The Past in Focus: 200 Fascinating Vintage Travel Photographs Are Being Restored

Two-hundred obscure photographs that have been buried in archives around the world are being brought to new life by Diana Metzinger, a young woman from Cleveland, who is restoring the images for her crowdfunding project The Grand Tour which will be running until February 4th on Kickstarter.

A grotto in an iceberg (British Antarctic Expedition, 1911)/National Library of New Zealand

Last year, she chose to unearth 100 rarely-seen historic images for a restoration project entitled The Past in Focus. This campaign received so much positive feedback from backers that Diana decided to release a second edition, as well as create this new project focusing strictly on travel photography.

“The support I received from the Kickstarter community was tremendous and humbling, too. I never realized that so many people were interested in seeing these rare photos restored!”

Together, Diana and her sister Constance operate a small home-based business where they sell prints of historic photographs on Etsy. They often browse the digital collections of libraries from around the world and it was through one of these searches that Diana decided to launch The Past in Focus as a crowdfunding campaign for Kickstarter’s Make 100last year. Make 100 is a monthlong creative initiative focused on limited editions of 100.

“There were so many beautiful photographs buried deep in these archives and I wanted all of them to be seen and appreciated by others. Restoration work in time-consuming though, so I decided that if the project was to get funded I would put our business on hold until I could complete the work.”

The project was indeed funded in less than 48 hours and the limited edition digital collections of The Past in Focus were sold out in three days. The new collection, The Grand Tour, was also funded in less than 48 hours, but there are various reward levels so that everyone can enjoy these sets, not just the select few who pledged early.

The beautiful images include scenes of exotic locales such as Bali, India, the Aconcagua Valley of Chile, Zanzibar, intrepid travelers climbing snow-covered mountain peaks, panorama landscapes, and rare color photochroms, most of them dating from 1870-1930, the “golden age” of travel.

More: Past in Focus, The Grand Tour h/t: vintag.es

Climbing Paradise Glacier in Mt. Rainier National Park, Washington, ca. 1911-1920. (Photo by Curtis & Miller/National Photo Company)

S.S. Paris, Ocean Liner, ca. 1890s. (Photo by John S. Johnston/Detroit Publishing Company Collection)

View of Venice, Italy, ca. 1890s. (Photochrom/Library of Congress)

One of the unrestored images: Railroad train at the Paris Exposition, 1889. (Tissandier Collection)

Traveling by reindeer, Archangel, Russia, ca. 1890s. (Detroit Publishing Company Collection)

The Rameseum of El-Kurneh, Thebes, 1857. (Photo by Francis Frith /The Metropolitan Museum of Art)

From The Past in Focus: The ship Garthsnaid weathering a storm, 1920. (National Library of New Zealand)

Berigo, San Remo, Riviera, ca. 1890s. (Library of Congress)

A British tourist arriving in Sudan, Africa, 1936. (Matson Photo Service Collection)

Helsinki, ca.1900. (Photo by Gustaf Sandberg/The Society of Swedish Literature in Finland)

A View of New Zealand, ca. 1890-1910. (Photo by William Joseph Macpherson/State Library of New South Wales)

Delta Kappa Epsilon and Sigma Chi Girls, 1905. (Frank Snyder Photograph Collection)

Leigh Brintnell outside his Fokker Super-Universal airplane, 1935. (Provincial Archives of Alberta)

Dancing Lesson – The “Mazurka”, ca. late 1800s. (Photo by Karl Karlovitz Bulla/The J. Paul Getty Museum)

Lakeview of Detroit, Michigan, ca. 1910-1930. (Detroit Publishing Company Collection)

Temple of Athena, Aegina Island, Greece ( 1850-1880 )/Library of Congress

Promenade and Grand Salon, Trouville, France ( c1890-1900 ) / The Library of Congress

One of the photographs before restoration……

….and then after restoration!

Arizona. Grand Canyon, photographer suspended on climber’s rope ( 1908 )/Kolb Brothers Photographers

Playing a game of “slå på ring” at Folkefjellet ( 1910 ) – Paul Stang/Fylkesarkivet i Sogn og Fjordane

Strongman Paul Remos hoists his son in the air to feed a giraffe at the zoo ( 1930s )/Library of Congress

Navajo Indian warming hands over fire in tepee ( 1915 ) – William J. Carpenter/Library of Congress

The Ghost Town of Eureka, Colorado ( 1900 ) by William Henry Jackson/Detroit Publishing Company Archives

Juan Domenjos flying an Antionette airplane ( 1915 )/Harris & Ewing Collection

A streetside view of Saratoga Springs, NY ( 1915 )/Detroit Publishing Company Archives

An Italian mother with her child at Ellis Island, NY ( 1905 ) by Lewis Wickes Hine/Preus Museum

A Jewett touring car in the San Francisco area ( 1923 )/Wyland Stanley Collection

Photographer Marion Post Wolcott on assignment in Kentucky ( 1940 )/Library of Congress

Three-masted ships in formation ( 1899 )/Library of Congress