So how do you handle the photographs?

Fortunately, today, modern computer software development, allows us to digitally preserve these photographs after restoration.


As a guardian of our heritage as a board-member, I emphasize the word preservation, and not alteration.  Alteration would actually entail changing the document.

Then, on the level of preservation, there is an important difference between restoration and conservation.


Conservation would entail working with, and on, the original photographs; something we did not feel qualified to do.  But restoration allowed us to repair the damage on the photographs on a digital reproduction and reprint them again.

Thus, we went ahead and took the more than hundred qualifying photographs and restored them to the level we believed was original more than one hundred years ago. Thereafter we used, again, the digital technology to reprint them.

This monumental task was painstakingly executed by Robert and Annie Willems of Design Dimensions.

The two major areas the restoration focused on were “general quality” and “damage”. Thanks so much to both of you for your dedication to this project…and a job well done.

OK, now you know what we did, and what you are going to see, but what is the exposition all about, and what is really the meaning of all of this?

The exposition is wonderful in many ways.  First of all it gives us a rare insight into the people of that time.  More often than not, in museums and libraries, documents, objects and manuscripts stand central.  In this exposition we focus on people.

Secondly, out of this restoration we can see how incredibly fine and beautiful some of those pictures were at that time.

And finally, we can clearly recognize traits and profiles indigenous to the Sephardic Jews, features we still observe today, in the twenty-first century.

Then, we placed the photographs in categories:

Weddings, social gatherings, babies & toddlers, children, young girls, young men, the ladies, the gentlemen, families and couples.   In addition, there are two wonderful panoramas of picnics (observe how they dressed at that time!) and a very rare and unique photo of two young men actually winking.

And, on the credit-end, let us not forget the photographers.   They were actually the ones who originally made it happen. Soublette is first and foremost, but among the many photographers, which list is well documented at the entrance of the exposition, are names such as van der Ree, Jules Penha, de Castro and Vinck.