Photo Animation - Part 4

Maternal Grandparents

Both my maternal grandparents died before I was four years old. Sadly, I don't remember grandmother Mary at all. Memories of grandfather David are vague. It was interesting to bring them briefly back to life with animated photos. Unfortunately, very few suitable pictures were available. For example, colorization of the following portrait of young Mary McCormack came out well, but her profile didn't animate properly. Mary, born on December 31, 1879, was the daughter of Irish immigrants. 

I did have a good forward facing picture of young David Smith. The colorized version looked fine except for the overexposed right side of David's head.

David, the son of Scottish immigrants, was born on September 4, 1880. I was astounded to see his youthful face move in the next animation!

The next colorized picture of older couple Mary and David Smith has lots of character. The straw hat and dangling cigarette are a hoot!

Facial animations from this colorized picture were flawed. David's cigarette moved in unnatural ways, and Mary's facial movements were complicated by the intruding edge of David's hat. For some reason, animations from the original black and white image worked better, though not perfectly.

   

One colorized image of Mary and David Smith from 1924 is particularly lovely. They are holding my newborn mother, Helen, probably in Garfield, New Jersey. Both parents were about 44 years old at the time.

Next are animations from the 1924 picture above. Mary's hat moves nicely along with her head, but David's face was not well oriented for animation.

 

In 1925 Mary held my mother in this colorized picture.

The animation tool could not correctly portray Mary's hair in the next animation, but it is the best representation of her relatively young face.

David's face did not animate well in older pictures, so I'll include the next two still images to show his apparent interest in cars.

   

The date of the next picture is probably in the 1940's. David and Mary were likely together in the backyard of their Passaic, NJ home. 

Animation of Mary's black and white face from the previous photo seemed to make her glasses disappear! David's animated face looked terrible - like he needed a shave, so I didn't include it here.

The last picture of Mary I have is from September 25, 1949. The next animation is from this black and white photo. She died on May 5, 1950 when I was only 1.5 years old. I own no picture of the two of us together. 

Grandfather David lived about three years longer than Mary. Here he stands with me on August 10, 1949. David is almost 69 years old, and I'm 10 months old. Notice the unfortunate cigarette in his hand.

On June 26, 1951 David sat with my mother and me during a trip to the Smoky Mountains. I have no idea what I'm yelling about, but my elders seem tolerant! 

Grandfather David died on October 21, 1953.