Marty’s photo of the day #5018: In 2002, Deb and I drove all the way to the top of Canada and caught the great Porcupine caribou migration (the longest land migration on Earth). The caribou passed by us in waves, and we hiked with them for a while. Unfortunately, something broke inside the zoom lens on my film camera, causing the optical image stabilizer to malfunction. I shot multiple rolls of film, only to end up with a few presentable photos. Today’s shot looked much worse before I added it to my photo revival project, as explained below:

Although my current books are fiction, my first two books, Cool Creatures, Hot Planet: Exploring the Seven Continents and Endangered Edens: Exploring the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Costa Rica, the Everglades, and Puerto Rico, were nonfiction, featuring photos and stories of Deb’s and my adventures as we traveled the world looking for rare and interesting wildlife.

Those travels took place between 2001 and 2014, and in the years following, digital cameras, photo editing programs, and my own photo editing skills have come a long way. My current project is to revisit photos I rejected for my books but might have included had I been able to overcome their quality issues.

Now, with better editing skills and programs, I can save many photos I couldn’t have saved before. While not all blurry, soft, or noisy photos are repairable, it’s tremendously satisfying to revive photos where the animals did their job, but either I or my equipment failed.