All Celtic fans are proud of our history. From why the club was formed to lifting the big cup and beyond, we have an illustrious history that is passed on from generation to generation. We show pictures of the good times and tell poignant stories when we weathered through the bad. Looking back at old Celtic pictures always brings out the romantic in me. On twitter there are many who take their time to show us some fantastic pictures to get the nostalgic pulse racing but one man has taken it a step further.

Barry McGonigle has been restoring old Celtic pictures and brining colour to some of the great moments in our history. He has been a sensation on twitter with post after post of remastered images, gaining plaudits from many and rightly so!

Barry does this on his own time and has taught himself at the same time. We at CeltsAreHere.com thought it was only right we shine a bigger light on Barry’s work and find out what inspired him to start doing this and show some of his photos in the process –

 

Lisbon 67 final whistle Before
Final Whistle in Lisbon 1967

I started doing the digital restores because I have a real passion for the older black and white Celtic images and had seen loads of older English team photographs restored from black and white and they were great looking but never any Celtic ones, the odd one or two but not many.
Being not too bad with adobe Photoshop I decided to try my hand at some of the iconic Celtic images but they looked terrible in the beginning. I remember all the players skin tones looked like Jimmy Calderwood coming out a sunbeds shop.

I kept at it though as it was something I really wanted to learn, so I started teaching myself and learning more about Photoshop and new techniques on how to get the desired effect and colours I was after. I eventually through a lot of practise and some bad looking restores got to a more confident level where  I thought to myself ‘yeah this is working now’.
AFTER
AFTER

So once I was a bit more confident with the ones I had restored for myself I decided to share them on twitter one night and gauge people’s reactions and I was blown away with the response! It was all very positive towards them which was great to hear and suddenly all these people started following me and tweeting the pictures.

I’ve probably done more bad that good ones though if I’m being honest
Some of the older guys I follow on twitter really seem to enjoy them and appreciate them the most I think and i have been told that “rescuing a memory is always gratifying”. I liked that saying and it’s always stuck with me when doing them. They are not to everyone’s taste though and have had a fair few folk saying some pictures are best left alone.
Sean Fallon After
Sean Fallon in the Celtic Dressing Room
Some of them I’ve done have eventually reached the family members of the players in the pictures and they have gotten in touch and said they really like it and the rest of their family love it and thanks for taking the time to restore that picture and it really brings it to life. It’s great when you hear that.
I recently done one for Johnny Doyles children after hearing his daughters plea for video footage of him. Even though it wasn’t video I wanted to try and restore an old picture of their dad and try and get it to them both through the power of social media. I eventually got Johnny’s sons email and passed it onto him and he was delighted with it and said he would get it printed and framed for him and his sister. That alone makes the time spent restoring the photos well worth it for me.
McGrory's Team After
The old Bhoys like you’ve never seen them before!

Being able to do the restoration and colourisations now has enabled me to start a small business doing photo editing and retouching to other peoples Photographs. Along with my friend Scott who has encouraged me all the way. We have recently launched our business and website to do this type of work. We pride ourselves in doing the best possible job with customer’s images whether they need a treasured family image restored or a  badly damaged photograph restored to its former glory.

My dream would be to do some for Celtic officially and maybe if I’m a very lucky Bhoy manage to get one into the stadium somewhere or in the new forthcoming Celtic museum.

 

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Celtsarehere.com would like to thank Barry for his time and wish him all the success with his new business. To see loads more photos Barry has done get onto his twitter and get following him @BarryMcGonigle. You can also follow his business account @pixelt8 and visit his site www.imagesbypixel8.co.uk

We look forward to seeing more pictures in the future.

Hail Hail Barry!

 

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