Paul Hamon as a cowboy for school dress-up day, Pooraka, 1981

Boy dressed as a cowboy with hat, fake moustache, plaid shirt and flared jeans stands in a dark backyard, Pooraka, Adelaide, 1981. Digitally restored version (cigarette altered to moustache smudge by AI). — Paul Hamon poses in full cowboy costume for a school dress-up day at Pooraka Primary School in late 1981. He stands in the backyard after dark, lit by a floodlight, wearing a brown hat, drawn-on moustache, white neckerchief, yellow-and-brown plaid shirt, light blue flared jeans and sneakers. He remembered being very excited about the outfit, especially the shirt. Photograph by Howard Hamon. The restored version has been cleaned, colour-corrected and upscaled with generative AI while preserving the original pose and expression. Note: the generative AI restoration has altered a cigarette so that it appears only as a smudge on the drawn-on moustache.

Boy dressed as a cowboy with hat, fake moustache, plaid shirt and flared jeans stands in a dark backyard, Pooraka, Adelaide, 1981. Original print. — Paul Hamon poses in full cowboy costume for a school dress-up day at Pooraka Primary School in late 1981. He stands in the backyard after dark, lit by a floodlight, wearing a brown hat, drawn-on moustache, white neckerchief, yellow-and-brown plaid shirt, light blue flared jeans and sneakers. He remembered being very excited about the outfit, especially the shirt. Photograph by Howard Hamon. The restored version has been cleaned, colour-corrected and upscaled with generative AI while preserving the original pose and expression. Note: the generative AI restoration has altered a cigarette so that it appears only as a smudge on the drawn-on moustache.

Subjects: Paul Hamon
Event: School dress-up day – cowboy
Photographer: Howard Hamon
Restoration notes: Colour correction, cleaning and upscaling performed with generative AI. Composition and expression preserved from original. A cigarette present in the original has been altered by the AI into a smudge on the drawn-on moustache.
Credit: Photograph by Howard Hamon. Author’s collection.
Keywords: Paul Hamon 1981, cowboy costume, dress-up day, Pooraka Primary School, backyard, Howard Hamon photographer