Photography has come a long way since its invention in the 1830s and with the eye of an artist and computers, photographs can be manipulated to show people at various ages and stages of life to represent both for the past (regression) and future (progression).

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Normally, they may see photo alterations with age for missing persons, adults and children. Keeping the hope that the missing person is still alive, they take a picture, typically from school or family portrait and make adjustments to facial and hair feature that would commonly occur as a person ages so they may be recognized and found.

What if that technology was used for genealogy? What if you only have certain pictures of your ancestors at a certain age? Are you curious to know what they looked like before as children or even babies? Maybe they died at a young age and the curiosity is there to visually see what they may have looked like as adults or grandparents.

The company that provides the service of both photo progression and regression is PhoJoe. I recently interviewedEmanuel Craciunescu (owner) and Jovey Hayes (main artist).

Nonsexual Age Regression Caregivers, Mommies, Daddies, adult babies, middles, babyfur, diaperfur, and all other Bigs and littles discuss regression, relationship dynamics, have open group conversation, share experienced advice, and exchange ideas to help one another grow in knowledge. BABIES and AGE REGRESSION by maleficents. Something by rockmanzx39. Can't find the commercial. This is the only image I. Prior to age 9, children's dreams seem more like a slide show and less like an active story in which the dreamer is an actor. This best illustrates that the content of dreams reflect children's A. Latent content B. Psychological dependence C. Night terrors D. Cognitive development E. Manifest content.

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2. Wow, Tumblr doesn’t put line breaks in quotes. When did this start? ANyways, here’s your text: I Am Looking For A Video That Shows A Commercial Where A Boy Is Jumping Through A Sprinkler & A Girl/Woman Is Outside & Spreading Mustard On Her Hot Dog From Side To Side.

Age Progression

Age Progression is the process of taking a person and advancing their age into the future. PhoJoe’s process is quite unique. An artist works on each and every photo, in other words, it’s NOT an automated computer process, it’s a labor of love. The result is a much more accurate photo-realistic age progression.

Age progression is used for a variety of purposes;

• Missing persons
• Untimely deaths
• Curiosity of what people will look like in the future

Emanuel explains that about 15 years ago, his company came up with their own unique process that they have developed and are continuing to perfect. It is part Art, part Science and a keen intuition developed from studying the human face. There is no accurate algorithm for aging.

There are far too many factors including environment and upbringing, drug and alcohol consumption, sun and pollution exposure, smoking, exercise frequency or lack thereof, stress and most important of all the thing people have no control over…DNA.

They occasionally have customers who use their services for genealogy. Recently a customer had several photos from the early 1900’s that they were wondering whether or not the photos were of the same person. They use family photos when they are available to compare facial features. These photos are very helpful in the process. Facial Recognition skills were used to determine that they, in fact, were not the same person.

What kind of restrictions are there for age progression images?

Preferred

• Face forward photos of the person looking directly at the camera are always preferred. A 35-70mm lens is preferred.
• The distance from the camera should be about 3-8 feet depending on the lens used.

Not Preferred

• Wide angle photos usually taken with a cell phone are not ideal for many reasons. They completely distort a person’s face. Most cell phones have a wide angle lens which distorts a person’s face.
• Selfie photos completely distort a person’s face so they are not usually very helpful.

Fun Fact:PhoJoe has done Facial Recognition comparisons of paintings done previous to the invention of photography. In this project, they compared paintings of a child and adult to determine whether or not they were of the same individual.

PhoJoe has aged many celebrities including rock stars and musicians. Check out this page for examples.

They also do quite a bit of work for bereaved parents who wish to see what their children may have looked like now if they were still alive as well as a quite a bit of work for missing children and adults including fugitives of the law.

Probably one of the most unique requests they receive is when sperm or egg donors want to estimate what a child may look like using age progression.

Fun Fact:They once received a request to age progress a dog but that project never materialized.

Age Regression

Age regression is the process of going backward in time to show what a person looked like at a younger age. Like progression, it is part art, part science and a keen intuition developed from studying the human face.

Age regressions for photos are ideal for people with damaged or destroyed photos and for those that photos that simply don’t exist at certain times in a person’s life. It’s also helpful for missing persons and those who were adopted at a young age.

A highly trained intuitive human eye is the most important thing in the process. Family photos are always very helpful if they are available.

Age regression is occasionally used for Genealogy. Usually, a photo is regressed to see if it is the same individual in different photos.

Most of the regressions they do are for children who have been adopted, usually from China, Russia and Romania but it can be from any country. These individuals usually only have 1 or 2 photos and rarely any photos before the age of 2.

PhoJoe has regressed the photos of several celebrities, one of which is from the comedy world because they did not have baby photos of themselves.

Other Services

• Photo SlideShow – Slideshows for a wide variety of occasions from weddings to anniversaries to funerals. They are usually in chronological order.
• Photo Collage – Photo collages are usually done for weddings, newborns and funerals.
• Photo Colorization – Photo colorization is one of their most popular services. Usually, the photos are from the 1940’s to the 1970’s but they have colorized daguerreotypes dating back to the start of photography in the early 1840’s. They recently restored and colorized hundreds of images for the History Channel series Blood & Glory (The Civil War in Color)
• Scanning/Archiving – They occasionally scan in a large group of photos for someone who is looking to preserve and archive their family history. As we here often in genealogy, Emmanuel highly recommends that everyone gets their photos backed up by having them scanned in.PhoJoe recently received an email from a customer who lost everything in the California Wildfires that just destroyed over 140,000 acres. Absolutely everything was gone; house, cars, possessions and photos. Fortunately, everyone was OK. They completed some work for her about eight years ago and she was checking to see if they had kept any of her photos on file. Similar stories have played out many times as natural disasters such as Hurricanes; tornadoes and floods seem to be occurring at a much greater ratio than in the past. Luckily, they do keep everything on file and archive all photos that are worked on.
• Photo Restoration – This is usually their most popular service. PhoJoe has amazing artists on staff. They specialize in badly damaged photos that most companies would not take on. They come to PhoJoe hoping that they can perform miracles on their badly damaged photos and they meet their expectations! PhoJoe can even restore newsprint type photos with the dot matrix texture. Samples can be found here. They have repaired photos that were torn to pieces by jilted lovers and hungry dogs as well as restored photos that were torn, stained, faded, mildew/mold and even blurry photos. They will re-create photos where a large part of the face is missing using their knowledge and skills of age progression and the human face.
• Document Restoration – Restoration of marriage certificates to diplomas, birth and death records, etc.
• Photo Art – Sometimes a customer requests oil painting, hand drawn or watercolor effect for their photos.
• Printing – Print photos from wallet to poster size (24×36), including canvas prints.

Pricing

Non-Commercial Age Progression – $199.
Orders include (4) free 4×6 prints or (2) 5×7 prints or (1) 8×10 print or the high-resolution file.

Non-Commercial Age Regression – $249.
Orders include (4) free 4×6 prints or (2) 5×7 prints or (1) 8×10 print or the high-resolution file.

*Commercial projects do have an additional cost, please contact PhoJoe for a quote.

PhoJoe in the News

For more information about PhoJoe, check out these international news articles featuring projects completed by PhoJoe. You can also visit their website and email them for additional information or to request a quote for a project.

Published Articles

ABC News

Age Regression Program

Crime Watch Daily

National Geographic

New York Post

Telegraph UK

A Picture of Holocaust Victim Anne Frank, Aged 80

Today

WWL-TV

In October a movie appeared in cinemas around the world. It is a movie about a concept that has been a distinct part of our social consciousness for about a century. A concept that has many believers but even more non-believers. This incredibly contentious topic that I speak of, which has led to the so-called 'memory wars” is that of regression, and along with it it’s sister concept repression.

I don't even like saying the words. They sound like a hissing snake, or one person trying to silence another. Regressssssion. Repressssssion. Apparently my concern regarding the palatable nature of these words is not shared by the movie’s director Alejandro Amenábar, since he made it the name of his new film: “Regression.'

The movie’s long list of issues began with a ever-shifting release date, followed by an initial Rotten Tomatoes rating of a staggeringly low 6%, and a generally lukewarm and ‘forgettable’ reception.

But the most important concern that we should all have with this movie is its rehashing of a concept that should be long dead, a concept that resulted in the so-called ‘satanic panic’ of the 1980s and 1990s. This was a wave of false allegations of horrific satanic sexual abuse rings based largely on memories that emerged during problematic psychotherapy.

Age Regression Shop

Clearly inspired by the satanic panic, the movie features a detective (Ethan Hawke) who is sent in to deal with a case where a father has confessed to sexually abusing his daughter (Emma Watson). The problem is that the daughter seems to have no recollection of it. This is where a psychotherapist is brought in to dig up the memory, and dig it up he does. The film then focuses on the horrific memories of satanic abuse that are uncovered.

What are regression and repression?

Regression therapy, which is central to this movie, is a process wherein a therapist has patients close their eyes and picture themselves as the child they once were. The idea is that this allows patients to access their childhood memories, particularly traumatic memories that they have repressed. The repression presumably happened because the patients weren't able to deal with the memory, which has led to their innate coping mechanisms pushing it out of their conscious mind.

The concept was first posited by the infamous Austrian psychotherapist Sigmund Freud, who believed that some of our most important but traumatic memories are hidden from us in a place called the subconscious. Regression therapy was thus born as a way to dig into the subconscious, recover these memories and bring them back to our conscious awareness. It has been particularly applied to attempts at recovering memories of sexual abuse.

What does the science say?

So, why do I care? Because I'm a psychological scientist who specializes in memory.

In my research I demonstrate just how easily our memory can be messed with. I use techniques that mirror the kinds of suggestion and imagination exercises that therapists often use in regression therapy, but I use them to deliberately create dramatically inaccurate memories.

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My research shows that these techniques can generate complex memories, where people remember in vivid detail that they committed a crime, for example or that they physically injured themselves. But my participants never actually committed the crimes they so adamantly confess to, and never experienced the injuries they describe (for a quick description of how I do this you can go here).

The memories that I create are called rich false memories, and in situations outside of the lab they can quite easily ruin lives and can lead to complex false memories of atrocities like those that are ‘recovered’ by our Emma Watson character in the Regression movie.

Mental Age Regression

At least in part, these memories can be created so easily because most people readily accept the idea of repression. They accept that we can experience things so terrible that they can be pushed out of our consciousness and into the special memory vault of the subconscious, a place where only a psychotherapist can unlock them.

Why does it matter?

The problem is that there is no empirical evidence to support such notions, certainly not in the way that Freud originally conceptualized them. As far as the scientific community is concerned, there is no secret repression vault, so there cannot be a secret technique to unlock it, thus eliminating the possibility of regression as a feasible therapeutic technique.

Female Age Regression Commercial

There is also a tremendous problem with assuming that there is such a hidden emotional vault—particularly a vault that stores atrocious experiences like the satanic rituals 'recalled' by Emma Watson’s character in the movie ('I could hear chanting, they were wearing robes. There was a black mask…”). The problem is that our expectations tend to influence their behavior. If we assume that a hidden, repressed memory exists, we start to hunt for it.

If psychoanalytic therapists and patients go into a therapy session looking for the atrocities that ‘must’ be there, they can quite easily generate false memories in the process. The results can include families fractured by false accusations, and lawsuits based on ill-informed therapy that generated a memory of something terrible that never actually happened.

Where does this leave us?

The ideas of repression and regression tap into our inherent fears of losing or distorting our memories. It makes great fodder for psycho-thrillers. But, the fact that in 2015 I still regularly have conversations with intelligent people where I need to debunk their belief in the core concept of regression is, frankly, depressing. And, while I don't blame Hollywood for running with an interesting concept (as poorly as they may have translated it onto the screen), I do blame them for helping to keep this myth alive.

To summarize, and hopefully to help you sleep at night, let’s get this straight; there is no such thing as regression. In the name of science, let’s kill this myth.

This post is part of a series of articles called “Memory Mondays”, which focus on debunking common misconceptions and beliefs about how our memory works. Dr. Julia Shaw works at London South Bank University in the department of Law and Social Sciences. She is a senior lecturer, researcher, and author of The Memory Illusion: Why you may not be who you think you are, to be published in 2016 by Penguin Random House.