09/15/2026
Some projects are a little more special than others. ❤️
I recently had the opportunity to work on a photograph of Fran and Ernie Reichart for their daughter, Tina.
Tina needed a photograph of just her mother for a special upcoming occasion, and she was on a bit of a time crunch trying to figure out exactly what she was going to do. She simply couldn’t locate the photograph she needed.
Her parents were always together. ❤️ Finding a photograph of her mother by herself just wasn’t easy.
What makes this whole project even more special is how it came about.
Tina and I have been in the same dance class for a while, but on this particular day there were delays with class, which meant we had a little more time than usual to stand around, chit-chat and have just a regular old conversation.
Somewhere in that conversation, what I do for a living came up.
One thing led to another, we went down the rabbit hole of photography and Photoshop, capability and eventually Tina asked, “Do you think you could help me?”
She explained the situation, the photograph she needed, the time crunch she was under and the fact that she really hadn’t figured out a game plan yet.
Tina swears up and down that God had us in that exact place, at that exact time, with those delays happening for a reason — so that conversation could take place and we could figure out a solution to the problem she had been trying to solve.
And after seeing how everything came together, I can certainly understand why she feels that way. ❤️
The image she ultimately brought to me came with another challenge — there was no digital file at all. It was an actual physical print, still in a frame, that she simply handed to me to work from.
And her father was standing right beside her mother in the image.
So this became much more than simply “removing someone from a photo.”
I first had to digitize the original framed print and then carefully reconstruct the portions of the photograph that had never actually existed without him there. That meant rebuilding areas of the image, recreating natural details, correcting lighting, removing and rebuilding shadows, blending everything together and doing quite a bit of detailed Photoshop work to make the final photograph look believable and natural.
The goal with restoration work like this is always the same: when you look at the finished image, you shouldn't be thinking about the editing. It should simply look like that was the photograph all along.
I'm sharing the before and after with Tina's permission, and I'm incredibly grateful she trusted me with something this meaningful.
Sometimes photography isn't about creating a brand-new image.
Sometimes it's about taking a photograph that already means something to a family and finding a way to give it a new purpose. ❤️
And sometimes, a delayed excersise dance class and a simple conversation put the right people together at exactly the right moment.
Thank you for trusting me.
