 11 years later, when he retrieved the large portraits of his grandparents, seen elsewhere on this site. They were in perfect condition! This portrait however, was not there. It had been 'rescued' sometime before by long time neighbour Charlie Egan, who thought it was a "crying shame it was left there to rot", and hung it behind the door of his shearing shed. After dad died, I went to camp overnight in tents at the old house with my kids. Charlie came over that night with what was left of the portrait under his arm for me. I don't know where or when the damage occurred, but the result was a badly water and age damaged photo. (See copy lower down the page). I took it to Kodak in Melbourne and asked if they could rebuild it. At that stage, they couldn't do it, and advised me to come back in 10 years when the technology may be available. They took a photo of it for me, and five years later I decided I had the technology myself, and set about a tortuous rebuilding process of cloning, airbrushing, copying, pasting, until I came up with this finished result. I'm quite proud of it! There was a small black and white shot similar that I used as a 'guide' for mum's dress and train, and the background.
For those of you who share my love for mum
and dad, please feel free to download it, put it on a CD and have a copy
made! I've purposely left it as large as possible so a good quality full
size portrait may be copied if you'd like one. It measures 14 1/2
x 11 inches (37 x 28cm).
This was the portrait after I began
work on it. I'd fixed the faces, upper bodies
and coloured in some spots before I thought
of keeping a 'before' version.
