What’s Old is New Again

I’ve received many kind words about the photos I’ve posted here recently and I’m grateful for the compliments.

Those photos are from a boatload of old en femme photos I have that are in fair-to-poor condition–especially the Polaroids. For years, I hesitated scanning and sharing them on the blog because they carried the scars of time: faded colors, soft focus and all the limitations of the cameras and film we had back then. I made a few attempts to rescue them in Photoshop, but the results never quite brought those moments back to life.

Then I had the idea to let AI try its hand at restoration. With a simple prompt like “clean up and improve the quality of this image,” something unexpected happened. Polaroids began to resemble modern digital photos and old Kodachromes regained the contrast and color I remembered when I first held them in my hands.

Not every restoration worked. I’d guess about half succeed, but when one does, it feels like opening a forgotten drawer and finding a memory you thought was gone for good.

The image accompanying this post is one I restored last week. It was taken at a Halloween party in 1976, when I was 25 years old. I had long assumed the original was beyond saving, so seeing it renewed came as a genuine shock.

Youth really is wasted on the young. I’m wearing very little makeup in that photo—just lipstick and mascara—and yet, looking at that image now, I can’t help but think: I looked amazing!

Wearing Stylewe

Ștefan Bănică femulating Kate Hudson on Romanian television’s Your Face Sound Familiar.