Digital Restoration of Early Photograph

The other day I had opportunity to digitally restore a scanned reproduction of a photo, possibly from around 1862-64.

Digitally restored copy of a photograph of John McDouall Stuart, c. 1863.

John McDouall Stuart first came to fame in the emerging colony of South Australia when part of Captain Sturt’s unsuccessful expedition to the centre of the Australian continent, of 1844.

From 1859 to 1862, Stuart led a series of six expeditions, culminating in his triumphant discovery of a route across Australia from Adelaide in the south to near Darwin in the north.

Perhaps the greatest of Stuart’s achievements is that in all of these explorations, he didn’t loose a man.

At the time of Stuart’s fame after the Captain Sturt journey, he was a relatively young man and photography was still in it’s infancy, the process having been revealed by Henry Fox Talbot in January 1839. So it’s unlikely that this photo goes that far back.

More likely it was taken after the expedition of 1860 when John McDouall Stuart fixed the centre of the continent, or else after the final expedition across the continent of 1861-62.

John McDouall Stuart died in 1866.

Although my restoration work isn’t perfect, it’s a vast improvement on the original scan. There was a severe fold mark across the photo, below Stuart’s beard as well as several other marks.

The copy of the Stuart portrait which gave the scan that I worked on, is held in the Stuart Collection of the John McDouall Stuart Society, in Adelaide, South Australia. There are a couple of other prints in existance made from the same negative.

You can read about my own adventures, following the route of John McDouall Stuart, traveling on a motorbike (ATV) and camping out, in other posts on this blog.

There is also my more specific set of John McDouall Stuart blogs. One deals with my adventures on Stuarts route while there are two more which give Stuart’s journals in searchable form from his first and second journeys. Eventually, I hope to provide all six journals in searchable form.

You can check out detailed information about John McDouall Stuart, his companions and their exploits, at the John McDouall Stuart Society website.

Good information about both John McDouall Stuart and Henry Fox Talbot can be found on Wikipidia