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Dave Santorum of Dave’s Photo Restoration Service in Kilfinane, examining an old photograph that he is going to restore. Photo: Sandra Quinn

The value of photographs can never be underestimated - each one tells its own story and together, they weave tales from lifetimes many years ago.

While the digital age has somewhat lessened people’s desires to print photographs, having a physical picture sparks memories and leads people down the nostalgic path, so they will always be part of life.

Unfortunately, due to weather, exposure to the elements or being poorly stored, some photographs can be so badly damaged that you can’t even make out the facial features.

This is where Dave Santorum in Kilfinane got the business idea for Dave’s Photo Restoration Service and over the past three years, his passion for helping people to forge a link with the past has grown.

Dave's background is in printing and design, but he had studied photography in college and had been working with London photographers from 2001.

“I had a lot of formal experience with lighting, development and composition and would have seen how quickly pictures can deteriorate, just from taking pictures with a Polaroid.

“Polaroid photographs are very susceptible to damage and I was finding that I was restoring my own photographs that might have only been taken ten years ago.”

Before moving to Ireland from the UK three years ago, he had been working in London's West End, working on retouching mainly commercial pictures, but when that business closed down, he decided to join his family in Kilfinane and with the help of Diarmuid McIntyre of Grey Heron Media, his business dream became a reality.

“It was slightly frustrating work in London, you see so many people and you can appreciate their natural beauty, but they want to be thinner or have no wrinkles. The work itself was interesting, but it also felt quite shallow and on the other hand, the people who ordered the photographs were always so happy when they saw how different they looked."

In that job, Dave would have been working on hundreds of photographs in a day in almost a machine like capacity, but now he explained that as the only dedicated photo restoration service in Munster, he is very analytical about his work and he could spend days on the one image to ensure that it’s perfect for the client.

“With any photo, I would look at each section and examine each tiny detail, so that the restoration is methodical.”

Dave explained that the main causes of damage to pictures are usually exposure to sunlight, fading, images being torn or cracked or a client wanting to make a small thumbnail sized image larger.

Sometimes people want to remove props or blur backgrounds, while he has also had requests to change people around in pictures or alter elements of the photograph.

“Sometimes you do feel like you are toying with history a little, but it’s really interesting work. You get to know the customers and every picture comes with it’s own little bits of history.”

So far, Dave has worked on pictures that are presented as anniversary gifts, birthday presents and retirement presentations, images for funerals and weddings, historical photographs for exhibitions and publications, dated school pictures for reunions and pictures that people want restored for sentimental or personal reasons.

He said that photos, if damaged, are often hidden away and forgotten for a number of years. He hopes that if people know they can repair these photographs they might unearth them from the drawers and cupboards they are stored in.

As well as having clients around Kilfinane, he has also done work for people across Ireland in Wicklow, Dublin, Waterford and Galway.

Dave said that prices start at around €20 and quotes are dependent on how much work is involved and whether or not printing and framing are taken into consideration.

“There are places that say they can restore photos in an hour, but in my opinion, if you do something that quickly, you’re not doing the photo justice. For me, it’s more about being able to look at a photo in the same way you’d look at the original and the changes I made should be seamless.”

Dave’s Photo Restoration Service is currently based on Lower Main Street in Kilfinane in the same building as Grey Heron Media, but looking to the future, Dave said that he would love to have enough work so that he could expand, hire staff and maybe even move into a bigger office, with gallery space so that his work could be on display for people to peruse.

Contact Details: Dave Santorum, Dave's Photo Restoration Service, Lower Main Street, Kilfinane. Phone: 063-91576 / 087-6567601, Email: info@davesphotorestoration.com, Website: www.davesphotorestoration.com, Twitter: @dphotors, Facebook: www.facebook.com/DavesRestoration.

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