Post

Putting Nan's photos back together

2025-07-21

Roughly twenty years ago someone tore up every photo belonging to our Nan and posted the pieces back to Mum. This week we started putting them back together with Photoshop AI and ChatGPT.

Roughly twenty years ago, a certain former member of our family — someone who always managed to make life harder than it needed to be — made a decision that pretty much said everything about who she was. She took every photo belonging to our recently deceased Nan. Decades of memories. And tore them to pieces. Photos of Mum's childhood. Mum's first car. Holidays. Our early baby years. All ripped apart, stuffed into an envelope, and posted back to Mum like some twisted bit of emotional postage. Why? Who knows. Spite? Jealousy? Boredom? Insanity? All of the above, probably. Some people destroy things just to feel powerful for five minutes. The envelope's been under the stairs ever since. A reminder that not all damage is physical… and not all family members act like family. We didn't have the tools to fix it twenty years ago. But time moves on. And technology catches up. This week, using Photoshop AI and ChatGPT's image tools, we started putting those memories back together. Piece by piece. First up: rebuilding Mum's old car from the fragments. All the bits were still there. Shame we can't say the same for some people's brain cells. Photoshop AI had an initial go. Tricky, especially w…

Topics: FamilySystems & softwareLearning technology

Matthew Eaves — escape room franchise founder, operator, and writer. Also: franchise, posts, contact.