One day, inside a large office building, two workers, a man and a woman wearing suits, stood by either side of a table where a figure sat in the shadows, all three watching a commercial play on a computer screen. 'Uneri hairspray. Come on, ladies, ride the waves.'

Cross-Dressing: Typically a punishment for boys of any age old enough to understand gender differences (variable by the individual child), cross dressing involves placing the child or teenager in articles of clothing generally associated with the opposite gender. Wigs may be employed in order to make the boy appear more girlish. Commercial Age Progression Through Forensic Compositing we can create an Age Progression to help investigators solve crimes and find missing people. We use a Unique & Revolutionary process that we have developed and perfected! An artist works on each and every photo, in other words it’s Not an automated computer process, it’s a labor of love.

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).

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).

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

Crime Watch Daily

National Geographic

New York Post

Telegraph UK

A Picture of Holocaust Victim Anne Frank, Aged 80

Today

WWL-TV

Jessica’s four-year-old just doesn’t seem to want to grow up. At daycare, he will go into the infant area and ask for a bottle. The other children mostly stare at him as if he is weird. At home, he tries to get Jessica to rock him to sleep at night and is practically glued to her side. Jessica only works part time and makes it a point to spend one-on-one quality time with him, but he doesn’t want to try anything new.

Have your children ever seemed to have an age regression or “act like a baby” when they are “too old”?

Teaching your children new skills at different child development stages can be fun and exciting, as long as they seem to pick up the new skill. Otherwise, it can be very frustrating and discouraging.

Once you feel like your children are progressing in their skills or have even mastered them, it can be irritating or frustrating if they seem to have an age regression . So it’s helpful to understand why your children are regressing and how to respond helpfully,

Reasons Why Children Regress:

Regressions can be common or expected as children transition through different child development stages. That’s because they can’t just leap overnight to a new stage.

Louise Bates Ames and Francis L. Ilg, authors of the “Your [Age] Year Old” series refer to these temporary regressions as being part of the “Cycles of Equilibrium and Disequilibrium.”

• During the disequilibrium cycle, the child is learning new skills and going through a lot of changes. This cycle can bring on regressions that can be frustrating for parents.
• During the equilibrium cycle, the child is eager to practice new skills and seems to coast for a while after mastering them, until they are ready to move to the next developmental stage.

In the early years, the cycles of equilibrium and disequilibrium last about six months. As children age, the cycles become longer. This is consistent with the number and difficulty of the skills they are learning at these child development stages.

Understanding these cycles in your children can be beneficial and can lessen your frustration when your child seems to regress instead of progress.

Age regressions can also occur when something stressful is happening in your child’s life, such as:

• A change in the child-care routine whether it’s a new daycare or childcare provider.
• A new sibling.
• A family member or the child is dealing with a major illness.
• A recent death.
• If the parents are fighting a lot or getting a divorce.
• If the child is moving or has recently moved to a new area or home.

Lastly, it can be the result of peer pressure. If other children are doing it, they may pick up the behavior and think it’s fun to get the attention.

Effective Responses to Your Child’s Regression:

After determining what might be triggering your child’s regression, choose a response or solution that addresses or resolves that core issue. One of the best ways to do that is to use the “PASRR Effective Response Formula,” which is a part of Parents’ Toolshop^®’s proprietary “Universal Blueprint^® For Parenting Success” system.

The beauty of the Universal Blueprint® is that you can always apply it in an individualized way, specific to that situation with that child, based on the reason the problem is happening.

Age Regression Quiz

So here are some suggestions for a helpful response for each reason or situation children may regress.

1. Prevent the problem. Nudge your children into situations and avoid pushing them too far before they’re ready. If your children are told they are a “big’ boy” or “big girl” they can actually feel pressured to grow up- and most people resist pressure. If your children are hesitant and truly scared to try a new skill, you can nudge and encourage them to take next step. Read their reactions and be ready to back off a bit or slowly ease them into a new situation.
2. Acknowledge your child’s feelings. Even if your child is pre-verbal, noticing and verbalizing your child’s words in a calm, reassuring tone can be extremely helpful for your child to hear. It also teaches your child feeling words. As children improve their emotional vocabulary, they will use words more often to express their feelings, instead of acting them out. Find out what might be the reason they are regressing and address how they might feel about it. Here are some examples:
   • If you have just recently moved you may want to say to your child, “Living in a new house and a new neighborhood can be scary, huh? There are a lot of changes for you, aren’t there?”
   • If your child likes to “play baby” for fun or attention, then simply say, “It’s fun to pretend you’re a baby, huh?” This lets your child know that you understand how they feel and that it’s okay.
   • If there is a change in the child-care routine and your child regresses out of insecurity, you might say, “Does it feel strange to be around new people all day? It can take a while to get to know your teachers and the other kids. What would help you feel more comfortable?” If they are too young to answer or brainstorm ideas, you can think of some ideas to try.
   • If a new sibling has arrived, you might say, “Babies tend to get a lot of attention, don’t they? That’s because they are so helpless. Those of us who are older can help them get to know this new world. Want to help?”
   • If someone in the family is seriously ill or there has been a recent death, you might say, “This is a scary time. It’s understandable to feel worried. Does a little extra pampering help you feel stronger?”
3. Set limits or express concerns. Some aspects of regressions can be a problem for the parent. After acknowledging your child’s feelings, and only after you’ve done that first, you can express your feelings, concerns or set some limits. Just be firm and kind about how you state your intentions. For example, when your children “play baby” allow them to, but put limits on when or how often they do it, such as only at home or at bedtime. This allows your children to “get it out of their system” so they can move on to more age-appropriate behavior.
4. Redirect behavior. Regressions are usually unintentional misbehavior that results from a lack of internal skills. So rather than simply distracting children, which teach them to avoid their feelings and problems, help children develop the internal skills they need to move through their scary feelings and feel empowered, capable and confident.
   If your children seem to regress while learning a new skill, focus on a different skill or aspect of that skill they have already mastered or in which they can succeed. This restores their confidence, so they’ll be ready to retry the new skill or move on to new child development stages.
5. Reveal discipline. Discipline is often misunderstood as being the same as punishment; that’s not what it really is. Discipline is simply teaching children that they have choices ad each choice may get a different outcome. Even young, pre-verbal children can learn cause and effect. So these are actions you can take that will help your children learn or practice the skills you taught in the previous steps, while being firm and loving.

Throughout the child development stages, children can experience a lot of changes all at once, which can be scary for them. That’s why each child may progress at a different rate or in a different style than other children.

Encourage your children and be patient if they do not grasp skills as quickly as you would like. Children need to progress in a new skill when they are ready, not when you are ready. It can be hard to be patient or realize you can’t control nature, but if you push too hard they may regress even more.

Age Regression Program

For more information about child development stages or helping children work through their feelings, discover The Parent’s Toolshop^®‘s uniqueUniversal Blueprint® problem-solving system. Take the 30-Days To Parenting Success Course. You will be less frustrated, respond more calmly and feel more confident in any parenting situation.

Age Regression Commercial

The best part is the 30-Day Course is free! So what are you waiting for? Sign up for the 30-Day Course today!

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Jody Johnston Pawel, LSW, CFLE is the author of the award-winning book, The Parent’s Toolshop and president of Parent’s Toolshop Consulting, where she oversees an international network of Toolshop^® trainers. She has 30 years experience as a top-rated speaker and parenting expert to the media worldwide, including serving as the Co-Producer and Parenting Expert for the Emmy-nominated Ident-a-Kid television series. Currently, she hosts the Parents Tool Talk radio show and is a parenting expert columnist for Chic Mom magazine. She has produced almost 100 multimedia resources, which are available at her award-winning website, www.ParentsToolshop.org.

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