Weird inquiries

[Doug Nelson]

I get some strange email, people with odd situations. I assume we all get our share of weird inquiries.

I had one person tell me about 100 year old photos that were still "wet" once taken from the frame. I regularly get asked to remove/alter inscriptions (I turn these down). Then there was the art shipping company that assumed I could fix a $100,000 photo they accidently tore during shipment (I felt badly for them, but couldn't help since they needed the original repaired).

What's the weirdest restoration you've been asked to do? Did you do it?

[thomasgeorge]

Perhaps this deserves a thread of its own, under the heading of "Other" or " Extreme Diversification" or something similar, but I was approached by a very nice older Lady who wanted music copied from some old 78rpm records to CD so she could listen to some of her favorite songs...dating from the 1920's!!
Now the reason she came to me was the "Digital" in "Digital Photographics", the name of my business. She assumed that we did, ....well.....all things Digital....
Never one to turn from an impossible task, I looked into what was necessary to do this, and as I had aquired many old records over the years...and had never listened to a single one ( something my Lovely Wife seemed oddly unamused by and would frequently point out when I would drag some new "treasures" into the house, although I cant fathom why she would be so narrow minded as many were salvaged from the dump), I coughed up some bucks ( and wiped out my toy budget) and proceeded to transfer the clients music, as well as fix a couple of photos she brought along....Which gave me a an idea...add Audio restore to Photo restore services...the response has been pretty good. The software and some of the filters used to remove "hiss, crackle and pop" from recordings have counterparts in the Image restore world, so the transition between them isnt as difficult as one might think, and it is interesting to note that folks with old records also have old photos and bringing in one to be "fixed up" has resulted in them returning with "the other" to be copied and "fixed"....
Now, the audio work I do isnt Museum quality..I dont take out every "pop" or "crackle", just enough to clean it up and make it plesant to listen to...same as with photos...clean up and restore just enough to to please the customer and provide a pleasing copy for display or whatever.... I guess sometimes odd requests, if not patently immoral, illegal, unethical or just Too darn wierd, are worth exploring a little....Tom

[Doug Nelson]

Hmmm....AudioPRO?

[thomasgeorge]

Nope...DC Art Millenium ....and a special turntable which I discovered isnt necessary as the software allows for recording at other than the listed record rpm and can speed up or slow down the recording...shot myself in the foot yet again!! Tom

[Sanda]

I had one from my teenage son, he wanted me to remove the bikini from a model but I told him what was under the bikini was going to be left to MY imagination and I was sure it wouldn't have been what he wanted. He quickly withdrew his request.

[winwintoo]

An older lady brought me two large charcoal drawings of her grandparents that had been damaged in a flooded basement and wanted me to use the computer to restore them - she didn't want new pictures made, she wanted the computer to restore the existing damaged copies.

I tried in vain to explain that the computer can only scan the existing images and then I print a new copy when I'm done retoring them.

She was very disappointed but asked if I could recommend anyone better at this computer stuff than I am.

Margaret

[Blacknight]

Blue Ribbon to you for the wierdest and funniest!

~still laughing~

[Jakaleena]

Originally posted by winwintoo

She was very disappointed but asked if I could recommend anyone better at this computer stuff than I am.

Margaret

OMG, I thought I was the only one who got this kind of thing...! Aren't they funny??

[ravenmd]

My photoshop teacher (I took a couple initial courses) told me this one... he had an older woman come in with an old photo of her (now deceased) hubby wearing a hat. She wanted him to remove the hat in the picture. When he tried to explain to her that he didn't know what her husband's hair looked like.. she reassured him he would see it when he removed the hat from the photo.

-he swears this is a true story.

[PixelMover]

how's this one..

a few years ago a farmer called me out to his ranch. I knew this man personally (but won't mention his name... ), and he knew I did both photography and digital imaging..

The job description is as follows:

Make an ad-hoc studio setup in the barn, black or dark blue background, set up lights etc..
Bring in cow number one (for privacy purposes, all cows shalll remain anonymous) and take the best possible pic.
Bring in cow number 2, do the same..
Put in computer and add head number one on cow body number two, make a 40x60 print, have it framed and delivered back to the client, who then proceeded to hang the huge print in his bedroom opposite the bed...and asked for a small 3inch print for his wallet..

A few weeks later I was asked to digitally replace the black background with a pleasant 'meadow and blue sky' background for a 'more natural feel' . And some minor 'cosmetic' alterations were made to the cow. Every now and then a new cow comes in with some part or another that is better than any 'previous' cow and this gets photogrpahed and put in..

Slowly but steadily we are building the perfect cow...

[Mike Needham]

lol that's hilarious - I think the cow story is my favourite yet, that will be travelling all across my hometown. Truly golden

[chiquitita]

OMG! be afraid... very afraid...

[d_kendal]

this thread is hilarious!!!

- David

[Sanda]

Thought I would revive this thread and tell you about a strange request I had the other day.
A potential customer rang me asking if I could get an image off a reflection in the eyes on somebody in a 6"x4" snap. She had see it done in the tv show CSI and thought that there might be a reflection of her late husband in they eyes of her grand daughter as he too the photo some 20 years ago. I tried to explain that these tv shows are fiction and I doubted if there would be any relfection there and if so it would not be a useable image. She replied that on CSI they got a really good photo from a reflection in somebody's eye and she couldn't see how I didn't know how to do it. She said that she wanted a 8"x10" of this image when she could find somebody who was good enough to extract it. I said "Good Luck".

[chiquitita]

that is soo funny. The one thing I have the hardest time doing is explaining that if the information isn't there to begin with, I can't make it come back.