Mary Kelly facial reconstruction

[RivkahChaya]

First, let me see if I can actually get the picture loaded, then I'll discuss it.



OK. Can't get it to show up in the post. But you can see it in the link. Discussion in the following thread.

[GUT]

First, let me see if I can actually get the picture loaded, then I'll discuss it.

No picture sorry.

[RivkahChaya]

All right. I decided to do a facial reconstruction of Mary Kelly so I'd have something to picture besides the meat-grinder image when I read about her.

I have a lot of photo-editing software, because my brother gets samples of it in his profession, and passes some of it on to me.

So, here's what I did. I took the meat grinder picture, and tried to fold back the skin wherever I could, to smooth it, and I duplicated pieces from left to right, and vice-versa, and got eyes from a sort of ident-i-kit set. The nose was a total guess, but the placement is suggested by the shape of the face.

I made the eyes blue, then put it through some photo retouching software that removes blemishes to smooth the skin. After that, I refined the features by looking at pictures of women from Welsh and Irish backgrounds. I created a couple of generic faces, and blended them with my repaired face to give it some character, and to get color. The I used software to enhance the color. The ear is borrowed from one of the blended faces and shortened. The hair was colored using the retouching software, and so were the eyes. I Photoshopped the hair from the mortuary photo onto the blended faces. I 'shopped the teeth to give her buck teeth, since reports describe her as having false front teeth that stuck out.

The picture was blurry, so I sharpened it, then retouched it again.

I don't believe this is exactly what Mary Kelly looked like, but I believe it's her "type." She was described as "stout," so it's a wide face, and it has a broad forehead, because that's one of the few features the is in fact easy to establish. It's a fairly long face, and even though I think some of the butchery makes her face elongated, I still think she had a somewhat long face. Her eyes seem to be wide-set. That could be an illusion, but people with broad foreheads usually have wide eyes, so I gave the reconstruction that trait. The nose and mouth are pretty much guesses, although they jibe with other women of her ethnicity, and don't deviate much from drawings of her done by people who may have seen her (or may not, but were alive at the time, so the possibility exists).

I think this is just a type, not an exact likeness, but it's something nicer to picture, for me anyway, than the Miller's Court horror.

BTW: if anyone knows what has changed, and Why I couldn't post the pic in thread, and how I might fix it, let me know.

[RivkahChaya]

No picture sorry.

Does the link work for you?

[RivkahChaya]

Here it is:

[GUT]

Nope, comes up as error.

Is it somehow password protected.

[GUT]

Got it now.

[Rosella]

Well, Rivkah, well done, and this is a very pretty girl. If the picture does resemble Mary, lucky old Joe Barnett, and why would such a girl fall so low in a matter of a few years, I ask myself!

[RivkahChaya]

Oh, I dunno, I've seen pretty girls working the streets, or begging for change, or working really menial jobs. And don't forget, there weren't many things open to a woman then. If she didn't have family to support her, and didn't want the drudgery of being a domestic, and didn't have singing or acting talent, the streets were it.

After all, MJK does seem to have been a professional prostitute, not a woman who just turned a trick when she was hungry enough. Those women probably were fitter and a little more attractive than average.

That said, I don't know that the reconstruction is more than pretty, and I think most descriptions of MJK do suggest that she was attractive, but I doubt she was sublimely beautiful, what with the false buck teeth and all.

And don't forget, she was a mean drunk, before you decide how lucky Barnett was.

[RivkahChaya]

BTW: thanks for the kind words about the reconstruction. I looked at it side by side with the Miller's Court photo, and I think I've preserved all the facial contours, so that my reconstruction fits on the shape of the head in Miller's Court. Does anyone else see it?

[curious4]

Buck teeth?

Don't recall reading anything about Mary having buck teeth? Wouldn't that have shown up in the photo? And if you are going for false teeth, wouldn't you have gone for an improvement? Dew refers to her as a pretty girl.

Best wishes
C4

[RivkahChaya]

Why would I go for an improvement? I was going for something that resembled her as she was, which is why I went for "pretty, but not sublimely beautiful." I could have morphed her face with really beautiful Hollywood actresses in make-up, but instead I searched for ordinary people looking ordinary. I used only one actress, because she was supposed to be very typically Welsh-looking, and I found a picture of her without make-up, and her face was a little plump-- and even then, I altered it to make her eyes farther apart.

[curious4]

Improvement

I was talking about teeth. If you naturally had buck teeth, wouldn't it make sense to get "normal" false teeth. If she had false teeth, that is, and could afford them.

Incidentally, Mary was Irish, not Welsh.

Best wishes
C4

[RivkahChaya]

I thought there was some question about whether she was ethnically Irish or Welsh-- I know the best evidence seems to be that she lived in Ireland as a child, and later in Wales, but since she seems to have spoken Welsh, there's been some speculation that her parents may have had some Welsh in their background, and Welsh may have been spoken in the home. It's kind of unusual for the time for a transplant to pick up Welsh as an adult in Wales.

Also, people bought false teeth, and partials, at pawn shops, so she may have had some ill-fitting teeth that were not originally made for her, and were not really "buck" teeth, just too big for her. Apparently she had a noticeable speech impediment when she wore them. A lot of people with ill-fitting front partials have a lisp that comes from air escaping over the partial.

[Errata]

All right. I decided to do a facial reconstruction of Mary Kelly so I'd have something to picture besides the meat-grinder image when I read about her.

This is great. I usually just picture Gillian Anderson as Scully when I think about her. No idea why, but I do.