UNDATED – A family with two boys poses in the snow with their sleighs. © Mark Zanzig/zanzig.com/Photo: Gorber Family Archive
The story behind the image
Every once in a while I share photos from our family archive. Here’s an undated photo of a family portrait taken in the snow. Sadly, very little context is given. No names, no locations, and not even dates.
The image belongs to a small set of images taken in or around 1910 that are clearly efforts to learn the technique of photography in various situations. I write that because the images do not even remotely achieve the quality levels of professional photographers in 1910. Several images show self portraits (or, to stick with modern terms, Selfies) and/or private situations, e.g. at home in the library or living room, hanging the laundry to dry, or under the Christmas Tree.
For this winter picture, the small family has moved outside with their two sleighs, probably to the top of a tiny hill. The camera was placed on eye-level with the mother creating a modern angle even by todays standards. The older son (on the right) does not wear too much protective clothing and a tie (!), so it could not have been extremely cold. Even if the faces are just barely recognizable, the mood was apparently quite good. The man is blurred the most, probably because he had to activate the self timer and quickly run back to his position behind his wife.
Like other prints from this specific section of the archive, the print is in a horrible condition (see comparison below.) It has faded a lot and carries countless dark spots of all sizes and some bright spots and scratches. Heavy film grain drowns all the beautiful details, especially their faces. And the print is tiny: just about 3.7 x 5.3 cm. Scanned at 2400 dpi this provided about 18 Megapixel for editing, but its true resolution is obviously much lower. However, I tried to restored the image to get as closely as possible to the (assumed) intent of the photographer.
Admittedly, it’s not a good photo by any means – but it provides a glimpse of amateur photography in its early stages.
In case you are wondering how the print looked before the editing, here’s a 1:1 comparison of the color-calibrated scan and its digital twin:
The high resolution image
| Capture Date | undated, c. 1910 |
| Image Source | 3.7 x 5.3 cm black & white print |
| Digital Image Source | EPSON Perfection 4870 Photo |
| Digital Image Source Format | TIFF, 48 bits/pixel, sRGB |
| Edited Image Format | JPEG, 24 bits/pixel, sRGB |
| Edited Image Dimensions | 3534 x 5014 Pixels |
| Copyright | © Mark Zanzig/zanzig.com/Photo: Gorber Family Archive |
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