Skilled technician gives old photos new life

Most people save digital photos in their mobile phones or computers, but some find charm in the old broken prints and hope to find a way to restore them.

Gong Pengyuan has lost count of all the old photos with scratches or other damage from his clients, but he always manages to return the originals along with repaired copies. They look new after his careful process.

Gong, 53, became a photographer at Zhenmei Photography Studio in Harbin, Heilongjiang province, in 1995 and started restoring old photo prints around 2005.

"Digital cameras became popular, but many customers visited our studio with their old paper photos, asking whether we could repair them," he said. "Some told me that they had visited several studios but failed to find one that could help."