I restored these photos of my maternal grandmother Naomi Oudit. Naomi was born in 1904 in southern Trinidad. After her mother died of a snake bite, baby Naomi was adopted by a cousin. At the age of 17, Naomi married Elijah Oudit and they settled in Marabella, in souther Trinidad. Between 1930 and 1949, she had 10 children. My mother was her youngest child. I have no memories of my grandmother, as she died when I was a toddler.

Growing up, my mother recalls that the family struggled financially and could not afford to have many photos taken. There are very few photos of my grandmother - and the ones that exist are very blurred and damaged from exposure. Working to restore these photos was difficult as I had to recreate her face without any clear reference images. To restore these photos I scoured through photos of Naomi’s descendants and experimented with a service called Artbreeder to build an accurate face.

My mother immediately recognized her mother when I shared the photos with her on Mother’s Day.