Check out the dressed up toddler girls here. It’s sometimes fun to guess who is in the photo I’m retouching, before I look for clues or info on the back. In this case, I really hadn’t a clue, but come to find from handwritten info on the back, that this is (on the left), Bertha Greiner, Erin’s maternal great-grandmother. Grandma Bert lived 1896 to 1992 (so Erin got to know her), so I place this one about 1898, or a younger Genevieve to me. The other girl is simply labeled as “Lee” — and after a brief ancestry treck around the family, I haven’t yet figured out who she is — a cousin? a neighbor? So that puzzle awaits a successful discovery.

I enjoy the detail of the carved bench — quite fancy here in this photography studio. The young ladies have necklaces on (Lee’s emerged from the gunk that I was trying to digitize away slowly — looks like there may be a gem or pendant there. Bert has an interesting elongated thing in her mouth — It seems to be a type of vintage pacifier, maybe used to calm by the child-photographer here.

I highlight this one as a particularly painstaking retouch effort — there were abundant scratches and artifacts and dirt as you can see on the before, but it really exemplifies how good of a tool Photoshop can be at cleaning things up.

Before and After

Infobox

Questions

• Who is “Lee”, the girl on the right?
• Which studio/city could this have been taken in?
• Is that a vintage pacifier/pacifier holder that she’s got in her mouth?